The Supreme Court returns Monday to a landmark climate case with billions at stake, followed by fights over AR-15 bans, religion and Trump immigration policies.
Justices in Washington will hear arguments on Oct. 5 in a Boulder, Colorado, damages suit against fossil fuel companies over climate harms. The case is the first major argument after the summer break, and USA TODAY reported it could reshape how far cities and states may push national policy through the courts.
Dozens of similar lawsuits have been filed across the country. Billions of dollars are potentially on the line. Republican attorneys general are urging the court to draw a hard line against one state trying to police conduct in another.
West Virginia Solicitor General Michael Williams helped draft the filing opposing Boulder’s suit. He put the core objection in plain terms.
"We don’t think that there’s a role for one state to regulate the activities that are happening in another state,"
Williams said. That fight over state reach sits at the center of the term’s opening case, and it lands before a court with a 6-3 conservative majority.
Local governments want damages they say flow from climate change. Energy companies and red-state attorneys general say the lawsuits are a backdoor way to regulate the national economy. The justices will decide whether those claims belong in court at all.
Bridget Fahey of the University of Chicago Law School, who studies how the federal government and the states interact, framed the stakes beyond weather and emissions. She said the dispute also previews fights over state regulation of artificial intelligence.
"Even though it’s about climate change, which feels about as big as it comes, I do feel it’s a bit of a proxy case for another major regulatory question that we’re going to see in the coming years, which is state AI regulation,"
Fahey said. If Boulder prevails, other cities will keep filing. If the court shuts the door, the wave of suits loses force.
Taxpayers and energy workers have lived with the practical costs of these campaigns for years. The court now gets the chance to say whether local plaintiffs can keep using state courts to set national rules.
In November the justices will take up whether the Catholic Church may exclude children of gay parents from a taxpayer-funded preschool program in Colorado. The dispute sits inside a longer run of religion cases at the court.
Roman Martinez, a Latham & Watkins partner who argues often before the justices, told an audience at Georgetown Law’s Supreme Court Institute that the trend favors the church. He also noted Colorado’s recent record.
"Colorado, on the other hand, does not have a great track record in these cases,"
Martinez said. The same court previously held that Colorado’s ban on so-called conversion therapy for young people violated the free-speech rights of a Christian counselor.
Texas is also in the mix. The state requires public schools to display the Ten Commandments. The Louisiana-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, described as the nation’s most conservative appeals court, upheld the Texas law. A coalition of multifaith families, backed by the ACLU, has asked the Supreme Court to step in.
In 1980 the Supreme Court struck down a nearly identical Kentucky law. Five or ten years ago, legal experts would have assumed this court would do the same. Genevieve Lakier, a First Amendment scholar at the University of Chicago Law School, said silence from the justices would itself send a signal.
"This is going to be very illuminating if it doesn’t,"
Lakier said. Parents who want schools focused on reading and math, not contested religious displays forced by litigation, will watch closely. So will churches that run social programs with public money and refuse to revise their beliefs to keep the funding.
In December the court will hear combined cases from Illinois and Connecticut on state and local bans of semiautomatic rifles such as the AR-15. Millions of Americans own those rifles for lawful purposes.
The bans followed mass shootings. Gun-rights advocates say the restrictions collide with the landmark 2008 ruling that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess firearms for traditionally lawful purposes. Former Solicitor General Don Verrilli, who served under President Barack Obama, told the Georgetown Supreme Court Institute the cases put the court’s historical-regulation test under real strain.
"This case, of all of the Second Amendment cases so far, at least in my mind, puts that question really starkly,"
Verrilli said. He also predicted the court will not allow a flat ban on AR-15s. Lawful owners who followed every rule now wait to see whether blue-state legislatures can erase an entire class of common rifles by statute.
Public safety matters. So does the constitutional baseline. The court has already made clear that the right belongs to the people, not to whichever statehouse wants to redefine it after the news cycle turns.
The Trump administration’s hardline immigration approach will reach the court again. Justices are set to decide whether the government may detain millions of illegal immigrants without a chance to seek bond, and whether it may deport illegal immigrants to third countries without first hearing persecution or torture claims.
Those questions track recent fights already before the court, including when the Supreme Court lets Trump keep deporting illegal immigrants to third countries and when the administration moved to restore related authority after lower-court setbacks.
Border security and interior enforcement are core executive duties. Cities and advocacy groups that resist removal still want the justices to slow the process. The administration wants tools that match the scale of illegal entries and repeat violators.
Related petitions keep coming. The White House has continued to press detention authority, including when the Trump administration files two new Supreme Court petitions to revive immigration detention fight after adverse rulings below.
Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley law school, said the court has selected only about half the cases it will hear this term. He expects more challenges to Trump policies and more high-stakes arguments.
"I just think, given the Trump administration and the times we live in," "every term is going to have blockbuster cases."
Chemerinsky said. Last term the court rejected sweeping tariffs and an attempt to redefine birthright citizenship. The new docket still leaves ample room for immigration, enforcement, and separation-of-powers fights.
Another live thread is the effort to lock in third-country removals after appellate interference, the same dispute that produced a fresh push when the Trump administration asks Supreme Court to restore third-country deportation policy after appeals court setback.
December also brings argument over a Republican push to enforce strict Arizona voting laws. Election integrity remains a live issue for voters who want clear ID rules, clean rolls, and deadlines that mean what they say.
Cecilia Wang, national legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, said attention is already fixed on the November midterms and the emergency applications that often follow.
"Everyone’s eyes are on the election," "You can expect emergency applications to go up to the court relating to the election."
Wang said. The shadow docket has become a regular stop for late map fights, ballot rules, and counting disputes. Redistricting flashpoints still travel the same path, including when Missouri's redistricting chaos heads back to the Supreme Court with days to spare.
Trump has not hesitated to answer the court in public when a ruling cuts against Republican maps, a pattern visible after Trump blasts Supreme Court after justices block Missouri redistricting map. The institutional conflict is familiar. The legal questions keep returning.
What the term will not be is quiet. Climate plaintiffs want nationwide leverage from a single city suit. States want to ban common rifles. Regulators and activists want religious schools and churches to bend. Open-borders advocates want detention and removal slowed at every turn. The conservative majority now has the cases in front of it.
Lawful gun owners, congregations, border communities, and voters who expect clean elections do not need another season of elite improvisation. They need clear rules, enforced as written.