The Supreme Court will issue a flurry of decisions in the coming weeks. Here's what to expect.

CBS News

2 days ago

Washington — It's June, and for the Supreme Court, that means the justices will spend the coming days and weeks releasing a flurry of opinions as they prepare for a summer recess before the start of their new term in October.
This year's break is unlikely to be a quiet one for the high court, as the Trump administration has been seeking emergency relief from the justices at a steady clip as it appeals adverse decisions that have stymied implementation of President Trump's second-term agenda.
The Supreme Court has already issued opinions in a handful of big cases that were before it during its current term. The justices ruled 7-2 to uphold a Biden administration rule that regulates unserialized firearms called ghost guns. The court split 4-4 in a dispute over an effort to create the nation's first religious charter school in Oklahoma, which left in place a state supreme court decision blocking the contract creating the school.
In a pair of unanimous decisions last week, the Supreme Court revived an Ohio woman's lawsuit against her employer that alleged she was discriminated against because she is straight, and blocked Mexico's $10 billion lawsuit against U.S. gun manufacturers.
Amid the ongoing emergency appeals landing before the high court, the justices will be handing down opinions in more than two dozen cases that have yet to be resolved.
Here are the biggest legal battles that are still before the Supreme Court:
Ban on gender-affirming care
The case known as U.S. v. Skrmetti involves a Tennessee law that restricts access to gender-affirming care. The Biden administration, three families and a physician argued that the ban violates the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection under the law.
The law prohibits medical treatments like puberty blockers or hormone therapy for transgender adolescents under the age of 18. Tennessee is one of 25 states that have passed laws that seek to restrict access to gender-affirming care for young people diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
The legal battle over the ban is the first in which the Supreme Court waded into the debate over health care for transgender youth and it is one of the most significant cases before the justices this term. Following arguments in December, the court's conservative members appeared sympathetic to Tennessee's efforts to restrict access to the medical care for young people experiencing gender dysphoria.
Birthright citizenship and nationwide injunctions
The Supreme Court held a rare May argument session to consider a trio of emergency appeals from the Justice Department involving the president's executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship. The administration asked the high court in March to allow it to partially enforce the policy against states and individuals who are not involved in the three lawsuits while legal challenges to Mr. Trump's order move forward.
If the court grants the Justice Department's request, the administration would be prevented from implementing the birthright citizenship measure against 22 states, seven individuals and two immigrants' rights organizations.
But the dispute also involves whether the district court judges who issued injunctions blocking the policy nationwide had the authority to do so. The Trump administration has argued that these nationwide injunctions have gotten out of control. Judges have granted them in a slew of legal challenges to Mr. Trump's second-term policies.
Some conservative members of the Supreme Court have been skeptical about nationwide injunctions. But during arguments last month, the justices appeared divided on the issue and struggled with some of the practicalities of allowing a challenged policy to broadly take effect while individuals bring their own lawsuits in courts around the country — the likely outcome if the justices decide to bar nationwide injunctions.
Louisiana's congressional map
In a pair of cases arising out of Louisiana's attempt to draw House districts, the Supreme Court is weighing whether to leave in place a new congressional map that includes a second majority-Black district.
The map was first drawn by state Republican lawmakers after the 2020 Census but has since been ensnared in years of legal wrangling. The latest version, now before the Supreme Court, was drawn after a federal district judge invalidated the first redistricting plan as a likely violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act because it diluted Black voting strength.
That judge ordered the state to put a remedial plan in place that had two majority-Black congressional districts, and state GOP lawmakers ultimately approved a map with that makeup. But the second iteration of the voting boundaries were struck down by a divided three-judge district court panel, which concluded the map was an unlawful racial gerrymander.
The dispute demonstrates the challenges state lawmakers face when trying to balance compliance with the Voting Rights Act without relying too much on race during the drawing of political lines, which can violate the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause.
Parental opt-outs from school lessons with LGBTQ themes
In the case known as Mahmoud v. Taylor, the justices are considering whether a Maryland school district unconstitutionally burdened parents' First Amendment right to exercise their religion freely when it requires their children to participate in instruction on gender and sexuality that violates the families' religious beliefs.
The dispute arose after the Montgomery County Board of Education introduced "LGBTQ-inclusive" storybooks for elementary school students into its English Language Arts curriculum in 2022. The board initially allowed parents to opt their children out of reading and instruction that involved the storybooks, but in March 2023, the board said parents would no longer be able to have their kids excused.
With more than 160,000 students, Montgomery County is home to Maryland's largest public school system.
