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What will occur with the case if the Trump Administration changes its position? The outcome of the case before the Supreme Court may be impacted by the change in administration, as the federal government initially brought the challenge.
Written by Adam Liptak
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The case regarding transgender rights being heard by the Supreme Court on Wednesday is known as United States v. Skrmetti, indicating that it is a legal dispute initiated by the federal government.
Next month, there will be a shift in government control, and it is highly likely that the Trump administration will reject the Biden administration’s stance that a Tennessee law restricting certain medical treatments for transgender minors goes against the Constitution.
Typically, if both parties agree that the law is constitutional, there would be no need for the justices to make a decision.
In 2017, a similar situation occurred when President-elect Donald J. Trump took office. In March of that year, the Trump administration changed its stance on the rights of transgender students, 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 stepping in to support them. Both the families and the government submitted their own 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 decide to listen to a new argument or use the one presented on Wednesday by Chase Strangio of the ACLU and Elizabeth B. Prelogar, the U.S. solicitor general representing the Biden administration.
In the past, new administrations typically did not make many changes to their positions. For example, the Obama administration did not change any positions when it took office. However, the first Trump administration was more daring in this regard. It changed positions in four significant cases during its first full Supreme Court term, including those related to workers’ rights and voting rolls, and it was successful in all four cases.
The Biden administration did not hesitate to change their stance on issues that differed from the Trump administration. In five instances, they rejected the approaches taken by the previous administration. Out of those five cases, they were unsuccessful in four, as reported by Thomas Wolf from the Brennan Center for Justice.
Adam Liptak is a journalist who specializes in covering the Supreme Court and writes a column called Sidebar that focuses on legal news. He attended Yale Law School and worked as a lawyer for 14 years before starting his career at The New York Times in 2002. To learn more about Adam Liptak, click here.
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