What's on the Supreme Court docket this term?

The Supreme Court is getting back to work. On its agenda, huge cases related to immigration, gun control, and more. Today on the pod, we take a look at some of the cases that might be very consequential in the coming court term. It's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Ashley Lopez, I cover politics. I'm Carrie Johnson, I cover the Supreme Court. And I'm Mara Laisen, Senior National Political Correspondent. I want to start with immigration because we actually had some news today about at least one case that the court is going to be hearing related to immigration. Can you catch us up on that? What is the news? Sure. This is a big one. The Supreme Court is taking a case over the Trump administration's mandatory detention policy for migrants. It all relates to a 1996 law. Every prior president, except Donald Trump, has interpreted the law to mean that for people who have just crossed the border, there's mandatory detention. But Trump, last year, basically reinterpreted that law. And he's applying it to mandatory detention for people who, in some cases, have been in the United States for a long time, maybe even decades with no criminal record. And as a result, those people have been flooding the courts with habeas petitions to try to get out. The long and the short of it is they want to be able to make their case to an immigration judge and get out and remain free while their cases take a long time to go through the immigration system. The Trump administration says that's disruptive and unworkable. Now the Supreme Court is going to decide. And the ACLU, which has been representing immigrants in this case, said ultimately this policy could affect millions of people. Carrie, if this is allowed to go forward, does this add to the numbers of people who will be deported? Here's the thing. In the vast majority of lower courts who have considered this question, they've sided with the immigrants. The exceptions are to conservative dominated appeals courts and the fifth circuit and the eighth circuit. So if the Supreme Court gives the administration a green light here, combined with some of the other steps, the administration is taking to reverse temporary protected status and other very aggressive immigration steps, it could significantly increase the number of people in detention. There was also a big case related to third country deportations. The court just ruled ahead of what is expected to be a larger hearing later this year. Can you talk to us about that? This case came to the court via the emergency talk. It was sometimes called the shadow docket. But the Supreme Court has also granted a petition to hear the substantive issues in this coming term that starts on Monday. And the issue here is that the Trump administration has been deporting migrants to third countries, countries to which they've had no prior tie. Some of those people say they haven't had the due process rights or the chance to tell a court or a judge about their fears of persecution and torture in these third countries. And the administration has set on the public record. It's already sent something like 25,000 people to other countries. Often it's Mexico, sometimes it's countries in Latin America or Africa. Some of these migrants have said they've been beaten up and abused in these other countries to which they have no tie. And so it's a major issue and it's a major humanitarian issue as well. And in combination with some of the other strategies the administration has been using on immigration, this is a way to fast track people out of the country. So the immigration system, as it's been designed by the Trump administration, operates a number of levers intended to detain more people and ultimately deport them very quickly. The Supreme Court is going to have the last word. Kerry, what can you define shadow docket? Shadow docket is interesting because even the terms are now contested. Some of the justices like to call this the emergency docket, some like to call it the interim docket. And entire books have been written calling it the shadow docket. The reason it was initially called the shadow docket is that these cases didn't get the same kind of briefing or reasoning necessarily that a regular old case could on the regular old docket of the Supreme Court. And they come really nilly at all hours of the day and night in the summer. And over time, the last 12 years or more, the shadow docket, the emergency docket cases have kind of subsumed the regular cases. Sometimes there are more of them than the regular cases. They've been enormously controversial because there isn't always a developed factual record. The justices don't always explain themselves and what they're doing which has confused lower court judges. They don't know what they're supposed to do in response to the Supreme Court's decisions and instructions. And some of the justices themselves, especially Katanji Brown-Jackson, President Biden's appointee and the other liberals have been really disgusted with how the majority has come to certain decisions on the shadow docket. Basically, they say that the majority, in some cases, puts inconveniencing the Trump administration from carrying out its agenda over the harms that real people might experience, say, being deported to countries to whom they have no ties. In other words, you're saying the court allows the Trump administration to continue with a policy until it can be fully adjudicated by the court. In other words, they get to put a lot of facts on the ground or to put it another way. They get to deport a whole lot of people before the court finally has its final say. That's what some of the liberal justices have talked about in public appearances and in writing. Their sense that the conservatives are allowing this president to do a lot to advance his agenda before the court ever gets around to digging into the substance. Yeah, Mara. I mean, this makes me wonder like what the political implications are of this. Obviously, mass deportation was a key part of Trump's re-election campaign. When he got elected, a lot of voters agreed with him on immigration, but the longer he's been