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Sarah and David open this live taping from the SCOTUSblog Summit: 2026 Term Preview by bringing on SCOTUSblog’s Amy Howe to dissect the Supreme Court’s one-paragraph rejection of the Trump administration’s bid to revive its mail-in ballot restrictions for the 2026 midterms. From there, Amy explains why an immigration bond-hearing case vanished from the docket.
The three then launch into their traditional term preview, sparring over which OT 2026 case deserves the crown as the most important: David nominates Viramontes v. Cook County, while Amy counters with Suncor Energy v. County Commissioners of Boulder County’s climate-nuisance suit against the oil majors. They also work through the fight over Colorado’s universal preschool program, Arizona’s proof-of-citizenship voting law, and the excessive-fines showdown over a seized airplane and a case of beer.
Agenda
- [0:54] Decision handed down in Trump’s mail voting case
- [11:14] What case got dropped this term
- [14:58] The most important case this term
- [21:40] Climate change on trial?
- [31:51] Religious liberty and rolling our eyes at Colorado
- [40:22] Is Trump going to win this one?
- [55:49] What’s still to come
Episode Takeaways
- Trump goes zero-for-everything on election challenges: The Supreme Court held that the government was “unlikely to succeed on the merits” of its challenge to a district court injunction blocking new mail-in ballot rules for 2026, prompting a Truth Social post from President Donald Trump about three times longer than the opinion itself, in which he called the justices he nominated “merely a shell of their original selves.” Justice Brett Kavanaugh concurred alone, writing that the Postal Service’s rule might be lawful in principle but came too late for state officials to implement before the election; Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented. Amy said the door remains open “at least a crack” for the fight to return in 2028, though David wondered how much appetite Trump will have for it once his own name is off the ballot.
- A case that mooted itself off the docket: Amy walked through Genalo v. Black, which asked whether non-citizens in immigration detention have a constitutional right to a bond hearing, an issue left open by 2018’s Jennings v. Rodriguez. The case fell apart after Governor Kathy Hochul pardoned one of the two noncitizens for the state assault conviction underlying his deportation case, prompting a joint dismissal. Sarah bristled at how often one side moots a case once cert is granted, but Amy and David defended the practice as basic legal ethics. In David’s words, “You represent a client, not a cause.”
- The AR-15 case as the third act of a trilogy: David called Viramontes v. Cook County, which asks whether the Second Amendment protects semi-automatic rifles, the term’s most important case – not because of the underlying gun policy, but because it will assess whether the Bruen framework’s “text, history, and tradition” test has developed any real shape, or whether it still comes down to what Justice Neil Gorsuch once told David: “It’s about judgment.” Sarah walked through the doctrinal lineage in full, and David argued the case is far harder than its predecessors.
- The culture-war case hiding in the business docket: Amy named Suncor Energy v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, the climate-nuisance suit seeking to hold oil companies liable under state law for damage tied to climate change, as her pick for the most important case scheduled for argument so far. Sarah argued Suncor is a culture-war case on par with Citizens United v. FEC or Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, since a ruling either way would resolve dozens of pending climate suits nationwide; David agreed on the stakes but doubted the public will ever engage with an issue this technical, especially with climate change “receding” behind more immediate controversies like tariffs and AI.
- What’s still coming down the pipeline: Sarah, Amy, and David closed by cataloging cases still working their way to the Court, including paired Ten Commandments-in-classrooms disputes out of Texas and Louisiana, United States v. Talbott over the discharge of transgender service members, the “Let’s Go Brandon” sweatshirt case, additional Second Amendment cases that may be held pending Viramontes, a possible return of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook’s removal fight, and immigrant free-speech and asylum questions David expects the Court to take up eventually.