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If the Trump Administration changes its stance on a case, it could impact the outcome in the Supreme Court because the federal government initially brought the challenge.
Written by Adam Liptak
Writing from the capital
The case regarding trans rights that the justices are considering on Wednesday is known as United States v. Skrmetti, indicating that it is a legal dispute initiated by the federal government.
However, there will be a change in government leadership next month, and it is highly likely that the Trump administration will reject the Biden administration’s claim that a Tennessee law prohibiting certain medical treatments for transgender minors goes against the Constitution.
Typically, this would indicate that there would be no further need for the judges to make a decision, since both parties would agree that the law is constitutional.
In 2017, a similar situation occurred when President-elect Donald J. Trump was inaugurated. In March of that year, the Supreme Court decided to dismiss a case involving the rights of transgender students. This decision came after the Trump administration changed its stance on the issue. The case in question was about a transgender boy from Virginia who wanted to use the boys’ bathroom at his high school.
However, there is a complicating factor. Three families and a doctor originally challenged the Tennessee law, with the Biden administration joining their side. Both the families and the government submitted separate requests for the Supreme Court to review the case, and the justices chose to only consider the government’s petition.
Instead of immediately rejecting the case, the court has the option to approve the companion petition at a later time. Another argument could be presented to the court, or they could choose to use the one from Wednesday, where a lawyer from the ACLU and the U.S. solicitor general will be representing the families and the Biden administration.
In the past, new administrations rarely altered their stances on important issues. For example, the Obama administration did not change any positions when they took office. However, the first Trump administration was more daring in this regard. They switched positions on four significant cases during their first full term in the Supreme Court, such as workers’ rights and voting rolls, and they succeeded in all four cases.
The Biden administration did not hesitate to change stances on policies previously held by the Trump administration. They rejected the approaches taken by the previous administration in five situations, but ended up losing four of those cases, as reported by Thomas Wolf from the Brennan Center for Justice.
Adam Liptak is a journalist who writes about the Supreme Court and legal news in his column called Sidebar. He went to Yale Law School and worked as a lawyer for 14 years before starting at The New York Times in 2002. To learn more about Adam Liptak, click here.
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