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If the Trump Administration changes its stance, it could impact the outcome of the case before the Supreme Court because the federal government initiated the challenge.
Written by Adam Liptak
Writing from the capital
The case being discussed by the judges on Wednesday is about trans rights and is known as United States v. Skrmetti. This means that it is a legal challenge initiated by the federal government.
Next month, there will be a change in government control, 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 is unconstitutional.
Typically, this would indicate that there would be no need for the justices to make a decision, since both parties would agree that the law is constitutional.
In 2017, there was a situation where President-elect Donald J. Trump took office. In March of that year, the Trump administration changed its stance on transgender students’ rights, leading to the Supreme Court dropping 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 supporting their side. Both the families and the government submitted separate requests for the Supreme Court to review the case, and the justices decided to only accept the petition from the government.
Instead of rejecting 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 it could 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 made few changes to their positions. For example, when Obama took office, he did not change any positions. However, the first Trump administration was more daring, changing positions in four important cases during its first full term in the Supreme Court. These changes included issues related to workers’ rights and voting rolls, and the administration was successful in all four cases.
The Biden administration did not hesitate to change its stance on certain issues, distancing itself from the Trump administration’s approaches five times. However, it was unsuccessful in four of those cases, as noted 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 attended Yale Law School and worked as a lawyer for 14 years before starting his career at The New York Times in 2002.
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