A group of families sued the Board of Education, arguing that denial of the notice and opt-outs violated their right to exercise their religion freely under the First Amendment because it overrode their freedom to direct the religious upbringing of their children.
The Supreme Court appeared sympathetic to the parents during oral arguments in March and seemed inclined to require that public schools give parents the ability to opt their children out of instruction featuring the books.
Defunding Planned Parenthood
South Carolina moved to withhold state Medicaid funds from a Planned Parenthood affiliate in the state in 2018, kicking off the protracted legal battle now before the Supreme Court.
The state's attempt to defund Planned Parenthood stemmed from an executive order signed by Gov. Henry McMaster that directed South Carolina's health department to deem abortion providers unqualified to provide family-planning services through Medicaid and terminate enrollment agreements.
The organization and Julie Edwards, a Planned Parenthood patient, then filed a lawsuit challenging the termination decision, alleging that it violated Edwards' right to choose her provider under the Medicaid Act.
The question before the Supreme Court is technical: whether Medicaid beneficiaries can sue over a state's decision to exclude their chosen provider from their Medicaid programs. If the Supreme Court finds that Medicaid recipients do not have the right to sue, it would limit patients' ability to enforce a provision of the Medicaid Act that allows them to seek care from the qualified and willing provider of their choosing.
The high court heard oral argument in April and appeared divided on the issue.
Age verification for pornographic websites
Texas enacted a law in 2023 that requires pornography websites to confirm that visitors are at least 18 years old or face civil penalties of up to $10,000 per day. Texas is one of at least 19 states with age-verification laws on the books, which their defenders say are aimed at protecting children from accessing sexual content on the internet.
But free speech organizations and trade groups representing the adult entertainment industry argue that these laws burden adults' access to content they are legally allowed to consume in violation of the First Amendment.
The issue before the Supreme Court in the case known as Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton is whether a federal appeals court applied the correct standard of judicial review when it evaluated Texas' age-verification law. The U.S. Court of Appeals applied what's known as rational-basis review, the least stringent level. But the trade groups and the Biden administration said that the court should've applied the most demanding standard of review, strict scrutiny, because the age-verification law impedes adults' access to constitutionally protected speech.
The challengers asked the Supreme Court to find that the requirement is subject to strict-scrutiny, and that it cannot satisfy that test.
Texas has been able to enforce the age-verification measure while the case proceeds. Even if the Supreme Court rules that the 5th Circuit applied the wrong standard of review, it could order additional proceedings and allow the law to remain in effect while they play out.
The fate of the FCC's Universal Service Fund
This pair of cases before the Supreme Court involves the Federal Communications Commission's Universal Service Fund, a federal program that aims to expand phone and internet access to underserved communities.
The fund is administered by the Universal Service Administrative Company, which determines the amount telecommunications carriers must contribute to it and disburses that money to program beneficiaries. Contribution fees are based on a percentage of carriers' revenue, and companies often pass on those costs to consumers.
The cases give the high court the chance to revive the nondelegation doctrine, a long-dormant legal principle that says Congress cannot delegate its legislative authority to executive branch agencies. The Supreme Court last invoked the nondelegation doctrine in 1935.
A conservative organization called Consumers' Research challenged the legality of the Universal Service Fund in 2022, arguing that Congress unconstitutionally delegated its legislative authority to the FCC, which in turn transferred power to the fund's administrator.
But after arguments in March, the Supreme Court appeared likely to reject the challenge and uphold the Universal Service Fund.
Health and Human Services' preventive care task force
The case Kennedy v. Braidwood Management involves the structure of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an entity within the Department of Health and Human Services that recommends the preventive-care services that must be covered by insurance plans without cost-sharing under the Affordable Care Act.
Among the preventive services recommended by the task force are screenings for lung, cervical and colorectal cancers, as well as diabetes; statin medications to reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke; and medication to prevent HIV, known as PrEP.
The task force's recommendation in 2019 that PrEP be covered by insurance plans at no-cost to patients gave rise to the dispute before the Supreme Court. A group of four individuals and two small businesses filed a lawsuit claiming that the Task Force's members were unconstitutionally appointed, rendering its recommendations invalid.
The plaintiffs argued that the task force's structure violates the Constitution's Appointments Clause because it is composed of principal officers who must be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. But the Biden administration and now the Trump administration said the members of the panel are inferior officers subject to supervision by the Health and Human Services secretary, and therefore do not require nomination by the president and Senate approval.
If the Supreme Court finds that task force members are inferior officers, it could send the case back to the appeals court to decide whether Congress gave the head of the Health and Human Services Department the authority to appoint them. Indeed, several days after the court heard arguments in the case, the Supreme Court asked the two sides to file additional briefs addressing that issue.