WHAT WE'RE READING

The morning read for Monday, Jan. 13

The court will hear oral arguments this morning in Hewitt v. United States, on the First Step Act’s sentencing reduction provisions, and Stanley v. City of Sanford, Florida, the case of a retired Florida firefighter looking to sue her former employer under the Americans with Disabilities Act alleging discrimination in how retirement benefits are provided. Listen live at 10 a.m. EST. 

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 allows state and local climate suits against oil companies to proceed (Maureen Groppe, USA Today)
• Supreme Court Rejects New Bid to Let President Fire Agency Heads (Greg Stohr, Bloomberg)
• Supreme Court leans toward upholding law that could ban TikTok (Lawrence Hurley & Kat Tenbarge, NBC News)
• Supreme Court to hear case challenging Obamacare’s preventive coverage (Justin Jouvenal, The Washington Post)
• Senate immigration bill aims to overturn Supreme Court precedent in a sea change for legal system, experts say (Tierney Sneed, CNN)

SCOTUS NEWS

Court adds three new cases

The Supreme Court on Friday evening added three new cases to its docket for the 2024-25 term. The cases, which involve issues ranging from the constitutionality of appointments to an HHS task force to student loan forgiveness and mootness in tax cases, are likely to be among the final cases argued during the current term.

In Becerra v. Braidwood Management, the justices agreed to take up a challenge to the structure of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a part of the Department of Health and Human Services that issues recommendations for preventive medical services. The Affordable Care Act requires health insurers to cover some of those recommended services at no cost to patients.

Petitions of the week

Justices meet to fill out 2024-25 docket

The Petitions of the Week column highlights some of the cert petitions recently filed in the Supreme Court. A list of all petitions we’re watching is available here.

When the justices meet for their next regularly scheduled conference today, they will discuss what might become the final petitions granted for oral argument during the 2024 Term. It is also the next-to-last conference before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20. This week, we highlight a number of those petitions the justices are set to consider, seeking review of lower court decisions on student-loan forgiveness, the constitutionality of federal agencies, and more.

If the justices decide to take up any of these cases, the government will presumably be represented in its briefs and at oral argument at the Supreme Court by Trump’s pick for solicitor general, John Sauer. Noel Francisco, solicitor general during the first Trump administration, departed from the longstanding tradition of maintaining the government’s position between Republican and Democratic administrations in several cases before the court. In turn, Biden’s solicitor general, Elizabeth Prelogar, sometimes did the same, veering from Francisco’s stance in disputes over the Affordable Care Act, labor unions, and more. It remains to be seen whether Sauer will return the favor, both in cases already argued before the court and in cases such as the following ones filed by the Biden administration, should the justices decide to hear them this spring.

WHAT WE'RE READING

The morning read for Friday, Jan. 10

Last night, the court turned down President-elect Donald Trump’s request to block sentencing in his New York hush money case. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh wrote that they would have granted his request.

The justices will return to the bench this morning for oral arguments in TikTok, Inc. v. Garland, the dispute over a law that would ban TikTok in the United States on national security grounds if its parent company, ByteDance, doesn’t sell the app by Jan. 19. Listen live at 10 a.m. EST. 

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

• TikTok is heading to the Supreme Court to challenge its U.S. ban. Here’s what to know (Bobby Allyn, NPR)
• Supreme Court rejects Trump bid to halt hush-money case sentencing (Kayla Epstein, BBC News)
• A Rebuke to Trump Provides a Telling Portrait of a Divided Supreme Court (Adam Liptak, The New York Times)
• FinCEN Asks Supreme Court to Reinstate Law Requiring Ownership Information (Mengqi Sun, The Wall Street Journal)
• New Mexico Supreme Court rejects local abortion restrictions (Nick Catlin, KOAT)

EMERGENCY DOCKET

Supreme Court allows Trump’s New York criminal sentencing to go forward

A divided Supreme Court on Thursday evening cleared the way for President-elect Donald Trump’s criminal sentencing to go forward on Friday morning. In a brief unsigned order issued just after 7 p.m., the justices rejected Trump’s plea to halt the sentencing proceeding in his New York hush money case, where he was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records to hide reimbursements made to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

Four of the court’s conservative justices – Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh – indicated that they would have granted Trump’s request. Trump would have needed five votes to prevail, which means that Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court’s three liberal justices in voting to allow the sentencing to proceed.