Major Supreme Court Rulings On State Laws This Session

The U.S. Supreme Court recently ended its latest term after ruling on several controversial state laws, ranging from restrictions on gun permits to religious school funding.

None, however, had the breadth of its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, a ruling that has shaken America to its core. 

Court Strikes Down Roe v. Wade, Allowing States to Ban Abortion

In 2018, Mississippi’s Republican-dominated legislature enacted a law making most abortions illegal after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

That’s about two months earlier than what’s allowed under Roe v. Wade, the landmark, 1973 Supreme Court decision that established a constitutional right to abortion. Generally, doctors don’t consider a fetus to be viable until 24 weeks gestation.

The law never went into effect as it was immediately challenged in court, with both a district court judge and a federal appeals court blocking its enforcement.

In 2021, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Mississippi’s appeal. In arguments, the state’s attorneys contended that not only should the law be upheld, but that the Supreme Court should strike down the constitutional protections enshrined under Roe.

With a conservative majority, many feared the court would do just that – and in May, Politico confirmed those fears when it got its hands on a leaked draft of a majority opinion that upheld the Mississippi law and struck down Roe.

The ensuing firestorm that erupted in the wake of Politico’s scoop gave some hope that the public outcry might pressure the court into reversing its decision, but it never did. On June 24, the court published a 5-4 majority decision that adhered closely to the draft Politico posted.

The court’s ruling now allows states to ban abortion. Roughly half could do that. In response, a number of the nation’s largest and most high-profile companies announced they would provide financial and other assistance to their female employees – and in some cases, their dependents – who reside in states that ban abortion services should those workers need to seek out that care.

Apple, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Meta, Microsoft, Disney, Nike, Starbucks, and Goldman Sachs are just some of the corporations that have made such a pledge.

But lawmakers in Texas have also indicated their intention to punish companies that offer to pay the expenses of employees who travel out of state for abortions. Businesses in states that ban abortion care may also have to revisit their employee health plans to avoid legal complications.

The decision is also anticipated to impact several mid-term elections this fall including the races for governor in Pennsylvania, Kansas, and Michigan as well as bids for the Virginia legislature and the Wisconsin state Senate.

Perhaps more disturbing to many progressives, the supporting opinion from Justice Clarence Thomas on Dobbs appears to indicate a willingness to consider striking down several other rights many Americans have come to take for granted, including access to contraceptives and the ability of same-sex couples to marry.

Gun Rights Expanded in Ruling on Old New York Law

In November 2021, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on a case challenging a 1913 New York law that requires anyone applying for a concealed carry permit to show they have a special need to be armed. California and at least six other states impose similar limits.  

The New York State Rifle & Pistol Association argued that such restrictions improperly infringed on Second Amendment rights.

The court struck down the old New York law, ruling that Americans have a right to carry a gun to defend themselves. The ruling, the Supreme Court’s most significant on the Second Amendment in more than a decade, said the Empire State law was unconstitutionally limiting.

In effect, the court’s decision expanded gun rights under the Constitution, a major win for Second Amendment advocates.

“We know of no other constitutional right that an individual may exercise only after demonstrating to government officers some special need,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority. “That is not how the First Amendment works when it comes to unpopular speech or the free exercise of religion. It is not how the Sixth Amendment works when it comes to a defendant’s right to confront the witnesses against him. And it is not how the Second Amendment works when it comes to public carry for self-defense.”

The 6-3 decision, made along partisan lines, was met with indignation by the Left, with President Biden releasing a statement saying he was “deeply disappointed” with the ruling, adding that it “contradicts both common sense and the Constitution, and should deeply trouble us all.”

Maine Tuition Ruling Narrows Separation of Church and State

In August 2018, parents in Maine sued the Commissioner of the Maine Department of Education over the state’s policy not to provide funding to religious schools.

Under the Pine Tree State’s constitution, towns in Maine are required to support their local public schools at their own expense. To do so, the Maine Legislature divided the state into 260 school administrative units and requires each unit to fund schools in its area.

However, less than half of the units in the state contain a public secondary school. As a result, Maine statute allows these school administrative units to either contract with a nearby public secondary school or to pay the tuition for public or “approved” private school of a parent’s choice.

In order for a private school to be approved under the state’s rules, it must be “nonsectarian.”

The parents who sued claimed that this requirement breached their First Amendment right to religion; they argued that the school administrative units should be able to use public money to pay the children’s tuition to religious schools.

The court, in another 6-3 ruling along party lines, ruled that Maine could not block religious schools from its tuition assistance program.

“Maine’s ‘nonsectarian’ requirement for its otherwise generally available tuition assistance payments violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. “Regardless of how the benefit and restriction are described, the program operates to identify and exclude otherwise eligible schools on the basis of their religious exercise.”

Once again, those on the Left were disgusted by the decision.

“Today, the court leads us to a place where separation of church and state becomes a constitutional violation,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissenting opinion.

Unusually United Court Allows NC GOP to Defend Voter ID Law

In a change from its partisan rulings, the court ruled 8-1 that North Carolina’s Republican-dominated legislature could defend a voter ID law it passed because it thought the state’s attorney general, a Democrat, wasn’t doing enough to fight for it.

In 2018, voters in the state approved an amendment to the North Carolina Constitution requiring a photo ID to vote in person. The state legislature later passed a law to specify how the amendment would be enacted. That law was vetoed by North Carolina’s Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, but the legislature overrode his veto.

The NAACP filed suit over the law, saying that it discriminated against voters of color. A federal judge issued an injunction, but an appeals court lifted it.

But the law has still not been enacted because of separate litigation in state court. The matter eventually will go before the North Carolina Supreme Court.

North Carolina’s Democratic attorney general, Josh Stein, defended the law in court. But Republican lawmakers in the Tar Heel State said his defense was inadequate.  

The Supreme Court did not address legality of the voter ID law itself, which is not considered to be particularly tough.

Will Conservative Rulings Lead to SCOTUS Expansion?

When Democrats reclaimed the White House and the U.S. Senate in 2020, many progressives struck up the battle cry to use their majority to expand the Supreme Court to mitigate the court’s stark lurch to the far right. That furor died down amidst the reality that they did not have the votes in the Senate to make such a change happen.

Will that change come now in light of the high court’s ruling on Dobbs?

Several U.S. House Democrats renewed the call in May when the court’s abortion ruling was leaked to Politico. There is also growing public discontent with the court, as a June Gallup poll taken before the release of the Dobbs ruling showed only 25 percent of Americans have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the SCOTUS.

But even if a bill to add justices or impose term limits on them could get through a drastically polarized Congress – during an election year no less - White House press secretary Karin Jean-Pierre said President Biden opposes the idea.

--By SNCJ Correspondent Brian Joseph

State Abortion Laws Post-Dobbs

Twenty-one states either already ban or restrict abortion, or will likely do so in the near future, as a result of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, according to The New York Times. Abortion is currently legal and will likely remain so in 20 states. In the other nine states, the legal status of abortion is yet to be determined by the courts or state lawmakers.