WHAT WE'RE READING

The morning read for Monday, April 21

The Supreme Court kicks off the final argument of the 2024-25 term today with arguments in Kennedy v. Braidwood Management and Parrish v. U.S. Read Amy Howe on Braidwood, a dispute over a group’s objection to the HHS task force that determines which preventive services, such as the HIV prevention drugs known as PrEP, must be covered by the Affordable Care Act.

Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles and commentary related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Monday morning read:

• Supreme Court rejects Minnesota effort to revive ban on young adults from carrying guns (Lawrence Hurley, NBC News)
• Trump is defending Obamacare at the Supreme Court. A win could boost RFK Jr.’s influence (Tierney Sneed, Tami Luhby, & Sarah Owermohle, CNN)
• Supreme Court Story Time: Justices Consider Children’s Books With L.G.B.T.Q. Themes (Adam Liptak, The New York Times)
• The Supreme Court could deliver a serious blow to Trump’s court challengers (Hassan Ali Kanu & Erica Orden, Politico) 
• Justice Alito’s Misbegotten Dissent in A.A.R.P. (Steve Vladeck, One First) 

EMERGENCY DOCKET

Justices temporarily bar government from removing Venezuelan men under Alien Enemies Act

This article was updated on April 20 at 6:36 a.m.

Over a dissent by two of the court’s conservative justices, the Supreme Court temporarily barred the Trump administration from removing a group of Venezuelan men currently in immigration custody in the northern region of Texas under an 18th century wartime law. The prohibition came in an unusual overnight order that followed a Friday evening appeal from lawyers representing the men, who told the justices that “dozens or hundreds” of detainees “are in imminent and ongoing jeopardy of being removed from the United States without notice and opportunity to be heard, in direct contravention of” a ruling by the justices less than two weeks ago.

In a brief unsigned order released to reporters just before 1 a.m. Saturday morning, the court noted that the dispute “is currently pending before” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. Once that court acts, the court explained, Solicitor General D. John Sauer should file a response in the Supreme Court to the detainees’ request to block their removal “as soon as possible.” (After the justices issued their order, the 5th Circuit turned down the detainees’ request for a stay, calling it “premature.”) But, the court emphasized in clear language, the government should not “remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this Court.”

CASE PREVIEW

Court to hear challenge to ACA preventative-care coverage

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Monday in yet another dispute over the separation of powers. The case is a challenge to the constitutionality of the structure of a relatively obscure section of the Department of Health and Human Services. But although the issue may sound like a technical one, the court’s ruling could have real-world implications for U.S. patients – particularly those who use the highly effective HIV-prevention drugs at the center of the dispute.

Under the Affordable Care Act, health insurers and group health plans must cover “preventive health services” at no additional cost to the patient. The Affordable Care Act does not specify what those “preventive health services” are. Instead, the law gives the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force – an independent panel of experts – the power to determine which preventive services insurers must cover.

The task force is made up of 16 volunteers, each of whom serves a four-year term. Members of the task force and their recommendations are required by law to be “independent, and to the extent practicable, not subject to political pressure.”

WHAT WE'RE READING

The morning read for Friday, April 18

Each weekday, we select a short list of news articles and commentary related to the Supreme Court. Here’s the Friday morning read:

• Supreme Court keeps hold on Trump’s restrictions on birthright citizenship but sets May arguments (Mark Sherman, The Associated Press)
• Supreme Court to hear arguments over injunctions on Trump bid to end birthright citizenship (Devin Dwyer, ABC News)
• Supreme Court to hear arguments on Trump’s bid to start implementing his plan to end birthright citizenship (Erica Orden, Politico)
• Defiance of US Supreme Court is tricky to price (Gabriel Rubin, Reuters)
• Can Trump fire Jerome Powell? The Supreme Court may soon offer some clues (John Fritze, CNN)

OPINION ANALYSIS

Justices clarify pleading rules for retirement-plan litigation

Cunningham v. Cornell University will not go into the history books as one of the most important 30 decisions of the 2024-25 term. The case involves a technical problem about pleading standards under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, and the court’s resolution of the problem was, in a word, technical.

ERISA establishes a series of detailed rules to deal with retirement plans, much of which tracks traditional rules of trust law. Among those rules, not surprisingly, is a rule that prevents any transaction between the plan and an insider of the plan. To be specific, the rule (in Section 1106) says that, “[e]xcept as provided in Section 1108,” the fiduciary of the plan “shall not cause the plan to [transact with a] party in interest.” Section 1108, in turn, has an exemption that permits “reasonable arrangements with a party in interest … if no more than reasonable compensation is paid therefor.”