Birthright citizenship, redistricting among 10 cases left at Supreme Court

The Hill

7 hours ago

The Supreme Court is set for a momentous week as the justices enter the homestretch of decision season, racing to finish their work by their self-imposed, end-of-June deadline.
The justices are set to issue major decisions on President Trump's birthright citizenship order, LGBTQ-themed books in schools and racial gerrymandering. The next opinions are expected Thursday.
The court also has before it several emergency cases filed by the Trump administration concerning efforts to dismantle the Education Department and its mass layoffs across the federal bureaucracy.
Here's what's left on the justices' docket.
The Supreme Court has yet to release opinions in 10 of the 62 argued cases this term.
Many of those remaining are the most controversial disputes.
Since January, the court has been drafting its decision on Texas's age-verification law that requires adult websites to verify their users are at least 18 years old.
The law faces a First Amendment challenge from the adult entertainment industry, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which argues a lower court used too lenient a test to uphold the statute.
At oral arguments, the court appeared divided. Some justices cast doubt that the content-filtering alternatives they endorsed two decades ago are still viable given the explosion of online pornography.
Later in the term, the court heard arguments on Louisiana's new congressional map that adds a second majority-Black district. Louisiana added the district after lower court rulings struck down an earlier design for likely violating the Voting Rights Act.
Republican leaders in the state expressed concerns that, if they didn't act, a judge would step in to redesign the map without regard to Louisiana's high-profile Republican incumbents, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).
After adding the new majority-Black district, a group of self-described 'non-African American voters' convinced a lower court the new design was impermissibly driven by race in violation of the 14th Amendment.
Now halfway to the next census, Louisiana is at the Supreme Court pleading for a resolution.
The court could act narrowly in the case, but a broad ruling would pose long-term implications for the future of the Voting Rights Act and constitutional racial gerrymandering claims.
Meanwhile, the justices have yet to decide another dispute involving whether Montgomery County, Md., must allow parents to opt out their elementary-aged children from language arts curriculum that incorporates books with LGBTQ themes.
The parents say the forced participation substantially interferes with the religious development of their children in violation of the First Amendment, and the Supreme Court appeared inclined to side with them at April's oral arguments.
And in the final case argued this term, the justices are weighing three nationwide injunctions federal district judges issued blocking President Trump's birthright citizenship executive order anywhere in the country.
Several conservative justices have raised alarm about the rise of nationwide injunctions, which have been used in dozens of cases against the administration. The Justice Department is hoping the justices will rein in lower district judges by curtailing the practice.
The administration has not yet asked the Supreme Court to decide the constitutionality of Trump's executive order. But at the arguments, some of the justices appeared eager to find a pathway to do so.
The Supreme Court's normal merits docket is usually all the rage in June.
But this year, the Trump administration's barrage of emergency appeals — 19 since Inauguration Day — is overshadowing the court's work.
The birthright citizenship case, for one, is technically still part of the court's emergency docket, even though it's not following the usual procedure. It's only one of a few emergency cases the court has ever scheduled for oral arguments.
Typically, emergency applications are disposed of relatively quickly after a single round of written briefing.
The court has two other emergency requests pending from the Trump administration.
In the first, the administration asked to lift another judge's order blocking mass layoffs at agencies across the federal bureaucracy. The injunction has become a key roadblock in Trump's efforts to downsize various departments.
And in the other, the administration wants the Supreme Court to allow it to resume dismantling the Education Department. A San Francisco-based federal judge blocked plans to lay off roughly half the department's staff and move certain functions elsewhere in the government, saying Trump needed congressional authorization.
Unlike normal cases, the court does not signal in advance when it will be handing down emergency rulings. Decisions on these cases could land at any time.
The Supreme Court has an unwritten, self-imposed deadline to finish its work before the end of June, so justices can head out on their summer recess.
Last year, however, the court didn't release its landmark ruling that granted broad criminal immunity to Trump and former presidents until July 1.
It remains possible the court will finish its work Friday or Monday, June 30, to meet its self-imposed deadline, but it remains to be seen whether it will need to extend its work into the first few days of July again.