Although the Supreme Court is on summer recess, its agenda remains very busy.
After a decision-making season that saw one landmark case after another that will make history, the summer was packed with events for the judges thanks to emergency motions filed by the Biden administration and Republican state attorneys general.
First, a decision is expected any time soon on the challenge by three Republican-led states to President Biden’s latest student loan plan. On Monday, the Biden administration asked to limit the rulings that pause its sweeping Title IX changes in some states.
And on Tuesday, 25 Republican attorneys general asked the Supreme Court to suspend the government’s power plant regulations.
The accumulation of applications is embroiling the Supreme Court in considerable disputes, even though the justices are not yet in office until the start of their next term in October.
Judges usually decide on emergency applications within days or weeks, even during the summer recess. The abbreviated procedure usually does not provide for oral hearings and sometimes judges do not even discuss the case in person.
Student debt
Two weeks ago, the student loan dispute returned to the Supreme Court, which Biden’s plan has already been rejected This would have forgiven $430 billion in student loans to more than 40 million borrowers.
Republican attorneys general in Alaska, South Carolina and Texas now want the judges to partially block Biden’s latest plan is known as the Saving on Valuable Education (SAVE) program. The states claim that this program also exceeds the authority of the federal government. The Biden administration rejects these claims.
“It ignored this Court’s clear instruction that only Congress may forgive loans en masse – something Congress conspicuously has not done,” the states’ attorneys general wrote in court documents filed Friday.
The three states asked the judges to reinstate a fleeting injunction that would block a provision that lowers the monthly payment cap for millions of borrowers based on their income.
The written statement is available, so the court could make a decision at any time.
Whatever the outcome, another federal appeals court last week temporarily stopped the entire SAVE plan until it can decide whether to grant a longer pause. That challenge is being led by Missouri along with six other Republican-led states.
Title IX
As the Justice Department struggles to preserve its student debt plan, it has now two urgent applications filed its own statement before the Supreme Court on another controversial issue.
The motions ask the judges to limit two subordinate injunctions that prevent the Education Department’s modern Title IX rule from taking effect in certain states. Republicans have challenged the sweeping changes that extend the protection of the law against gender discrimination For the first time, topics such as sexual orientation and gender identity are addressed.
The Biden administration claims that the injunctions blocking the entire modern rule go too far. Title IX also strengthens protections for pregnant and parenting students and changes the way schools handle allegations of sexual harassment and assault.
In court filings, the Justice Department argued that only the ban on discrimination based on gender identity, which is at the heart of the lawsuits, should remain suspended at this stage of the proceedings. The department is expected to continue to defend that provision going forward.
Ten Republican-led states – Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia – where the law is blocked have until Friday to respond to the administration’s request to the Supreme Court.
Power plant rule
A challenge to the Biden administration’s updated climate standards for power plants also lands before the Supreme Court.
All 27 Republican attorneys general of the U.S. states have filed suit against the modern standards, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released in April, almost two years after the Supreme Court blocked the Obama-era version of the plan.
After Lost in a lower court last week, Twenty-five states filed an emergency motion on Tuesday asking the Supreme Court to stop the plan, calling the modern case “déjà vu all over again.”
“This attempt is perhaps more subtle than the EPA’s last attempt; it has not given the rule a special name or coined new terms. But it is no less problematic because it sets impossible standards for regulated facilities, deprives states of the discretion to repair the damage, and ultimately pushes regulated sources into premature closure,” The states wroteled by West Virginia and Indiana.
The fossil fuel industry and the other two Republican-led states could each still appeal.
Resolved matters
The pending appeals follow an already highly topical expedited hearing after the court published its final opinions on the case earlier this month.
The court this month granted requests by two death row inmates to stop their executions, a uncommon move. comply with a request while deny anotheras is often the case.
On Monday, Judge Neil Gorsuch denied a former Colorado district official’s emergency motion to block her upcoming criminal trial.
Tina Peters, the clerk, is accused of unlawfully allowing copies of her county’s voting machines’ tough drives to be made during a software update. Peters said she did this as part of the 2020 election fraud investigation.
Peters pleaded not guilty to all 10 counts, claiming her prosecution was politically motivated. The trial is scheduled to begin on July 29 after Gorsuch rejected her futile motion to intervene on Monday.
Gorsuch, who has default jurisdiction over emergency appeals in Colorado, issued his order while he was scheduled to teach law students in Portugal.
And last week, the full court denied a stay of one-week prison sentences for three Texas protesters charged following their protest at a Confederate monument outside a local courthouse in 2020. There were no public protests.
