Factbox-Top cases on the US Supreme Court’s docket

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(Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court has taken up a series of cases to be decided during its new nine-month term that begins on Monday, involving issues such as presidential powers, tariffs, transgender athletes, guns, race, campaign finance law, gay “conversion therapy,” religious rights and capital punishment.

Here is a look at some of the cases due to be argued during the court’s upcoming term. The court also separately has acted on an emergency basis in a number of cases involving challenges to President Donald Trump’s policies.

LOUISIANA ELECTORAL DISTRICTS

The court’s conservative justices signaled their willingness to undercut another key section of the Voting Rights Act, the landmark 1965 law enacted by Congress to prevent racial discrimination in voting, during arguments on October 15 in a major case involving Louisiana electoral districts. The case focuses upon the law’s Section 2, which bars voting maps that would result in diluting the clout of minorities, even without direct proof of racist intent. A lower court found that a Louisiana electoral map laying out the state’s six U.S. House of Representatives districts – with two Black-majority districts, up from one previously – violated the Constitution’s promise of equal protection. A ruling is expected by the end of June.

TRUMP TARIFFS

The court has agreed to decide the legality of Trump’s sweeping global tariffs, setting up a major test of one of his boldest assertions of executive power that has been central to his economic and trade agenda. The Justice Department appealed a lower court’s ruling that Trump overstepped his authority in imposing most of his tariffs under a federal law meant for emergencies. The case implicates trillions of dollars in customs duties over the next decade. The lower court ruled that Trump overreached in invoking a 1977 law known as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose the tariffs. That ruling came in challenges by five small businesses and 12 U.S. states. The arguments also will include a separate challenge brought by a toy company. Arguments are scheduled for November 5.

TRUMP’S FIRING OF FED OFFICIAL

The justices will hear arguments on Trump’s attempt to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook in a major legal battle over the first-ever bid by a president to fire a Fed official as he challenges the central bank’s independence. The court declined to immediately decide a Justice Department request to put on hold a judge’s order that temporarily blocked Trump from removing Cook. In creating the Fed in 1913, Congress passed a law called the Federal Reserve Act that included provisions to shield the central bank from political interference, requiring governors to be removed by a president only “for cause,” though the law does not define the term nor establish procedures for removal. Arguments are scheduled for January, though the precise date has not yet been set.

FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION FIRING

The justices will hear arguments over Trump’s firing of a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission in a major test of presidential power over government agencies designed by Congress to be independent. The court has let Trump remove Rebecca Slaughter for now while the case plays out. Slaughter sued after being dismissed from the consumer protection and antitrust agency before her term expires in 2029. The case gives the court a chance to overrule a landmark 90-year-old precedent upholding job protections put in place by Congress to give the heads of certain federal agencies a degree of independence from presidential control. A judge rejected the administration’s argument that the tenure protections unlawfully encroach on presidential power. Arguments are scheduled for December 8.

LGBT ‘CONVERSION THERAPY’

The court’s conservatives during arguments on October 7 appeared ready to side with a challenge on free speech grounds to a Colorado law banning psychotherapists from conducting “conversion therapy” that aims to change a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity. A Christian licensed counselor challenged the law under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment protections against government abridgment of free speech. Colorado said it is regulating professional conduct, not speech, and has the legal authority to forbid a healthcare practice it considers unsafe and ineffective. A lower court upheld the law. A ruling is expected by the end of June.

TRANSGENDER SPORTS PARTICIPATION

The court will hear a bid by Idaho and West Virginia to enforce their state laws banning transgender athletes from female sports teams at public schools, taking up another civil rights challenge to Republican-backed restrictions on transgender people. Idaho and West Virginia appealed decisions by lower courts siding with transgender students who sued. The plaintiffs argued that the laws discriminate based on sex and transgender status in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection as well as the Title IX civil rights statute that bars sex-based discrimination in education. No date has been set for the arguments.

