NewsMacroTrump Administration Petitions Supreme Court to Take Up 13 Additional Cases

Trump Administration Petitions Supreme Court to Take Up 13 Additional Cases

Author: Alternet·

Key Takeaways

  • •The Trump administration has petitioned the Supreme Court to take up 13 additional cases, based on The Hill's review of the court's docket.
  • •The requested cases cover topics including an asylum ban, transgender troops, foreign student deportations, university grant cuts, U.S. attorney firings, nationwide injunctions, immigration bond hearings, horseracing, an Idaho land exchange, and damages claims against government officials.
  • •Since the justices accept only a small share of petitions, their rulings on these requests will decide which disputes are heard this term and which lower-court decisions remain in effect.
  • •The Supreme Court has usually favored the administration this term, though it has ruled against it on tariffs and transgender care for inmates.
  • •The court's six-justice conservative majority has faced criticism from liberal justices such as Elena Kagan, while Clarence Thomas has defended its direction as a response to ideological change dating back more than a century.
Trump Administration Petitions Supreme Court to Take Up 13 Additional Cases

Editor's Note: This story and its headline have been updated for accuracy. AlterNet regrets the error.

President Donald Trump's administration is petitioning the Supreme Court to take up 13 additional cases, according to an analysis of the court's docket by The Hill.

“The Supreme Court is already confronting President Trump's agenda this term, but a lot more is still coming,” reported The Hill's Zach Schonfeld on Sunday. “The administration is petitioning the justices to take up 13 additional cases, The Hill's analysis of the court's docket shows.”

“Unlike lower courts, the choose which cases they hear. They're still taking up cases for this term, meaning the battles could be resolved as soon as next year,” he added.

“From transgender troops to an asylum ban, from foreign student deportations to horseracing, here's where the Supreme Court could soon get involved,” Schonfeld continued.

The matters the administration wants the justices to hear include the asylum ban, transgender troops, foreign student deportations, university grant cuts, U.S. attorney firings, nationwide injunctions, immigration bond hearings, horseracing, an Idaho land exchange, and attorneys' fees and damages against government officials. Because the justices accept only a small share of the cases they are asked to review, their decisions on these petitions will determine which of the disputes actually reach the courtroom this term — and which lower-court rulings stand for now.

Since the start of Trump's second term, the Supreme Court has ruled in a series of landmark cases, usually in the president's favor. The court has sided with the administration on issues ranging from the construction of a White House ballroom to the firing of federal officials at will and the maintenance of lists of purported non-citizens to be barred from voting. The administration has occasionally lost, however, including on tariffs and transgender care for inmates. The justices' orders on the new petitions, expected as they continue filling the term's argument calendar, will show which of those battles the administration brings to the court next.

The Supreme Court is led by a conservative wing of six members, with a three-member liberal wing in the minority. The liberal justices have been frequently critical of their conservative colleagues, especially in recent months.

“Part of the reason why the court got it wrong was a kind of lack of the appropriate concern or understanding of the consequences of their decisions,” Justice Elena Kagan said in October at Catholic University's law school in Washington, D.C. “I do think in all these areas the court has blinded itself to the very deleterious effects of their rulings on how the political system works and has created a democracy that doesn't work as well as it should.”

Conservative justices, by contrast, have defended the court's current conservative direction as a response to ideological change dating back more than a century.

“At the beginning of the twentieth century, a new set of first principles of government was introduced into the American mainstream,” Justice Clarence Thomas argued in April. “The proponents of this new set of first principles, most prominently among them the twenty-eighth president, Woodrow Wilson, called it progressivism.”