in office, his numbers have been slipping. A lot of voters don't like the how of this is doing. What do you see as the possible ramifications of some of this being codified by the court potentially? Well, I think you're right. Initially, there was majority support for the idea of deporting people who were here undocumented and with criminal records. What people didn't like is when those deportations extended to people with no criminal records. People who'd been here for many, many years or decades raised families here and were important parts of their own communities. So I think that these rulings could have a political impact if it revs up deportations between now and election day and people start noticing it. Remember, after the very well publicized deaths by ICE agents of American citizens who were protesting immigration policies, the Trump administration decided to keep things a little more low-key. They're not necessarily deporting fewer people, but they're doing it in a way that they're not making headlines every day. And I think to the extent that these rulings make a difference that people can see in their own communities, more health aids being deported, the people who work in the meat-packing planter no longer there. I think it just reminds voters of what they don't like about how the Trump administration is going about its immigration policy. Yeah. Okay, let's take a quick break more in a moment. Welcome back. Well, let's switch gears a little bit to talk about gun control because this is another big case that the court will hear as well. And this relates to whether or not certain kinds of guns can be banned. Carrie, can you tell us about that? This is really going to be a blockbuster. This case asks the question about whether certain bands in states around the country of AR-15 style assault weapons are a constitutional comport with the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms. The reason why this case is so important is that AR-15s are super popular. Yeah. Studies suggest that millions of Americans own these AR-15 assault style rifles and gun rights groups say they're the most popular rifle in the United States. They're also really lightweight, really easy to shoot. They spray a lot of bullets really quickly. They aim pretty well for you. The challengers here in Cook County, Illinois, Chicago and Connecticut say these weapons are unusually dangerous, but they're effective in ways that handguns are not and that they've been used disproportionately in mass shootings. Connecticut, of course, passed its ban after the massacre. It's a sandy hook school of little schoolchildren and teachers. These weapons also seem to have been used in the largest and deadliest mass shooting in American history in Las Vegas some nine years ago today. Today is the anniversary and the court is going to have to grapple with how many of these rifles are in common use versus how deadly they are. And it's going to really be a test of the justices and how they consider history, which is an important part of their Second Amendment jurisprudence. Mara, this is another pretty partisan issue. I mean, what do you make of the court hearing this particular case too? In the big picture politically over time, since we know that majorities of Americans are in favor of some kind of common sense restrictions on gun ownership. They're certainly not for banning ownership, but assault rifles in the past have been banned or curtailed. with popular support. I think that if this ruling goes in the administration's favor, and the Supreme Court continues to rule in favor of getting rid of any restrictions on guns, for instance, just as a thought experiment, they could decide that machine guns should also be legal. If that continues, then I would say it's a case where the court finds itself at once again at odds with public opinion. I should say the vast majority of appeals courts have so far upheld bans on machine guns, but that issue has not got to the Supreme Court, and maybe they don't want it to either, because that's going to be a big nest, a hornet's nest. I would think that, yeah. There's another case that's a big case related to climate change that is about the power of state and local governments. Can you talk to us about this case? Yeah, this is the very first case that's going to be argued on Monday morning. It's a case where Boulder, Colorado, the city and the county commissioners, are suing to big energy companies, SunCore and ExxonMobile. To recover costs, they say they've suffered, because the energy companies in a trade group allegedly knew for decades that some of their products contributed to climate change and raised the risk of excessive heat and wildfires and floods in the state. This really is going to test state power over these energy company defendants and potentially others. Basically, they say that they should have the right to make their case, and for a Colorado jury in state court, to hear these claims. Now, SunCore and Exxon disagree. This case was filed eight years ago, it still hasn't gone to trial. The energy companies have gone all the way up to the Supreme Court, and they're making the argument that global warming is too global an issue for any old state in the country to try to weigh in, or county, or city, and they've got a lot of support from other corporate defendants who worry the implications, if the Supreme Court were to side with Boulder, would impact things like AI and data centers, or other kind of corporate conduct where the harms can cross state lines. This is an interesting one, because at nearly the very last minute, Justice Samolito decided not to participate in this case. He owned some stock in other energy companies, and he said this week it was prudent to step aside. That raises the prospect that this could turn out to be a four to four tie. If there is a tie in the Supreme Court, the lower court ruling stands, the ruling of the Colorado Supreme Court stands, which would mean this case would actually likely go to trial sometime. Oh, interesting. Yeah, because there usually aren't that many ties. Well, let's talk about religious freedom. This is something that comes up before the