HAWAII GUN LAW

The justices took up a challenge to a Hawaii law restricting the carrying of handguns on private property that is open to the public such as most businesses, giving the court a chance to further expand gun rights. Three Hawaii residents with concealed carry licenses and a Honolulu-based gun rights advocacy group appealed a lower court’s determination that Hawaii’s measure likely complies with the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. The Hawaii law requires concealed carry licensees to get an owner’s consent before bringing a handgun onto private property open to the public. No date has been set for the arguments.

DRUG USERS AND GUNS

The justices will hear the Trump administration’s bid in a case involving a dual American-Pakistani citizen in Texas to defend a federal law that bars users of illegal drugs from owning guns. This law was one of the statutes under which former President Joe Biden’s son Hunter was charged in 2023. The justices took up the Justice Department’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling that found the gun restriction largely ran afoul of the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment right to “keep and bear arms.” The prohibition on gun possession by users of illegal drugs was part of the landmark Gun Control Act of 1968. No date has been set for the arguments.

CAMPAIGN FINANCE

The court has agreed to hear a Republican-led challenge on free speech grounds to a provision of federal campaign finance law that limits spending by political parties in coordination with candidates running for office in a case involving Vice President JD Vance. Two Republican committees and Vance, who was running for the U.S. Senate in Ohio when the litigation began, appealed a lower court’s ruling that upheld restrictions on the amount of money parties can spend on campaigns with input from candidates they support. At issue is whether federal limits on coordinated campaign spending violate the Constitution’s First Amendment protection against government abridgment of freedom of speech. Arguments are scheduled for December 9.

CRISIS PREGNANCY CENTERS 

The court will consider reviving a New Jersey crisis pregnancy center operator’s bid to block the Democratic-led state’s attorney general from investigating whether the Christian faith-based organization deceived women into believing it offered abortions. First Choice Women’s Resource Centers appealed a lower court’s ruling that the organization must first contest the attorney general’s subpoena in state court before bringing a federal lawsuit challenging it. Crisis pregnancy centers provide services to pregnant women with the goal of preventing them from having abortions and do not advertise their anti-abortion stance. First Choice has argued it has a right to bring its case in federal court because it was alleging a violation of its First Amendment rights to free speech and free association. Arguments are scheduled for December 2.

RASTAFARIAN INMATE

The justices took up a Rastafarian man’s bid to sue state prison officials in Louisiana after guards held him down and shaved him bald in violation of his religious beliefs. Damon Landor, whose religion requires him to let his hair grow, appealed a lower court’s decision to throw out his lawsuit brought under a U.S. law that protects against religious infringement by state and local governments. The lower court found that this law did not permit Landor to sue individual officials for monetary damages. The law at issue protects the religious rights of people confined to institutions such as prisons and jails. Arguments are scheduled for November 10.

DEATH ROW INMATE

The court has decided to hear an appeal by Alabama officials of a judicial decision that a man convicted of a 1997 murder is intellectually disabled – a finding that spared him from the death penalty – as they press ahead with the Republican-governed state’s bid to execute him. A lower court ruled that Joseph Clifton Smith is intellectually disabled based on its analysis of his IQ test scores and expert testimony. Under a 2002 Supreme Court precedent, executing an intellectually disabled person violates the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment bar on cruel and unusual punishment. Arguments are scheduled for December 10.

EXXON CLAIMS FOR CUBA COMPENSATION

The justices will hear ExxonMobil’s bid to obtain compensation from Cuban state-owned firms for oil and gas assets seized in 1960 under a federal law that lets Americans sue foreign companies and individuals over property confiscated by the communist-ruled country. Exxon appealed a lower court’s ruling that undercut its legal efforts to win such compensation from Cuban state-owned companies that allegedly have profited from stolen property in litigation invoking a 1996 U.S. law called the Helms-Burton Act. The court also took up a similar bid by a Delaware-registered company that built port facilities in Havana seized in 1960 by Cuba’s government to revive $440 million in judgments against Carnival, Norwegian Cruise Line and two other cruise lines that have used the terminal. No dates have been set for the arguments.

(Reporting by John Kruzel, Andrew Chung, Blake Brittain, Jan Wolfe and Nate Raymond; Editing by Will Dunham)