Supreme Court gears up for new term with cases on social issues, Trump policies

Washington — The Supreme Court is set to convene Monday for the start of its new term, with cases involving "conversion therapy" for minors, the use of race in redistricting and state laws barring the participation of transgender athletes in girls' sports on the docket.

But looming over the high court's newest term are legal battles involving President Trump's policies and efforts to reshape the executive branch — two will be decided by the Supreme Court in the coming months, though others could be poised for its intervention.

The justices are returning to the bench following a summer recess marked by emergency appeals from the Trump administration on his immigration policies, efforts to cancel research grants, and mass layoffs of federal workers, among others. Mr. Trump has prevailed in most of his bids for emergency relief so far, but whether he will see similar success if the Supreme Court evaluates the merits of his plans remains to be seen.

"Most Americans aren't following the technicalities on the emergency docket, and so they just think the court is siding with the Trump administration every time," Allison Orr Larsen, a law professor at William & Mary, told CBS News. "Once the cases are back up before the justices and decided on the merits, that's going to do a lot to either cement that assumption or upset that assumption."

The president will see the first test of one of his policies Nov. 5, when the Supreme Court considers the legality of his sweeping reciprocal tariffs, which are a centerpiece of his economic agenda. The high court is also set to decide whether Mr. Trump can fire without cause a Democratic-appointed member of the Federal Trade Commission. A decision in favor of the president in that case could invalidate removal protections enacted by Congress for a slew of independent agencies it sought to insulate from political pressure.

The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has also been asked to decide the constitutionality of Mr. Trump's executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship, though it'll be weeks before the high court decides whether to take up the issue.

Roman Martinez, a lawyer at Latham & Watkins who frequently argues before the court, predicted that come next summer, "the theme is going to be that the court had to confront an energetic executive, very expansive assertions of authority across this whole range of issues."

The cases already set to be decided, coupled with those that are likely to be teed up for Supreme Court review, suggest that the term will be marked by disputes involving social issues and challenges to Mr. Trump's executive actions.

"The docket is already full of blockbuster cases, and that list is going to grow as challenges to the president's executive orders find their way back to the justices after having been dealt with on the emergency docket," Larsen said.

Here are the major cases the Supreme Court will hear this term:

The Supreme Court will hear arguments Oct. 7 in a challenge to a Colorado law that bans "conversion therapy" for minors. Nearly half the states have similar laws in place.

The law, which took effect in September 2019, prohibits "conversion therapy" for people under the age of 18. The state defines "conversion therapy" as any practice or treatment, including talk therapy, that attempts to change an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity, including efforts to "change behaviors or gender expressions or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attraction or feelings toward individuals of the same sex." Violators face fines of up to $5,000 per violation and may be suspended from practicing or stripped of their license.

The case was brought by Kaley Chiles, a licensed counselor in Colorado who performs faith-informed counseling when her clients seek it. Chiles, who is Christian, seeks to engage in talk therapy with young patients who want to "reduce or eliminate unwanted sexual attractions, change sexual behaviors, or grow in the experience of harmony with [their] physical body," according to court filings. But she fears that doing so will leave her in violation of Colorado's law and put her at risk of losing her license.

Chiles sued the state and licensing officials in 2022, arguing that the ban violates her First Amendment rights by censoring her speech based on viewpoint and the content of her conversations. She sought to block Colorado from enforcing it against her.

Colorado officials, meanwhile, argued that its law regulates professional health care treatment to ensure patients receive quality care. States have for centuries regulated professional health care to protect patients from substandard treatment, they said, and the First Amendment has never forbidden states from doing that.

A federal district court ruled for Colorado, finding that its prohibition regulates professional conduct by forbidding certain speech made in a professional context. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit upheld that decision. The appeals court divided 2-1 in finding that the restriction regulates professional conduct that only incidentally burdens speech.

On Oct. 15, the Supreme Court will consider for the second time the Louisiana congressional map drawn after the 2020 Census.

But the stakes for the case this time around are much higher: The justices are weighing whether the Constitution allows a state to intentionally create a second majority-minority congressional district to comply with the Voting Rights Act.

"The outcome of the case will not only determine the next steps for Louisiana's congressional map but may also shape the future of redistricting cases nationwide and forecast the resiliency of our nation's democratic values," Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project, told reporters during a call.

The long-running dispute involves the interplay between Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and the 14th Amendment's guarantee of equal protection under the law. In this case, state lawmakers drew a second majority-Black congressional district to address a Section 2 violation, but bumped up against the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, which prohibits racial gerrymandering.

