Petitions of the week: Political donations, gun rights, the emoluments clause and more

This week we highlight cert petitions pending before the Supreme Court that ask the court to weigh in on a variety of hot-button constitutional and political issues. One petition, in Lieu v. Federal Election Commission, asks the court to decide whether federal limits on political donations can, under the First Amendment, be applied to donations to so-called “super PACs.” Another petition, in Zoie H. v. Nebraska, asks the court to review, under the Second and Sixth Amendments, a state law that allows juvenile courts, without a jury trial, to bar certain individuals from possessing firearms until age 25. And a third petition, in Blumenthal v. Trump, asks the court to wade into a lawsuit by 29 Democratic senators alleging that President Donald Trump is violating the Constitution’s emoluments clause.

These and other petitions of the week are below the jump:

Lieu v. Federal Election Commission
19-1398
Issue: Whether the federal statutory limit on contributions to political committees, 52 U.S.C. § 30116(a)(1)(C), comports with the First Amendment as applied to committees that make only independent expenditures.

Hughes v. Northwestern University
19-1401
Issue: Whether allegations that a defined-contribution retirement plan paid or charged its participants fees that substantially exceeded fees for alternative available investment products or services are sufficient to state a claim against plan fiduciaries for breach of the duty of prudence under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, 29 U.S.C. § 1104(a)(1)(B).

Zacarias v. Janvey
19-1402
Issue: Whether a district court in a receivership action has Article III jurisdiction to bar investor claims for individual injuries when the receiver lacks standing to bring those claims himself due to the lack of an injury to the receivership estate.

Rupert v. Janvey
19-1411
Issue: Whether the standing requirement of Article III limits receivers to bringing claims that are coextensive with the receivership estate and thus whether Article III precludes receivers from bringing, settling and barring claims of third parties against non-receivership entities.

United States v. Cooley
19-1414
Issue: Whether the lower courts erred in suppressing evidence on the theory that a police officer of an Indian tribe lacked authority to temporarily detain and search the respondent, Joshua James Cooley, a non-Indian, on a public right-of-way within a reservation based on a potential violation of state or federal law.

Zoie H. v. Nebraska
19-1418
Issue: Whether the Second and Sixth Amendments permit a state to deprive an individual of the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms based on the commission of an offense while denying the accused a right to a jury trial for that offense.

Blumenthal v. Trump
20-5
Issue: Whether legislators have standing to seek judicial relief when their votes have been “completely nullified” under Raines v. Byrd.