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Supreme Court Opens New Term With Five Cases That Could Reshape American Life
ReSupreme Court Opens New Term With Five Cases That Could Reshape American Life
The Supreme Court returns Monday with a docket that could end climate lawsuits against energy companies, expand religious liberty, settle the legal status of AR-15 rifles, and tighten election integrity rules. The cases will test how far an originalist majority is willing to go in reshaping American law.
The Supreme Court begins its new term on Monday with a docket that could deliver major rulings on climate litigation, religious liberty, gun rights, and election integrity. The justices have filled only part of their schedule, with more cases still to be added, but the five cases already on the calendar offer a clear preview of the legal battles ahead.
The term opens with a case that could end one of the most aggressive climate litigation campaigns in the country. Boulder County, Colorado, is suing Suncor Energy and ExxonMobil in state court under Colorado tort law, seeking massive damages for the effects of global climate change. The county wants Colorado law to punish these companies for emissions produced in every state and around the world. Dozens of states and cities have filed similar suits. An outside counsel for Boulder's legal team has publicly described such climate litigation as effectively imposing a carbon tax and acknowledged it could raise fossil-fuel prices and potentially push energy companies toward bankruptcy.
The principal question for the justices is whether federal law bars these claims. The Court will also consider whether it has statutory and Article III jurisdiction to hear the case. For more than a century, the Court has treated emissions that cross state lines as a federal issue. The Clean Air Act allows a state to regulate pollution sources within its borders, but sources outside them are a different matter. Underneath the legal arguments is a basic structural principle: the Constitution treats the states as equals, and none may govern beyond its own borders.
The second case, St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy, centers on Colorado's promise of free preschool for every family at the school of its choice, public or private. The state then shut out Catholic preschools because they support Church teaching on sex and gender. In testimony highlighted by the Catholic schools, the program's director said hypothetically that a participating preschool could seek preferences for gender-nonconforming children or members of the LGBTQ community, provided the preference complied with the program's nondiscrimination requirements. That double standard is the antithesis of neutrality and a constitutional nonstarter.
The Court has considered similar discriminatory systems in recent years and has struck them down every time. Three times since 2017, in cases from Missouri, Montana and Maine, the Court has ruled that the government cannot exclude people of faith from public benefits because of their religion. Colorado itself has lost three major First Amendment cases for showing hostility to a baker's faith, threatening to force a web designer to create wedding websites against her beliefs, and censoring a Christian counselor's viewpoint in talk therapy while permitting the opposite one.
The third case, Viramontes v. Cook County, consolidated with Grant v. Higgins, asks whether the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect the right to own an AR-15, the most popular rifle in America. Viramontes challenges Cook County, Illinois' ban on so-called assault weapons, and Grant challenges a similar Connecticut law. These cases will be a showcase for originalist interpretation. Under District of Columbia v. Heller and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, the Second Amendment protects arms in common use for lawful purposes, and a ban survives only if the state can point to historical analogues showing it fits the nation's tradition of firearm regulation.
The fourth case, Republican National Committee v. Mi Familia Vota, concerns election integrity. Arizona passed laws in 2022 requiring documentary proof of citizenship from people who register to vote using the state's form and allowing officials to remove confirmed noncitizens from the rolls as a federal election approaches. The Ninth Circuit blocked both provisions as preempted by the National Voter Registration Act. It also found the proof-of-citizenship requirement to be barred by a 2018 consent decree settling a lawsuit by left-wing advocacy groups, in which a former secretary of state agreed to register applicants who submitted no proof of citizenship as federal-only voters.
The case presents a remarkable spectacle: Arizona's opponents will stand before the Supreme Court and argue that federal law forces a state to keep people it knows are noncitizens on its voter rolls. Part of their case rests on rules no elected representative ever passed. That decree lets a single official's settlement do what only the legislature should, handing activists something with the force of law.
Together, these cases will test how far the Court's originalist majority is willing to go in reshaping American law. The term could deliver major victories for defenders of the Constitution, or it could set the stage for years of further litigation. The decisions will have lasting consequences for energy policy, religious freedom, gun rights, and the integrity of elections.
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