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If the Trump Administration changes its position on the case, it could impact the outcome of the case before the Supreme Court because the federal government brought the initial challenge.
Written by Adam Liptak
Writing from the capital
The case being heard by the justices on Wednesday is about transgender rights and is known as United States v. Skrmetti. This means that it is a legal challenge initiated by the federal government.
However, the Biden administration’s argument that a Tennessee law restricting certain medical treatments for transgender minors violates the Constitution is likely to be rejected by the incoming government, controlled by Trump.
Typically, this would indicate that there would be no further decisions for the judges to make, as both parties would then be in agreement that the law was constitutional.
In 2017, a similar situation occurred when President-elect Donald J. Trump assumed office. In March of that year, the Supreme Court decided to dismiss a case involving the rights of transgender students after the Trump administration changed its stance. The case was about 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, and the Biden administration got involved to support them. Both the families and the government submitted requests for the Supreme Court to review the case, but the justices only accepted the government’s petition.
Instead of immediately rejecting the case, the court may choose to accept the companion petition at a later time. The court could consider a new argument or stick with the one presented on Wednesday by Chase Strangio from the ACLU and Elizabeth B. Prelogar from the U.S. solicitor general, who is representing the Biden administration.
In the past, new administrations typically made few changes to their positions. For example, the Obama administration did not change positions at all when it started. However, the first Trump administration was more bold in this regard. It changed positions in four significant cases during its first full term in the Supreme Court, including cases on workers’ rights and voting rolls, and was successful in all four.
The Biden administration made it clear that they were not hesitant to change their stance on certain issues. They rejected the methods used by the Trump administration on five occasions, but only won one of those cases, as reported by Thomas Wolf of the Brennan Center for Justice.
Adam Liptak is a journalist who specializes in reporting on the Supreme Court and legal news through his column called Sidebar. He graduated from Yale Law School and worked as a lawyer for 14 years before starting his career at The New York Times in 2002. For more information about Adam Liptak, click here.
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