The case dates back to the first congressional map drawn by Louisiana Republicans and enacted in 2022, which consisted of one majority-Black district and five majority-White districts. African Americans make up nearly one-third of Louisiana's population.

A district judge ruled that map likely violated Section 2 because it deprived minority voters of the chance to elect their preferred candidate. So Louisiana state lawmakers went back to the drawing board and crafted a new map that contained a second majority-minority district.

Republicans said the re-drawn districts brought the map into compliance with the Voting Rights Act and protected key GOP incumbents in the U.S. House, namely House Speaker Mike Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Julia Letlow, who sits on the powerful Appropriations Committee.

But a group of 12 self-described "non-African-Americans" challenged that new map as a racial gerrymander in violation of the 14th Amendment, and a three-judge panel of district judges agreed. It found that race predominated in drawing the new voting boundaries.

Last March, the Supreme Court heard arguments on whether to keep Louisiana's re-crafted map in place. But in June, it ordered further arguments this term and later asked the parties — Louisiana officials, the 12 non-African-American voters, and a separate group of Black Louisianans — to address whether Louisiana's intentional creation of the second majority-minority House district violates the 14th or 15th Amendments.

While Louisiana officials first defended the re-shaped House district lines, they now say the creation of the second majority-Black district in its new voting map violates the Constitution.

The Supreme Court has typically given map-drawers breathing room to navigate the requirements of Section 2 and the 14th Amendment, but the Louisiana case could lead to a weakening of Section 2.

In a 2023 decision that upheld the constitutionality of Section 2 as applied to redistricting, Justice Brett Kavanaugh suggested that there should be an end to the drawing of voting boundaries based on race at some point. In a concurring opinion, he wrote "the authority to conduct race-based redistricting cannot extend indefinitely into the future."

Mr. Trump announced earlier this year that he would be imposing sweeping baseline tariffs on imports from nearly every U.S. trading partner, to address "chronic trade deficits" that he said "are no longer merely an economic — they're a national emergency." He also imposed levies on products from Canada, Mexico and China because of what he said was their failure to stop illicit drugs from flowing into the U.S.

The president used a law called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, to implement the tariffs. That law gives the president the authority to declare a national emergency to deal with "any unusual and extraordinary threat" to the national security, foreign policy or economy of the United States. Once the president declares a national emergency, IEEPA gives the president the authority to take certain actions, including to regulate importation.

Mr. Trump declared national emergencies related to trade deficits and drug trafficking, and imposed the tariffs under IEEPA to address them.

A group of 12 states and small businesses filed lawsuits challenging Mr. Trump's tariffs, arguing that IEEPA did not give the president the authority to impose his global levies. A federal appeals court sided with the plaintiffs, finding that Mr. Trump's tariffs are illegal. A federal district court in Washington, D.C., also reached the same conclusion.

The Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court, and it agreed to hear the cases on an expedited basis.

The high court has in the past been skeptical of broad presidential authority when it involves what are known in administrative law as "major questions" of vast economic and political significance, like when it invalidated former President Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness plan. But the Trump administration has argued that this delegation of power involves foreign affairs and national security, and his determination that tariffs are best suited to address trade-deficit and drug-trafficking emergencies warrant deference.

Martinez predicted the debate in the case will be about textualism and how to look at the language in IEEPA, as well as principles like the major questions doctrine, deference and nondelegation that have been embraced by the Supreme Court's conservative majority.

"These are all the same kinds of arguments that the conservative side of the court has been pushing very strongly in recent years to limit the use and some would say abuse of executive branch authority," Martinez, who clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts, said during an event hosted by Georgetown Law. "It will be interesting to see how those same principles are applied in this context, where you have a Republican president with a major policy initiative."

The Supreme Court has in a string of recent decisions unraveled campaign finance limits as violations of the First Amendment, which has allowed more money to flow into politics. The latest campaign finance dispute before the justices could follow that trend.

At issue in the case is a 50-year-old provision of campaign finance law that restricts the amount of money political parties can spend in coordination with their candidates during a campaign. For 2024, the limits on coordinated spending by party committees were from $123,600 to $3.7 million for Senate candidates, and between $61,800 and $123,600 for House candidates.

In 2022, two GOP campaign committees, along with then-Senate candidate JD Vance and then-Rep. Steve Chabot of Ohio argued these limits were unconstitutional.

A federal appeals court upheld the limits under a 2001 Supreme Court decision that rejected a challenge to an earlier version of the restrictions. But since that ruling 24 years ago, the makeup of the high court has changed significantly and now has a 6-3 conservative majority.

Republicans appealed the lower court decision to the Supreme Court and urged it to strike down the limits on coordinated spending as a violation of the First Amendment.

