A new term on the Supreme Court begins in the shadow of a presidential election

The U.S. Supreme Court opens a new term on the eve of an intense, historic election in which the justices may play a key role in the outcome.

The new term does not yet have the blockbuster potential of the term that expired in July. The previous legislative session was full of controversies, including three cases related to former President Donald Trump, gun regulation, two abortion cases, the power of federal agencies, voting rights, a major opioid-related bankruptcy, social media regulation and more.

But the new docket includes enough cases that promise to keep the judges in the public eye for months to come. Guns are once again on the agenda, as are cases involving gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, age restrictions on access to online porn, disability discrimination and federal regulation of vaping. And the 2024 presidential election hangs over the agenda like a dark cloud on a clear autumn day, pregnant with possible voting problems that could demand the attention of the court.

“There’s a lot of anxiety,” said David Cole, national legal director of the ACLU, referring to election cases reaching the Supreme Court. “When the election is close, there are a whole host of questions about voter access and ballot counting. I don’t think the court wants to get involved, but it can be forced.”

Some judicial scholars said the less intense role of this term could reflect the justices’ desire to create space for post-election cases if necessary.

“They had to make room for the possibility” that there would be election cases, said Irv Gornstein, executive director of the Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown University Law Center. “They had to have that in their heads.”

If Trump is elected, he suggested, there is a potential challenge to his office under the 14th Amendment’s insurrection clause — even though the justices may have thought they had ruled out such a case in their decision last term in a ballot case in Colorado. . And if Trump is not elected, Gornstein added, “There are almost certainly a number of immunity cases they will have to decide” regarding pending criminal cases, a result of their separate decision last term granting immunity for the “official actions” of a president.

WATCH: How the Supreme Court’s immunity rule is reshaping presidential power

The term also comes at a time when public approval of the institution is at its lowest in decades. A series of ethics revelations involving Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito have damaged the court’s image. Although the judges adopted a code of ethics after constant outside criticism of them for not having one, the new code does not have an enforcement mechanism. And sharply ideologically divided voices in culture war cases appear to lend credence to some of the public belief that the court is a partisan institution.

But for now, the judges are going about their business as usual. On September 30, they added 15 cases to their arguments when they met to consider more than a thousand petitions filed over the summer or lingering after the previous legislative session. They will continue to add to the list until about mid-January, when they have traditionally filled the argument slots through April.

Here’s a quick look at the top issues so far that will be discussed between now and the end of April.

More weapons

Last term, the court ruled that the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives could not ban bump stocks under the definition of “machine guns” in federal law. This term, the judges are confronted with a similar case involving the regulation of ‘ghost guns’. Kits can be purchased online that allow anyone to quickly assemble a gun without a background check. These ghost weapons have no serial numbers and are largely untraceable.

The agency issued a rule in 2022 that the definition of “firearm” under the Gun Control Act of 1986 includes gun parts kits that can “readily” be assembled into a firearm. The rule also states that the term “frame or receiver,” as referenced in the law’s “firearm” definition, includes “a partially complete … frame or receiver.” A lower court ruled that the agency exceeded its authority in issuing the rule. The Biden administration appealed to the Supreme Court (Garland v. Van der Stok.)

The second gun-related case, Smith & Wesson Brands v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos, came to court from Mexico. That country accused Smith & Wesson and Interstate Arms of aiding the illegal trafficking of firearms to drug cartels in Mexico. A lower court declined to dismiss the Mexican lawsuit under a 2005 federal law that protects gun manufacturers from liability for crimes committed with their weapons.

A transgender healthcare ban and reverse discrimination

Tennessee, like 25 other Republican-controlled states, has passed legislation banning medical treatments intended to “enable a minor to identify with, or live as, a perceived identity inconsistent with the sex of the minor” at birth or to treat “alleged discomfort or distress caused by a minor”. disagreement between the gender of the minor and the claimed identity.” In the case of United States v. Skrmetti, the justices agreed to decide whether the law discriminates on the basis of sex in violation of the Equal Protection Clause.

The justices will also decide a woman’s claim (Ames v. Ohio Dept. of Youth Services) that she was denied a promotion because she was heterosexual and her former boss, a gay woman, instead put forward two LGBTQ+ people has brought. Marlean Ames, an Ohio government official, is challenging a court-ordered requirement that “majority” Americans filing discrimination claims must show “background circumstances,” such as statistical evidence of a pattern of discrimination against a majority group, before their lawsuit can proceed.

Free speech and access to online porn

In 2023, Texas joined a growing number of states that have passed laws requiring websites that publish sexual material deemed “harmful to minors” to verify the age of their users before allowing them to access anything on the site. Texas law also requires covered sites to prominently post “health warnings for sexual material” written by the government.

In Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, the justices will decide what type of review — rational basis or strict scrutiny — should be applied to the law, which challengers say unconstitutionally burdens users and coerces speech.

A battle for vapors

Wages and White Lion Investments makes flavored e-liquids that contain nicotine for use in e-cigarettes, such as vapes. The company sought marketing approval from the Food and Drug Administration to continue making and selling its products. But the FDA denied premarket approval after determining that the products did not demonstrate strong, reliable evidence of addressing the risks of youth addiction and the benefits for adult smokers.

The company has challenged the FDA’s denials, claiming it had no authority to impose these requirements and had acted arbitrarily and capriciously. A lower appeals court agreed with the company, and the FDA turned to the Supreme Court (FDA v. Wages and White Lion Investments).

Not in my backyard!

The justices will return to an old and thorny issue: where nuclear waste should be stored. Texas challenged the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s plan to store 40,000 tons of waste in Texas’ Permian Basin. A lower federal appeals court ruled that the federal agency did not have the authority to issue permits to store the waste outside of reactors.

The case of Nuclear Regulatory Commission v. Texas could become a new chapter in the conservative majority’s recent efforts to rein in the power of federal regulators.