Supreme Court nixes Sixth Circuit ruling on grant funding for anti-abortion states

(CN) — Overruling the Sixth Circuit, the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday found Tennessee remains eligible for millions of dollars in federal family planning funding despite restrictions on abortion.

In Tennessee v. Kennedy (formerly Tennessee v. Becerra), a Sixth Circuit panel affirmed a lower court’s denial of a preliminary injunction as Tennessee tried to overturn a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services rule that required Title X grant recipients to provide neutral, nondirective counseling and referrals for abortions to patients who request it.

U.S. Senior District Judge W. Eugene Davis, a Ronald Reagan appointee, wrote in a 23-page opinion that a lower court judge reasonably concluded that the department had the authority to include conditions when it awarded family planning grants.

Tennessee argued the Biden-era rule infringed on its sovereignty by compelling it to recommend abortion services that are illegal under state law. Davis reasoned that Tennessee knowingly agreed to the grant’s conditions when it applied, and it was free to voluntarily relinquish the money if the conditions ran afoul of state law.

“Instead, Tennessee decided to accept the grant, subject to the 2021 rule’s counseling and referral requirements,” Davis wrote.

The Trump administration restored Tennessee’s $7 million grant after the Sixth Circuit’s ruling, but state Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti nonetheless petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to vacate the judgment.

Skrmetti argued the Sixth Circuit’s ruling ran counter to Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and other decisions that have chipped away at the principle of judicial deference to administrative agency decisions under the Chevrondoctrine.

“The decision below neuters this court’s effort in Loper Bright to move past Chevrondeference, perpetuates uncertainty around HHS’s authority under Section 1008, and permits Congress to circumvent constitutional limits on its spending power by simply delegating to executive agencies broad authority to impose funding conditions,” Skrmetti wrote.

Skrmetti noted that while the ruling was under appeal, Health and Human Services restored Tennessee’s grant funding and made the controversy moot. But leaving the Sixth Circuit’s ruling undisturbed risked “undermining the court’s transformative Loper Bright decision” and threatened to create “disuniformity” among the circuits, he wrote.

The U.S. Supreme Court, while unable to review the case on the merits, seemed to agree and summarily vacated the judgment. The justices remanded the case for dismissal as moot pursuant to United States v. Munsingwear.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Joe Biden appointee, wrote in a brief concurrence that she would typically require the party seeking to vacate a decision to establish equitable entitlement, but vacatur was appropriate since the party that prevailed in the lower court — the U.S. government — rendered the case moot through its own actions.

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