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Overview: Be on the lookout for two editions of NCSL’s Capitol to Capitol this week. In this edition, NCSL staff break down the significant Supreme Court rulings from last week. Later this week, we will provide a second edition focusing on the Senate reconciliation bill.
Supreme Court Updates
Recent Supreme Court Rulings
On June 27, the court issued rulings in Trump v. CASA Inc., addressing the scope of nationwide judicial injunctions; in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, on the constitutionality of requiring age verification for adult-content websites; in FCC v. Consumers Research, on the constitutionality of the broadband Universal Service Fund; and in Mahmoud v. Taylor, on parents’ right to opt their children out of reading books that explore gender identity. NCSL staff break down these rulings.
Court Sides With Trump Administration on Nationwide Injunctions
Trump v. CASA Inc. arises from an executive order issued by President Trump ending birthright citizenship for individuals born on U.S. soil who do not have at least one parent legally and permanently residing in the country. Many states filed suits, resulting in lower courts issuing nationwide injunctions that barred the Trump administration from enforcing the executive order. The administration appealed these injunctions, arguing that universal injunctions exceed the authority of district courts. In a 6-3 opinion along ideological lines, the court ruled in favor of the administration, stating universal injunctions that grant relief beyond that necessary to the parties to the suit likely exceed the authority of district courts and cannot be issued. The case will now return to the lower courts, where the merits of the case—the constitutionality of the executive order banning birthright citizenship—will be determined. This ruling could have a huge impact on lawsuits involving federal government actions, as courts will be reticent to grant nationwide injunctions in the future, allowing the federal government to continue enforcing policies that could be unconstitutional until a final order is issued. The order will not take effect for 30 days, allowing the administration that period to provide guidance on implementation. Read more
Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton
In a 6-3 decision authored by Justice Clarence Thomas, the court upheld a Texas age-verification law for pornographic websites, ruling that the standard of review for restricting minors but not adults is intermediate scrutiny. The intermediate scrutiny standard requires the government to show that its law furthers an important government interest and must do so by means that are substantially related to that interest. The court reasoned that Texas’ age-verification law met the elements of intermediate scrutiny because it only “incidentally burdens the protected speech of adults” and that prior case law establishes the precedent that Texas, like any state, may prevent minors from accessing sexually explicit content. Read more
Justice Elena Kagan authored the dissent for the liberal justices, arguing that the strict scrutiny standard of review should be applied in this case in part because the speech at issue is restricted to minors but not to adults. She pointed out that, “when we have confronted those laws before, we have always asked the strict scrutiny question: Is the law the least restrictive means of achieving a compelling state interest? There is no reason to change course.”
Court Upholds FCC’s Broadband Fund
In Federal Communications Commission v. Consumers Research, the court held 6-3 that a federal program called the Universal Service Fund, which subsidizes low-cost telephone and internet services in rural areas and for libraries and schools, does not violate the Constitution’s nondelegation doctrine. The nondelegation doctrine states that Congress cannot delegate its legislative powers to other entities, such as administrative agencies or private organizations.
The FCC’s statutory mandate requires the agency to make communications services available to all Americans at affordable prices. The statute also laid out how the FCC was to do this by using required payments from telecommunications companies to subsidize services in rural communities and for schools and libraries. The FCC then set up the Universal Service Fund to receive and disburse funds and created a private nonprofit corporation to administer the fund. The issue before the court was whether the fund’s contribution method violated the Constitution’s nondelegation doctrine. The court ruled that it did not. Justice Kagan, writing for the majority, stated, “under our nondelegation precedents, Congress sufficiently guided and constrained the discretion that it lodged with the FCC to implement the universal-service contribution scheme. And the FCC, in its turn, has retained all decision-making authority within that sphere, relying on the Administrative Company only for non-binding advice. Nothing in those arrangements, either separately or together, violates the Constitution.”
Justice Neil Gorsuch writing for the dissent, argued that the fund does violate the nondelegation doctrine because it allows Congress to delegate to the FCC the ability to set and collect fees from telecommunications companies. He also argues that allowing the FCC to collect and allocate these funds violates the appropriations clause of the Constitution and that the majority opinion relied too heavily on agency interpretation. Read more
Justices Rule Parents Can Opt Their Children Out of LGBTQ+ Books
The court ruled against the school board in Mahmoud v. Taylor, a case arising from a parent’s challenge to a Montgomery County Board of Education policy that did not allow parents to opt their children out of elementary schools lessons involving materials with LGBTQ+ themes. The court ruled 6-3 that the school board’s policy likely substantially interferes with the religious development of the petitioners’ children and violates the petitioner’s constitutional right to the free exercise of religion. The court chose to apply strict scrutiny in this case, which requires the school board to show that its policy advances a compelling state interest and is narrowly tailored to achieve that interest. In this case, the court found that the school board’s allowance of opting out of lessons on other topics “undermined its assertion that its no-opt-out policy is necessary to serve that interest.” Under the court’s order, the school board will be required to notify petitioners in advance whenever any of the books from the LGBTQ+ curriculum would be used in any way while the lower court proceedings are pending. Read more