WASHINGTON (CN) — Over the next two months, the Supreme Court is expected to release rulings in major cases covering elections, abortion, guns and government authority.
So far, the justices have only handed down opinions in 18 of the term's 62 cases. There’s no indication yet that the justices won’t follow tradition and wrap up the term by the end of June. That leaves just under two months to issue around 45 opinions; several pending cases have been consolidated and could be decided together.
While every Supreme Court case is consequential, the justices have handed down only one “big” ruling thus far: a unanimous decision to keep Donald Trump on presidential primary ballots in 2024.
So far, unanimity has been a trend. In the court's first decision of the term, all nine justices avoided ruling on disability lawsuits by dismissing a case involving hotel accommodations.
The show of unity on the bench continued in a whistleblower dispute, false debt reporting lawsuit, maritime insurance law case, double jeopardy murder trial, state action on social media, arbitration exemptions, shareholder fraud lawsuits, property rights, criminal forfeiture orders and sex discrimination lawsuit.
That leaves just three cases — veterans benefits, mandatory minimum drug sentences and the reviewability of deportation orders — where the court issued divided rulings. That statistic, however, is not likely to hold.
The more divisive cases generally take the court longer to rule. For example, the justices are hanging on to a ruling in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's fight for funding, which was argued on Oct. 3, 2023.
A redistricting fight out of South Carolina also remains in purgatory, despite the parties' request for the court to issue a ruling by the end of last year to ensure enough time to create new maps before the 2024 election. With no ruling in sight and a fast-approaching election, lawmakers submitted an emergency appeal in March asking to use the challenged map. The court didn’t respond, leaving a lower court to intervene and allow the use of contested maps in the 2024 election.
The waning days of June typically yield the most newsworthy opinions. Among this term's major cases is a Second Amendment dispute over whether domestic abusers can possess firearms. The case is a follow-on to NYSRPA v. Bruen, which upended gun regulation and led to chaos in lower courts. The court is also expected to rule on a bump stock ban.
The justices will also issue two consequential rulings on abortion access: one on the approval of the popular drug mifepristone and the other on emergency abortion access. These cases will mark the court’s first ruling on abortion since overturning Roe v. Wade.
It will be hard for any of the court’s rulings, however, to overshadow the court’s decision in Trump’s presidential immunity appeal. The gravity of a ruling in the case was evident during oral arguments in April, but the judges' decision will be scrutinized beyond the precedent the case sets. Should the court further delay the former president’s election subversion trial in Washington, the justices will face blame for preventing voters from finding out if a candidate on the 2024 ballot tried to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power in the previous election.
While not as flashy, a fishery's fight could reshape the interworking of the federal government. The justices are considering overturning decades of precedent that gives federal agencies priority in saying how laws should be implemented. The Supreme Court has shied away from the ruling recently, but lower courts still rely upon it heavily.
That ruling could be amplified by a statute of limitations question posed by a North Dakota convenience store. Should the justices rule in the store’s favor, the government could face endless challenges to any rule agencies attempt to enforce.
The justices this term will also decide how and when agency judges have authority over disputes.
The high court’s own authority was also questioned this term in a fight over air pollution regulations. Red states and industry groups filed an emergency application asking the justices to block the Environmental Protection Agency’s Good Neighbor Rule. The court took the rare step of hearing arguments over the application, which devolved into questions about why the court would rule on a case that hasn’t been heard by any lower court.
Bankruptcy law typically may not interest the average America, but the Supreme Court’s review of the Sacklers' $6 billion opioid settlement has grabbed national attention. At issue are release agreements which would free the Sackler family from all future liability, including to victims who did not consent to the third-party agreements. While this would mean future opioid victims could not sue the family, those in favor of the settlement see it as the only way to get desperately needed assistance to opioid victims.
Addressing another epidemic, the court will weigh in on the homelessness crisis. An Oregon city will force the justices to decide if a ban on sleeping outside unconstitutionally criminalizes homelessness.
Although the justices already settled one social media dispute, two remain pending. In a First Amendment battle over government-compelled speech, Texas and Florida want the court to allow them to regulate how social media companies moderate their platforms. The court will also decide if the Biden administration can advise social media companies to curb online misinformation.
The 2023 term is likely to have around 60 merits rulings, making it the fifth term in a row where the court has decided 60 or fewer cases, as Steve Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas School of Law, notes in his newsletter One First. The court’s decision docket hasn’t been that short in over 150 years.
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