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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 could be influenced by the change in administration since the federal government initiated the challenge.
Written by Adam Liptak
News coverage from the
The legal case being discussed on Wednesday involves transgender rights and is known as United States v. Skrmetti. This means that it is a lawsuit initiated by the federal government.
The government’s control is expected to shift 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.
Normally, 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 took office. In March of that year, the Supreme Court decided not to rule on a case involving the rights of transgender students, specifically regarding whether a transgender boy in Virginia should be allowed to use the boys’ bathroom at his high school, after the Trump administration changed its stance on the issue.
However, there is a complication in this situation. The Tennessee law was originally challenged by three families and a doctor, with the Biden administration getting involved to support them. Both the families and the government submitted separate requests for the Supreme Court to review the case, but only the government’s petition was accepted by the justices.
Instead of immediately throwing out 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 stick with the one presented on Wednesday by Chase Strangio from the ACLU and Elizabeth B. Prelogar from the U.S. solicitor general’s office, who is representing the Biden administration.
In the past, new administrations typically did not change their stances on issues frequently. For example, when the Obama administration took office, it did not alter its positions. However, the first Trump administration was more bold in this regard. It changed its stance on four major cases during its first full Supreme Court term, including issues related to workers’ rights and voting rolls, and succeeded in all four cases.
The Biden administration was not hesitant to change their stance on certain issues. They rejected the approaches taken by the Trump administration on five occasions, and ultimately lost in four of those cases, as reported by Thomas Wolf from the Brennan Center for Justice.
Adam Liptak writes about the happenings in the Supreme Court and also writes a column called Sidebar that focuses on 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.
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