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What will occur with the lawsuit if the Trump Administration changes its stance? The outcome of the case before the Supreme Court may be impacted by the change in leadership within the federal government, as they were the ones who initiated the challenge.
Written by Adam Liptak
Updating 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 case involves a challenge initiated by the federal government.
However, the upcoming change in government control next month will likely result in the Trump administration rejecting the argument made by the Biden administration 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 decisions for the judges to make, since both parties would then be in agreement that the law is 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 regarding the rights of transgender students after the Trump administration changed its stance. The case in question 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 originally challenged the Tennessee law, with the Biden administration stepping in to support them. Both the families and the government submitted their own appeals to the Supreme Court, but only the government’s petition was accepted by the justices.
Instead of throwing out the case, the court has the option to approve the companion petition at a later time. The court may listen to a new argument or refer back to the one presented on Wednesday, where a lawyer from the American Civil Liberties Union, Chase Strangio, will present alongside Elizabeth B. Prelogar, the U.S. solicitor general, who is representing the Biden administration.
In the past, new administrations typically did not switch positions frequently. For example, when the Obama administration took office, they did not change positions in any cases. However, the first Trump administration was more daring and changed positions in four significant cases during its first full term in the Supreme Court. These cases involved workers’ rights and voting rolls, and the administration was successful in all four instances.
The Biden administration did not hesitate to change its stance on certain issues. It rejected the strategies of the previous Trump administration on five occasions, but only won one out of those 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 studied at Yale Law School and worked as a lawyer for 14 years before starting at The New York Times in 2002. For additional information about Adam Liptak, click here.
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