WASHINGTON – Fasten your seat belts.
The Supreme Court is set to hand down a series of potentially impactful decisions in the coming days on gun rights, abortion access, social media content, homelessness, federal regulatory power, the opioid crisis and whether former President Donald Trump and others can be prosecuted for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
The Supreme Court is working to dispose of pending cases by the end of June, but an unusually large number of decisions are pending, especially on important issues. Given the current pace of decisions, the date of the decision may be extended until early July, something that has not happened since the peak of the pandemic.
And opinions are likely to dwindle ahead of the first presidential debate between President Trump and President Joe Biden on June 27.
Biden is already trying to make the Supreme Court a central issue in his campaign.
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“The Supreme Court has never been more unstable than it is today,” Biden said at a recent star-studded Hollywood fundraiser. “Really never before.”
Trump has touted his three appointments to give the Supreme Court a conservative supermajority as among his greatest accomplishments as president, but his campaign was careful in commenting on the court's decisions last week to strike down an administration-imposed bump stock ban and reject a challenge to a widely used abortion pill.
Let's take a look at some of the key decisions pending.
Could Trump be charged with trying to steal the 2020 election?
The biggest outstanding decision is whether Donald Trump can move forward with criminal charges that he tried to steal the 2020 election.
Critics have charged that the court has taken so long to rule that even if a majority ruled to spare Trump from prosecution, it would likely be unable to wrap up the trial before the November election.
“The Supreme Court could also order that Trump must be given an opportunity to appeal that decision, which would further delay the trial,” the judge said.
What charges will be brought against the defendants in the January 6th attack?
The other lawsuit concerns obstruction charges brought against a quarter of the defendants in the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and President Trump.
The suspect, former central Pennsylvania police officer Joseph Fisher, is accused of entering the Capitol and disrupting Congress as it was counting the electoral votes that confirmed Biden's victory.
The question is whether the law criminalizing sabotage was intended to apply only to the destruction of documents, and not to the disruption of public assemblies.
The ruling could have far-reaching implications: About 350 of the original 1,350 defendants in the Jan. 6 indictment were charged under the obstruction statute.
Two of the four federal violations in Trump's election interference case fall under the obstruction statute, and Trump could benefit if the Supreme Court overturns the statute or limits its application to obstruction of Congress.
Are emergency abortions allowed in states with strict bans?
The Biden administration challenged Idaho's strict abortion ban, arguing that it conflicts with federal law that requires hospitals to provide stabilizing care.
Idaho allows abortions to save the mother's life, but not to save the mother's health.
Idaho doctors say women who risk losing organs or fertility, who are bleeding uncontrollably or who could suffer other serious health consequences cannot be treated without abortion unless their lives are clearly at risk.
The decision marks the first time the Supreme Court will rule on anti-abortion laws since overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Are laws banning domestic violence perpetrators from owning guns constitutional?
Zackie Rahimi, a Texas man linked to five shootings, pleaded guilty to a federal charge of possessing a firearm while subject to a restraining order, but an appeals court has overturned the conviction.
The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals relied on the Supreme Court's stunning 2022 ruling that said gun laws “must be consistent with the historical tradition of gun control in this country” to survive a court challenge.
If the Supreme Court rules that laws banning domestic abusers from owning guns are inconsistent with past restrictions and violate the Second Amendment, it will continue the conservative court's stance of expanding gun rights to potentially dangerous people.
But such a ruling could also favor Hunter Biden, the president's son, who was convicted this month of lying about drug use when buying a revolver in 2018. Like Rahimi, Biden has argued that the charge is unconstitutional under a 2022 Supreme Court ruling.
Can content moderation on social media be limited?
The Supreme Court is hearing three cases involving content moderation on social media, which arose from conservatives concerned their views were being suppressed.
In one case, the court is deciding whether the Biden administration improperly pressured social media platforms to remove posts about COVID-19, the 2020 election and other issues it deemed to be disinformation.
In other cases, the court is deciding whether laws passed in Texas and Florida to limit powerful social media companies' ability to moderate content are constitutional.
Industry groups representing the nation's social media companies argue the law violates the First Amendment and makes it impossible to protect sites from offensive or harmful content.
Should homeless people be punished for sleeping outside?
As the nation struggles to address an affordable housing crisis, the Supreme Court is ruling on whether Oregon cities can ban homeless people from sleeping outdoors if they don't have shelter.
An appeals court said the ban amounted to cruel and unusual punishment, but city officials said they were being forced to vacate public space.
The number of Americans without permanent housing is at record high, and Democratic and Republican leaders in both parties have complained that past court decisions have limited their ability to address homeless camps that pose health and public safety threats.
Homeless advocates say fining or jailing people who have nowhere else to go won't solve the problem.
Will the federal government's regulatory powers be curtailed?
A conservative Supreme Court that has become increasingly skeptical of federal power could make it harder for government agencies to issue regulations. The Court is expected to weaken and potentially overturn four decades of precedent that have guided how federal agencies protect the environment, workers, consumers and more.
Under a principle known as the Chevron doctrine, courts will defer to government agencies' interpretation of the law when the law is unclear and the interpretation is reasonable.
Critics say this gives excessive power to the executive branch.
Defenders of the principle argue that when drafting laws to protect the environment, for example, Congress cannot anticipate every situation and will need agency expertise to fill the gaps.
In a separate case, the Supreme Court is ruling on whether the Biden administration can implement a “good neighbor” plan to cut smog-forming pollution while its legality is being challenged.
Will the multibillion-dollar settlement over the opioid crisis survive?
A high-profile bankruptcy settlement with the company that made OxyContin could be salvaged or tossed out by the Supreme Court.
The ruling will have far-reaching implications for states that plan to use the settlement money for drug treatment programs, as well as for the Sackler family, who made their fortune selling drugs that helped fuel the nation's opioid epidemic.
Most victims supported the settlement with Purdue Pharma, which marketed OxyContin as a less addictive painkiller than other opioids. But the Justice Department intervened in the case to question whether the court could protect the Sacklers from future civil lawsuits, a tactic that has been used in major bankruptcy cases over asbestos and silicone breast implant damages.
While the case deals with technical issues of bankruptcy law, lurking beneath the surface are heartbreaking stories involving Americans who have lost children, spouses and parents in a crisis that has claimed nearly 80,000 lives in 2022.
