The United States Supreme Court is set to review a number of significant cases in the coming months that will directly impact various issues supported by the Democrats. Democrats are becoming increasingly anxious about the potential rulings of the justices as they prepare to listen to oral arguments in the next couple of months.
These cases cover a wide range of topics, including abortion, climate regulations, gun control, and social media censorship, as reported by Utah’s Deseret News. Not mentioned by the publication, but equally important, is a case involving numerous defendants from the Jan. 6 Capitol protest and the prosecution of former President Donald Trump.
Another case involves a government official threatening repercussions against entities in New York State that are affiliated with a national organization dedicated to safeguarding fundamental individual rights. The first case on the docket is Ohio v. EPA, which has been combined with three other similar challenges against an Environmental Protection Agency pollution rule that was unilaterally imposed on a few states without considering objections from those states and others.
The central issue revolves around whether the EPA’s rule should be allowed to take effect despite challenges from a group of states, affected industries, and trade associations. Arguments were presented on Wednesday, and SCOTUSblog indicated that based on the questions and remarks from the conservative-leaning majority, it appears probable that the court will ultimately decide later this summer to maintain the block on the EPA’s rule until the legal challenges have been resolved in the lower courts.
The upcoming case scheduled for March is the Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, which is combined with a case involving Danco Laboratories. This legal matter pertains to a challenge against the FDA’s recent rule changes in 2016 and 2021 that aimed to expand the availability of abortion-inducing medications. Additionally, the following week will feature the combined cases of Moody v. Netchoice and Netchoice v. Paxton, which address laws enacted by Florida and Texas regarding social media content moderation.
These laws are designed to oversee how social media companies moderate content, particularly focusing on the censorship of conservative, independent, and non-leftist users and perspectives. The Supreme Court likely took on these cases due to conflicting decisions at the appeals court level, with the 11th Circuit ruling against the Florida law and the 5th Circuit largely supporting the Texas law. Furthermore, another case related to social media censorship, Murthy v. Missouri, is on the Supreme Court’s docket for March.
In this case, a district court decision — upheld by the 5th Circuit — prohibited certain entities and officials within the Biden administration from collaborating with social media platforms to censor critical speech regarding the pandemic, including dissenting views on lockdowns, vaccines, and other topics opposed by the administration.
Garland v. Cargill, a significant case scheduled for next week, challenges the ban on “bump stocks” that was implemented during the Trump administration. This ban was put in place following the tragic mass shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada, in 2017. The case questions the classification of bump stock devices by the ATF, which considers them to be highly regulated “machineguns” due to their ability to increase the rate of fire of semi-automatic rifles by utilizing recoil.
In addition to the cases mentioned by Deseret News, there is another important case related to the continuous efforts of the ideological left to infringe upon the Second and First Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. This case, National Rifle Association of America v. Vullo, will be heard in March. It involves a New York government official who was sued for violating the NRA’s freedom of speech and association. The official had threatened financial consequences against banks and insurance companies unless they cut all ties with the national gun rights organization.
Furthermore, there is the case of Fischer v. United States, which will be heard in April. This case involves a defendant from the Jan. 6 Capitol protest who has challenged the government’s questionable application of a specific obstruction statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c). Originally intended for white-collar financial crimes, this statute has been used against numerous Jan. 6 protesters. Special Counsel Jack Smith has also utilized this statute in his election-related prosecution of President Trump, including two of the four charges against him. If the Supreme Court upholds a lower court ruling in favor of Fischer, the charges against Trump and the Jan. 6 defendants facing trial on the same charge could potentially be dropped.
