In the second half of the Supreme Court\u2019s 2023-2024, the justices are set to hear some blockbuster cases on topics ranging from First Amendment rights of social media companies, the abortion pill and the power of federal agencies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After a brief winter break, the high court will resume oral arguments on Jan. 8, which will continue through the spring, with opinions expected to be issued early summer.<\/p>\n
Here are some of the high-profile cases to watch.<\/p>\n
ARGUMENT DATE: Not yet set<\/strong><\/p>\n AT ISSUE:<\/strong>\u00a0Whether social media platforms\u2019 handling of user content is protected by the First Amendment.\u00a0<\/p>\n THE CASE:<\/strong>\u00a0Separate laws in Florida and Texas would require large\u00a0companies like X\u00a0and Facebook to host third-party communications and would prevent those businesses from blocking or removing users\u2019 posts based on political viewpoints.\u00a0<\/p>\n THE ARGUMENTS:<\/strong>\u00a0The laws aim to address what some lawmakers call \u2018censoring\u2019 of conservative messages and banning politicians like former President Trump for violating policies over offensive or \u2018problematic\u2019 content. A federal appeals court had ruled for the tech industry in the Florida case, saying as private entities, those companies were \u2018engaged in constitutionally protected expressive activity when they moderate and curate the content that they disseminate on their platforms.\u2019<\/p>\n IMPACT:<\/strong>\u00a0Trump and a coalition of 16 states are among those filing separate amicus briefs supporting Florida.\u00a0The Biden administration\u00a0has opposed the state laws.<\/p>\n ARGUMENT DATE: Jan. 17<\/strong><\/p>\n AT ISSUE:<\/strong>\u00a0Potential far-reaching appeal over another legal effort to have the so-called \u2018Chevron\u2019 deference overturned by the Supreme Court. That 1984 ruling says when congressional federal laws are not clearly defined, federal agencies should be allowed broad discretion to interpret and enforce those policies.\u00a0<\/p>\n THE CASE:<\/strong>\u00a0Lead plaintiff Loper Bright Enterprises of New Jersey, represented by the Cause of Action Institute, challenges a federal mandate requiring Atlantic herring fishermen to pay more than $700 per day for monitors to ride their boats, observe their activities and report to the government.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n THE ARGUMENTS:<\/strong>\u00a0A federal appeals court found the National Marine Fisheries Service\u2019s interpretation of a federal fishery law to be \u2018reasonable.\u2019 The fishermen argue Congress never granted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration the authority to force fishermen to pay for monitors. Groups supporting them say the \u2018Chevron\u2019 precedent forces courts to defer to an agency\u2019s interpretation of \u2018ambiguous\u2019 statutes. Those supporting continued deference say an adverse ruling would sow \u2018chaos\u2019 across the federal government and would concentrate rulemaking authority with unelected judges, who are not experts in specific policy matters.<\/p>\n THE IMPACT:<\/strong>\u00a0Conservatives have long chafed at the \u2018Chevron\u2019 decision. The high court has been incrementally reining in federal regulators, including a June 2022 decision limiting EPA authority over greenhouse gas emissions. Overturning \u2018Chevron\u2019 or further weakening federal agency discretion would have enormous impacts on key areas like the environment, workplace safety, consumer protections, public health and immigration. The court has the option of broadly addressing the use of \u2018Chevron\u2019 deference or clarifying specific areas of its application by federal agencies.<\/p>\n ARGUMENT DATE: Not yet set<\/strong><\/p>\n AT ISSUE:<\/strong>\u00a0Lawsuit seeking to restrict access to mifepristone, one of two drugs typically used to induce a\u00a0medical abortion.<\/p>\n THE CASE:<\/strong>\u00a0The FDA approved mifepristone in 2000 to end a pregnancy, and it is used in combination with a second drug, misoprostol. That pill combination is approved for use up to the 10th week of pregnancy.\u00a0<\/p>\n THE ARGUMENTS:<\/strong>\u00a0Groups opposing the FDA say it failed to follow proper procedures when determining the drug\u2019s safety risks. The Biden administration warned an adverse ruling would severely disrupt the way drugs are tested and brought to market. The Supreme Court has allowed the FDA to regulate the drug while the case is being litigated on its merits. While the case is still being litigated, a nationwide injunction could be issued by the judge, preventing medication abortions even in states where it remains legal.\u00a0<\/p>\n THE IMPACT:<\/strong>\u00a0Any high court decision could impact 40 million women nationwide, and the Guttmacher Institute research group says more than half of all abortions in the U.S. use mifepristone. Supreme Court involvement in arguably the most contentious social issue could have enormous political implications in a presidential election year.<\/p>\n ARGUMENT DATE: Not yet set\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n AT ISSUE:\u00a0<\/strong>Whether a bump stock device is a \u2018machine gun\u2019 as defined under federal law, because it is designed and intended for use in converting a rifle into a weapon that fires \u2018automatically more than one shot\u2026 by a single function of the trigger.