As the U.S. Supreme Court enters into the new year, the justices are preparing to confront a series of hot-button issues in the second half of what is widely viewed as a historic term.
Troutman Sanders attorney Misha Tseytlin, who leads the firm’s national appellate and Supreme Court practice, said he believes the second half of the 2019-2020 term will also contain a couple of big-ticket cases comparable to the first half but he said it is difficult to judge the significance of a case until it has been decided.
“Sometimes the court has a big high profile case, and then it doesn’t actually render a decision that is actually a precedent or meaningful,” Tseytlin told The Epoch Times. “The ingredients are there for the second half of the court term to be blockbuster but the Supreme Court could also decide issues very narrowly or not decide them at all.”
Trump’s Financial Records
The fight to stop the House and a New York investigation from having access to the president’s financial records reached the high court last month when the Supreme Court agreed to take on Trump’s appeals of the three subpoena-related cases. The cases present important separation of power questions to the justices.One of the cases stems from a subpoena issued by the House Oversight Committee to Trump’s accounting firm Mazars USA to hand over eight years of financial records involving Trump and his business in April as part of its probe into allegations about the president’s financial statements.
In a separate House-related case, the House Financial Services and House Intelligence committees issued subpoenas to two banks—Deutsche Bank AG and Capital One Financial Corp.—asking them to turn over Trump’s financial documents. The House committee investigations are unrelated to the impeachment proceedings.
Meanwhile, the third case centers on a subpoena issued by District Attorney of New York County Cyrus Vance Jr. in a criminal investigation in Manhattan. Vance is investigating hush money allegedly paid to two women during the 2016 presidential campaign—adult film actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal. Trump has denied the affairs and any other wrongdoing.
Lousiana Abortion Restrictions
This abortion-related case will be the court’s first since Trump’s two nominees, Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, took the bench.The right to abortion is not an issue, in this case, instead, the case at hand, cited as June Medical Services LLC v. Gee, asks the court to decide whether an unconstitutional burden has been placed on women seeking abortions after Louisiana passed a law, Act 620, requiring doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges within 30 miles of where the procedure was taking place.
For a doctor to have admitting privileges to a hospital, they are required to be a member of a hospital’s medical staff and have the ability to admit patients in order to provide diagnostic and therapeutic services.
The state argued that admitting privileges were necessary to protect patients’ health and safety. But the appellants, June Medical Services and two doctors, argued that the law imposes an “undue burden” on women seeking abortion services.
“While the case itself deals with a discrete type of regulation on abortion clinics, a lot of folks are looking at the case to see what the Supreme Court’s attitude is going to be towards abortion laws in general, and abortion lawsuits since the appointment of President Trump’s two latest Supreme Court justices,” Tseytlin said.
State Aid for Religious Schools
The case will test the legality of a state scholarship program funded by public money that helps students attend private schools of their families’ choice, including religious ones. It centers on a Montana program that provides a dollar-for-dollar tax credit up to $150 for individuals who donate to non-profit organizations that fund scholarships for families who wish to send their children to private schools.Shortly after the program was created, the state’s Department of Revenue enacted a rule that limits the program to non-religious schools to comply with the state constitution.
Parents of students who attend a private religious school in Montana sued tax officials over the rule. A trial court sided with the families, saying that they could use the scholarships at religious schools.
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)
The justices will also be faced with another important question of whether the structure of the CFPB, a federal agency, is constitutional, in particular, whether it violates the separation of powers by prohibiting the president from removing the agency’s head except for specific circumstances.The agency was given an unusual level of independence and is largely funded by the Federal Reserve System. It is headed by a director, who is appointed by the president and requires Senate consent. The director then serves for a term of five years and cannot be removed by the president unless the termination is for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” It is unusual because those who lead federal agencies often serve “at the pleasure of” the sitting president.
Oral argument for this case is set for March 3.
Another case that the Supreme Court might hear but has not taken up is a review of a lower court ruling that could possibly lead to the invalidation of former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. The U.S. House of Representatives and a group of Democrat-led states, in two separate appeals, have asked the Supreme Court to review a lawsuit challenging Obamacare.
It’s unclear whether the Supreme Court will take up the case this year, given its busy docket. The court has asked the respondents to provide a response to the House and state official’s motions by 4 p.m. Friday, Jan 10.