On the heels of its June decision upholding a Tennessee law banning certain medical treatments for minors experiencing gender dysphoria, the Supreme Court said it would decide whether states can prohibit transgender athletes from participating in girls' and women's sports.

The justices will be looking at laws from Idaho and West Virginia to determine whether they violate the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection and, in the case involving West Virginia, Title IX. Idaho was the first state to ban transgender athletes from competing in girls' and women's sports, and roughly two dozen have enacted similar laws.

Mr. Trump also signed an executive order in February that aimed to keep transgender girls and women from competing on teams that match their gender identity.

The Idaho case was brought by Lindsay Hecox, a transgender woman who attended Boise State University and wanted to try out for the women's track and cross-country teams as a sophomore. She has been treated for gender dysphoria for several years, including receiving testosterone suppression and estrogen.

A U.S. district court blocked enforcement of Idaho's law, finding the ban discriminates against transgender women. A federal appeals court upheld the injunction as applied to Hecox.

Months after the Supreme Court agreed to take up the case, Hecox decided to dismiss her lawsuit for personal reasons and because of "negative public scrutiny from certain quarters." Her lawyers have asked the Supreme Court to toss out the appeals court's decision and order the case to be dismissed.

The West Virginia case involves Becky Pepper-Jackson, who receives puberty-delaying treatment and estrogen hormone therapy and wanted to participate in girls' athletics in middle school. A federal judge initially blocked the state from enforcing the ban only against Pepper-Jackson, ruling it likely violates Title IX and the Constitution.

But in 2023, the judge sided with the state and upheld the law, finding that the state can legislate sports rules because sex and the physical characteristics that flow from it are related to athletic performance and fairness in sports.

A federal appeals court ruled in 2024, though, that the West Virginia law violated Title IX by discriminating against Pepper-Jackson on the basis of sex.

Since returning to the White House, Mr. Trump has sought to overhaul the executive branch, including by firing Democratic-appointed officials at independent agencies without cause. He has removed those officers despite federal laws shielding them from being terminated unless for inefficiency, malfeasance in office or neglect of duty.

Lower courts have repeatedly sided with the fired officials and ordered them to be reinstated. But the Supreme Court has allowed Mr. Trump to fire members of the Merit Systems Protection Board, National Labor Relations Board and Consumer Product Safety Commission.

After allowing those other firings, the Supreme Court agreed to decide whether for-cause removal protections violate the separation of powers. It will also decide whether Mr. Trump can remove Lisa Cook from her position on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.

"These are cases that raise really profound questions about presidential power … about Congress' ability to design institutions of government and to insulate certain important functions from the political whims of the day, whether it be setting interest rates or deciding labor relations or nuclear safety," lawyer Deepak Gupta told reporters at the Georgetown Law event. Gupta represents Gwynne Wilcox, who was fired from her position as a member of the National Labor Relations Board.

One of the disputes before the high court, which has not yet been scheduled for argument, involves Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, who Mr. Trump removed from her post at the Federal Trade Commission. A district court ruled the president violated a 1914 law that limits the grounds for removing a FTC commissioner to instances of inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.

When the case landed before the Supreme Court in an emergency posture, it allowed Mr. Trump to oust Slaughter, and the high court said it would decide the constitutionality of removal protections for the FTC.

The case puts in the Supreme Court's crosshairs a 1935 decision that allowed Congress to enact removal restrictions for officials at certain independent agencies, which the high court has chipped away at in recent years.

The second case, involving Cook, will be argued in January. Mr. Trump attempted to fire Cook from the Fed board after an administration official accused her of mortgage fraud. The effort to remove her is unprecedented, as no president has attempted to fire a sitting Fed governor in the central bank's 112-year-history.

Cook has denied any wrongdoing, and she has not been charged with any criminal offense. A federal judge ruled in September that Mr. Trump's attempt to fire Cook likely violated federal law because he did not state a legally permissible cause for her termination.

The judge also said Cook's due process rights were likely violated because she did not receive notice and an opportunity to be heard before she was ousted.

A federal appeals court rejected a request from the Trump administration to allow the president to fire Cook and agreed with the lower court that Cook did not receive adequate process before her attempted removal. The two-judge majority did not address whether Mr. Trump satisfied the "for cause" removal requirement.

In an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court, Mr. Trump asked the justices to let him remove Cook from the Fed Board while the challenge to her firing moved forward. But the high court declined to immediately rule on his request for relief, and instead said it will hear arguments in January.

By putting off a decision, the Supreme Court let Cook remain a Fed governor while it considers the issue.