\u2019<\/p>\n THE CASE:\u00a0<\/strong>In the wake of a 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas that left 60 people dead and 500 more wounded, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) issued an interpretive rule concluding that bump stocks are machine guns. A bump stock is an attachment that allows a semiautomatic rifle to mimic a fully automatic weapon\u2019s \u2018cyclic firing rate to mimic nearly continuous automatic fire,\u2019 according to ATF. The device essentially replaces the gun\u2019s stock and pistol grip and causes the weapon to buck back and forth, repeatedly \u2018bumping\u2019 the trigger against the shooter\u2019s finger. Michael Cargill, owner of Central Texas Gun Works, sued the government after he was forced to surrender several bump stocks under the ATF\u2019s rule.\u00a0<\/p>\n THE ARGUMENTS:\u00a0<\/strong>Mark Chenoweth, NCLA president and general counsel, said \u2018this is not a case about gun rights. It is a case about administrative power.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n \u2018Congress never gave ATF the power to rewrite federal criminal statutes pertaining to machine guns\u2014nor could it. Writing federal criminal laws is the sole preserve of Congress, and the Trump and Biden Administrations committed grievous constitutional error by trying to ban bump stocks without involving Congress. We are confident the U.S. Supreme Court will right this wrong for Michael Cargill and all Americans,\u2019 Chenoweth said.<\/p>\n THE IMPACT: <\/strong>Millions of lawful gun owners also own bump stocks prior to the ATF rule. Cargill\u2019s lawyers say that ATF has admitted that the loss of property for law-abiding Americans, should the rule stand, would be upwards of $100 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n ARGUMENT DATE: Not yet set<\/strong><\/p>\n AT ISSUE:\u00a0<\/strong>Whether a government regulator threatening regulated entities with adverse regulatory actions if they do business with\u00a0a controversial speaker, allegedly because of the government\u2019s own hostility to the speaker\u2019s viewpoint, violates the First Amendment.<\/p>\n THE CASE:\u00a0<\/strong>The former superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS), Maria T. Vullo, at the behest of then-New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, allegedly wielded DFS\u2019 regulatory power to financially blacklist the NRA \u2013 coercing banks and insurers to cut ties with the association, in an effort, the group says, to suppress its speech.<\/p>\n THE ARGUMENTS<\/strong>: The NRA argues that Vullo\u2019s actions were meant to silence the NRA \u2013 using \u2018guidance letters,\u2019 backroom threats and other measures to cause financial institutions to \u2018drop\u2019 the Association.\u00a0The NRA\u2019s First Amendment claims withstood multiple motions to dismiss, but in 2022, after Vullo appealed the trial court\u2019s ruling, the Second Circuit struck down the NRA\u2019s claims. The court decided that in an era of \u2018enhanced corporate social responsibility,\u2019 it was reasonable for New York\u2019s financial regulator to warn banks and insurance companies against servicing pro-gun groups based on the supposed \u2018social backlash\u2019 against those groups\u2019 advocacy.\u00a0<\/p>\n THE IMPACT:\u00a0<\/strong>The NRA earned an unlikely bedfellow in the American Civil Liberties, who will argue in support of the gun rights group that they ideologically oppose, but agree that its free speech liberties were violated by the New York official.<\/p>\n ARGUMENT DATE: Not yet set\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n AT ISSUE:<\/strong>\u00a0Whether a court of appeals correctly determined that the indictments in these three cases permissibly included a charge of corruptly obstructing, influencing or impeding an official proceeding, based on each petitioner\u2019s violent conduct on Jan. 6, 2021.<\/p>\n THE CASE:<\/strong>\u00a0Over 300 people have been charged by the Justice Department with obstructing an official proceeding in connection with the Jan. 6 riot. This case stems from three defendants \u2014 Garret Miller of Dallas,\u00a0Joseph Fischer of Boston, and\u00a0Edward Jacob Lang of New York\u2019s Hudson Valley \u2013 who are challenging that charge.\u00a0<\/p>\n THE ARGUMENTS: <\/strong>A lower court judge earlier dismissed the obstruction charge against three defendants, ruling that their conduct did not warrant that charge. However, the Biden DOJ challenged that ruling, and the appeals court in Washington,\u00a0D.C., agreed with government prosecutors.\u00a0<\/p>\n THE IMPACT:<\/strong> The outcome of this case could impact former President Trump\u2019s criminal case, in which he also faces similar obstruction charges.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n In the second half of the Supreme Court\u2019s 2023-2024, the justices are set to hear some blockbuster cases on topics ranging from First Amendment rights of social media companies, the abortion pill and the power of federal agencies.\u00a0 After a brief winter break, the high court will resume oral arguments on Jan. 8, which will <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":13503,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13502","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}EXECUTIVE POWER:\u00a0Loper Bright Enterprises, Inc. v. Raimondo<\/strong><\/h2>\n
ABORTION MEDICATION: FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n
GUN RIGHTS : Garland v.\u00a0Cargill\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n
FREE SPEECH: National Rifle Association of America v. Vullo<\/strong><\/h2>\n
OBSTRUCTION: Fischer v. United States<\/strong><\/h2>\n