Supreme Court begins term with cases on religious liberty, gun rights and state-federal power
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The Court’s new term opens with arguments on climate-related lawsuits, voting-law challenges, religious-exemption claims and gun-regulation disputes, highlighting issues of federal preemption and individual rights.
The U.S. Supreme Court started its October term with a docket that includes several high-profile disputes over religious liberty, gun regulations, immigration policy and the balance of authority between state and federal governments. Among the cases is Suncor Energy v. Boulder County, in which Colorado seeks damages from oil companies under state tort law for climate-related harms. The oil firms argue that the Clean Air Act preempts the state claim because it governs interstate emissions.
"If Colorado actually succeeds on its nuisance claims and others against these companies, the upshot would not just be these companies changing what they do in a way to protect Colorado or remedy Colorado, but rather it would affect their operations far outside of the state," said Adam White, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
The Court will decide whether federal law bars the Colorado lawsuit and whether it can hear the case.
A separate case, Republican National Committee v. Mi Familia Vota, challenges an Arizona law that requires documentary proof of citizenship for certain voter registrations and allows the state to purge non-citizen voters close to elections. The dispute centers on whether the 1993 National Voter Registration Act limits the state’s ability to impose additional requirements.
The term also features religious-freedom litigation, including St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy, which asks whether Colorado can exclude Catholic preschools from a state-funded universal preschool program because the schools’ policies bar same-sex couples and LGBT students, conflicting with state nondiscrimination rules.
"They don't agree with the state on things like allowing children to use the opposite-sex bathroom if they identify with the opposite sex. So this is something the Supreme Court has been very favorable to religious organizations of and for not allowing states to just cut them out of otherwise generally applicable state benefit programs," said Carrie Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network.
Gun-rights cases from Illinois and Connecticut will test how the Court applies the Bruen standard to state and municipal restrictions on semiautomatic firearms.
"What the court said it's going to look at is whether these are weapons that are in common use and have lawful purposes, and so this is the court's opportunity to look at things like the popular AR-15 type rifle and decide if it qualifies as something in common use and therefore is protected by the Second Amendment," Severino added.
The Court will also consider a case concerning the Trump administration’s authority to deport certain undocumented immigrants to countries not listed in removal orders, examining the scope of federal immigration law.
Overall, the Court has agreed to hear more than two dozen cases this term, with additional filings possible.