Briefing on 2024-2025 U.S. Supreme Court Term

The United States Supreme Court began hearing cases for its 2024-2025 term on Monday, October 7, 2024. This term will feature cases on several issues of interest to state and territorial governments, including state age-verification laws for minors accessing pornographic websites, the ATF’s authority to regulate ghost guns, youth access to transgender care, environmental issues, use of excessive force, amongst others.

As of December 17, 2024, the Court has agreed to hear approximately 49 cases. Currently, eleven cases originate from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, five cases from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, five cases from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, three cases from state and district courts, with remaining cases originating from other circuit courts. The Court is expected to accept additional cases for the term. Decisions are expected to be issued by the end of June 2025.

Key issues for states from the term include the following:

  • First Amendment. In Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton, the Court will consider a Texas law that requires any website that publishes content one-third or more of which is “harmful to minors” to verify the age of each of its users before providing access. The Court will decide whether the law is subject to “rational basis” review or “strict scrutiny.”
  • Firearms. The Court will hear at least two cases involving firearms. In Garland v. VanDerStok, the Court will consider whether the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives has the authority to regulate ghost guns, which are firearms without serial numbers that can be assembled from parts. Specifically the Court will decide (1) whether “a weapon parts kit that is designed to or may readily be completed, assembled, restored, or otherwise converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive” under 27 C.F.R. § 478.11 is a “firearm” regulated by the Gun Control Act of 1968; and (2) whether “a partially complete, disassembled, or nonfunctional frame or receiver” that is “designed to or may readily be completed, assembled, restored, or otherwise converted to function as a frame or receiver” under 27 C.F.R. § 478.12(c) is a “frame or receiver” regulated by the act. In Smith & Wesson Brands v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos, the Court will consider whether (1) the production and sale of firearms in the United States is the proximate cause of alleged injuries to the Mexican government stemming from violence committed by drug cartels in Mexico; and (2) the production and sale of firearms in the United States amounts to “aiding and abetting” illegal firearms trafficking because firearms companies allegedly know that some of their products are unlawfully trafficked.
  • Youth Transgender Care. In United States v. Skrmetti, the Court will decide whether a Tennessee law, which prohibits all medical treatments intended to allow “a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex” or to treat “purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor’s sex and asserted identity,” violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
  • Environment. The Court will consider a number of cases related to environmental issues.In City and County of San Francisco v. Environmental Protection Agency, the Court will consider whether the Clean Water Act allows the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (or an authorized state) to impose generic prohibitions in National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits that subject permit-holders to enforcement for violating water quality standards without identifying specific limits to which their discharges must conform. In Pacificorp v. Environmental Protection Agency, the Court will consider whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has exclusive jurisdiction to review an EPA action that affects only one state or region, simply because the EPA published that action alongside actions affecting other states in a single Federal Register notice. In Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado, the Court will consider whether the National Environmental Policy Act requires an agency to study environmental impacts beyond the proximate effects of the action over which the agency has regulatory authority.
  • Disposal of Nuclear Waste. In Nuclear Regulatory Commission v. Texas, the Court will consider (1) whether a nonparty can challenge a federal agency’s “final order” under the Hobbs Act’s judicial review provision and (2) whether federal nuclear laws allow the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to license private companies to store spent nuclear fuel at off-reactor sites.
  • Capital Punishment. In Glossip v. Oklahoma, the Court will consider whether Oklahoma may carry out the execution of an individual in light of prosecutorial misconduct and other errors that affected the individual’s conviction and sentencing. In Gutierrez v. Saenz, the Court will consider whether an individual on Texas death-row has standing to sue the state over its refusal to grant access to DNA testing under a law that allows such testing only when the person can demonstrate that exculpatory results would have prevented their conviction.
  • Use of Excessive Force. In Barnes v. Felix, the Court will decide whether courts should apply the “moment of the threat” doctrine when evaluating an excessive force claim under the Fourth Amendment.
  • Congressional Redistricting. In Louisiana v. Callais, the Court will decide whether the majority of the three-judge district court erred in finding that race predominated in the Louisiana legislature’s enactment of S.B. 8, which created a second majority-Black congressional district.
  • Civil Rights Discrimination. In Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services, the Court will decide whether a plaintiff who belongs to a majority group (e.g., a heterosexual woman) needs to demonstrate “background circumstances suggesting that the defendant is the unusual employer who discriminates against the majority” in order to establish a prima facie case of discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
  • FDA Regulatory Authority & E-Cigarettes. In FDA v. Wages and White Lion Investments, L.L.C., the Court will consider whether the Court of Appeals erred in setting aside the Food and Drug Administration’s orders denying respondents’ applications for authorization to market new e-cigarette products as arbitrary and capricious.

NGA holds monthly briefings for Governors’ legal counsel. Please reach out to Lauren Dedon (Ldedon@nga.org) for additional information.