court a lot. What particular cases are going before the court this term? Yeah, there are a bunch of religious freedom cases. This court has been really respectful of certain kinds of religious rights, and we expect the conservative supermajority to continue with that trend. Let me just focus on one case. It's called St. Mary's Parish versus Roy. It involves Colorado's universal pre-K program that gives parents money to send their kids to preschool. The schools that participate have to basically sign on to an anti-discrimination pledge that includes some LGBTQ issues. The Catholic schools involved here do not want to sign on to that pledge, because they say it conflicts with Catholic teaching on marriage and other social issues. So the question that justices are going to consider is whether the Catholic schools should get an exception or an exemption to the Colorado law under the free exercise clause of religion under the First Amendment. This is one of multiple cases, the court's going to take this term, testing religious rights against other kinds of rights, important to note, something like six of the nine justices are Catholics, and I think that may factor into some of the analysis here. So Ashley, there's also kind of a big voting case on the books. I know you've been studying this for a while. What's that one all about? Yeah, so one of the big cases has to do with proof of citizenship to register to vote. That's a case out of Arizona. A lot of folks are watching this in the election world, because you've seen a couple of laws passed in a handful of states since the 2020 election related to this, a chunk have been blocked by the court, so they're not all in effect. But basically, I mean, this is a Republican project to sort of based in the fear, and I'm substantiated fear that there's a widespread problem with non-citizens voting in US elections. That is misinformation. That is not true. It's a widespread problem. Here and there, that happens, mostly it's like green card holders who don't know the difference between citizenship and their specific legal status, so that could have huge implications for 2020, because not everybody has the necessary documentation in order to prove their citizenship. It can be expensive. Sometimes, as people don't get their act together to do it, like there's been polling of folks like, hey, if you had to prove your citizenship tomorrow, could you and a good chunk of the public is like, no, I don't have this readily available. And then there's another big question that the court will be hearing, which is whether states can systematically purge voter rolls close to an election, so within 90 days. Right now, the court has basically said through shadow docket, I believe, that they're able to individually remove voters who don't belong in the voter rolls, but these systemic purges for now are an open question that the court will take up. So those are two big cases that I think could have huge implications for 2028, and they're pet projects of the Republican Party, so. Before we wrap up, though, I do want to ask about some sort of unconventional, maybe fun cases. There's always some every term. Like, are there any of you guys are watching that you think are kind of interesting that folks might not know about? Yeah, there's a big one. There's a big one that everyone kind of wants to hear, I'm eager to hear these arguments. And it involves a case of an Alaskan pilot, you know, in Alaska, it's hard to get places. So oftentimes it's a small plane that will take you places instead of a taxi cab. This Alaskan pilot got in trouble for carrying a passenger who brought onto the plane some beer. Now there are many villages and in towns in Alaska that are dry, because there are serious problems with alcohol and alcoholism there. And when state authorities went onto the plane, they found this beer, and they've penalized the pilot, they basically seized his plane. And he's making an argument that that is an excessive fine under the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, and he's going to get his day in court this term. I'm not sure how many Supreme Court reporters are using this as an excuse to go to Alaska. I will not, sadly, but I wish I could. That would be fine. Terry, I just have a big picture question about the court. We know this is a court that believes in the unitary power of the executive, meaning that the executive, the president should have more power relative to the other branches of government. Have they succeeded in re-adjusting the balance of power between the three branches so that the president does have more power? This is such an important question, Mora. In many cases, the presidency has come out with more power, although president Donald Trump has not always come out with more power. You saw last term basically giving any president the power to fire lots of people in the federal bureaucracy. That case is going to continue to play out, and its implications across the federal civil service, like down the ladder, are going to continue to play out for some years to come, I think. But Trump hasn't always won. He didn't win in that birthright citizenship case last term. He didn't win on the tariffs last term, and some of the things that were most important to him, he walked away with no victories, however, many of these justices got their start or at least some of them in the Ronald Reagan Justice Department. They have long believed in a strong executive branch, and they've basically codified that into law, which is all the more stark in a time when Congress is basically not doing much to anything. All right, that's all for today. Before we go, we're taking your questions about the midterm elections, big picture kinds of questions. While we cannot make predictions about particular races, we want to hear what issues are on your mind this election season. If you have a good one, record a voice memo with your name and where you're calling from, and send it to [email protected], we may use it in an upcoming episode. I'm Ashley Lopez, a cover politics. And I'm Mara Liason, senior national political correspondent. And thank you for listening to the nprpolitics podcast.