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If the Trump Administration changes its position, it could impact the outcome of the case before the Supreme Court because the federal government is the one who brought the challenge.
Written by Adam Liptak
Writing from the nation
The case being considered by the judges on Wednesday involves trans rights and is known as United States v. Skrmetti. This means that it is a legal challenge initiated by the federal government.
Next month, there will be a change in government control, and it is highly likely that the Trump administration will reject the Biden administration’s argument that a Tennessee law prohibiting certain medical treatments for transgender minors goes against the Constitution.
Typically, this would indicate that the judges would not have to make a decision because both parties would agree that the law was constitutional.
In 2017, a similar situation occurred when President-elect Donald J. Trump came into office. In March of that year, the Trump administration changed its stance on transgender student rights, leading the Supreme Court to drop a case involving a transgender boy in Virginia who wanted to use the boys’ bathroom at his high school.
However, there is a complication in this situation. Three families and a doctor initially challenged the Tennessee law, with the Biden administration supporting them. Both the families and the government submitted separate requests for the Supreme Court to review the case, but the justices only accepted the government’s petition.
Instead of rejecting the case, the court has the option to approve the companion petition at a later time. The court may choose to listen to a different argument or use the one presented on Wednesday by lawyers representing the families and the Biden administration.
In the past, new administrations usually didn’t make many changes to their positions. The Obama administration, for example, did not change any positions when it took office. However, the first Trump administration was more daring. It changed positions in four important cases during its first full term in the Supreme Court, including issues related to workers’ rights and voting regulations, and it won all four cases.
The Biden administration did not hesitate to change their stance on certain issues, distancing themselves from the methods used by the Trump administration in five instances. However, they were unsuccessful in four of these cases, as reported by Thomas Wolf from the Brennan Center for Justice.
Adam Liptak is a journalist who reports on the Supreme Court and writes a column called Sidebar about legal news. He went to Yale Law School and worked as a lawyer for 14 years before starting at The New York Times in 2002. Learn more about Adam Liptak.
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