When in Supreme Court convenes for arguments in December, justice will hear from the top lawyer for the Biden administration, who will urge them to attack the law in almost half of the countries that prohibit hormone treatment for. a transgender minor.
In January, the new President-elect Donald Trump lawyer in the Justice Department must decide whether the federal government still believes the law is unconstitutional.
How to handle the remaining cases before the Supreme Court is undoubtedly one of the most important questions for the new presidential administration. It’s a big task. Of the 45 cases that have been agreed by the Supreme Court for the current period, which began in October, the United States is a party to 21, including the case of specific care for transgender youth. In many others, the Biden administration has limited its views on legal issues.
In most of these cases, the Justice Department takes a predictable, even nonpartisan approach, such as routinely defending federal criminal prosecutions on appeal.
But other cases include subpoenas that reflect the new administration’s policy choices.
In addition to the transgender case, many others touch on the hot-button issue: the Biden administration supports federal regulations on it ghost gunis a weapon that people can buy in pieces and put at home; it challenged a lower court’s ban on a Texas law requiring people accessing pornographic websites to prove they are of legal age; and defended the Food and Drug Administration to authorize flavored e-cigarette products for sale.
But Trump’s lawyers could change that position. As Chief Justice John Roberts noted in 2022, “the new administration is supposed to be a public matter.”
How does it work? That depends.
If the United States loses in the lower court, the new lawyers can simply dismiss the appeal.
The Biden administration took this approach in the 2020 abortion case that became famous because of Trump’s decision to ban federally funded health clinics from making abortion referrals. When a lower court rejected the policy, Trump’s lawyers took it to the Supreme Court, which agreed to consider the issue. Court calendar.
The Trump administration must now decide whether to withdraw the appeal in the transgender case. Attorney General Elizabeth Prelogar, a Biden appointee who argued on behalf of the government before the Supreme Court, has argued that state laws that protect minors from taking hormones “discriminate () on the basis of transgender status.” Trump, who campaigned to get “transgender insanity out of our schools,” is unlikely to see the issue the same way.
But Trump’s lawyers may consider staying on the run if it appears the Supreme Court disagrees with the Biden administration’s position at oral arguments early next month. This prospect seems likely because the ACLU is poised to pursue the case if the government shuts down, making the new Trump administration’s resignation likely futile.
The Trump administration’s approach to the ghost gun case is also unclear. At oral arguments in October, the justices indicated that they had no problem with the Biden administration’s regulations on do-it-yourself weapons, cheering gun control advocates. If the Trump administration opposes regulations on ghost guns, which subject such weapons to the same requirements as commercially sold firearms, it could dismiss the case, which would have upheld a lower court ruling blocking the rule.
In contrast, if the other party appeals the case that the US won in a lower court, the approach of Trump’s lawyers may depend on various factors.
One factor is how often these cases occur. In January 2021, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the criminal case. But before the party submitted a brief outlining its arguments in the case, the Biden administration told the Supreme Court that “after the change of administration, the Department of Justice began the process of reviewing the government’s interpretation of” the law and reversed course. The Supreme Court then appointed an outside attorney to challenge the previous Trump administration’s position.
And regardless, the Supreme Court’s caseload could change if Trump reverses Mr. Biden’s policies. In 2017, Trump, in his first term, went down former President Barack Obama’s policy to use the bathroom for transgender students right before the Republican challenge for guidance landed in the Supreme Court, which was brought to the end of the case.
Trump’s new lawyers must make strategic choices against this backdrop.
Some may involve ways of representing government interests. The Supreme Court sometimes asks Justice Department lawyers to explain how pending decisions could affect the government. Some of these types of requests are extraordinary, including the Honolulu challenge that seeks to hold oil and gas companies accountable for the effects of their emissions on the climate.
And some options may not result in any changes to the current Supreme Court docket. One of the tasks of the administration is to ask the high court to review upcoming cases. Trump’s new lawyer could withdraw — or never pursue — certain appeals made by the Biden administration.
