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If the Trump Administration changes its stance on the case, it could impact its outcome in front of the Supreme Court because the federal government is the one who initially raised the challenge.
Written by Adam Liptak
Writing from the capital
The case being heard by the justices on Wednesday is about trans rights and is known as United States v. Skrmetti. This case involves a challenge brought by the federal government.
However, the upcoming change in government control will likely result in the Trump administration rejecting the Biden administration’s claim that a Tennessee law restricting certain medical treatments for transgender minors goes against the Constitution.
Typically, this would indicate that there would be no need for the judges to make a decision, since both parties would agree 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 dropped a case involving the rights of transgender students after the Trump administration changed its stance. The case was about whether a transgender boy in Virginia should be allowed to use the boys’ bathroom at his high school.
However, there is a complication in this situation. Three families and a doctor were the ones who first opposed the Tennessee law, with the Biden administration joining their side. Both the families and the government submitted different requests for the Supreme Court to review the case, and the justices chose to consider only 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 choose to consider a different argument or use 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 reverse any positions when it took office. However, the first Trump administration was more daring in this regard. It changed positions in four important cases during its first full term in the Supreme Court, such as those concerning workers’ rights and voting rolls, and succeeded in all four.
The Biden administration was not hesitant to change its stance on certain issues. They disagreed with the approaches taken by the Trump administration on five occasions, and ended up losing in four of those instances, as reported by Thomas Wolf from the Brennan Center for Justice.
Adam Liptak writes about the Supreme Court and legal updates in his column called Sidebar. He went to Yale Law School and worked as a lawyer for 14 years before starting at The Times in 2002. Learn more about Adam Liptak.
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