Supreme Court Addresses Voting, Redistricting, and Advertising Cases

Why it matters locally: The Supreme Court's decisions on voting regulations and congressional redistricting could influence future election processes and representation for West Virginia. The consideration of cases challenging bans on semiautomatic rifles may also be of interest to residents given the state's strong Second Amendment protections.

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The Supreme Court has addressed several significant legal matters, including voting regulations, congressional redistricting, and political advertising rates. These developments occurred as the court released its December argument calendar and its final summer order list. On Sunday, the Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court a federal judge's ruling that blocked parts of a U.S. Postal Service rule on mail-in ballots. This marked the administration's second appeal on the issue after withdrawing an earlier application. U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer stated the ruling "nullif[ies] the Postal Service’s efforts to address the risk that the federal mails will be used to perpetrate voter fraud." Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court on Friday, asking the justices to allow the state to use its new congressional map in upcoming midterm elections. Hoskins characterized the situation as "[a] federal-election-administration disaster." The map, adopted last year and used in August primary elections, could potentially result in an additional U.S. House seat for Republicans. Richard von Glahn, a challenger in the case and an organizer for a referendum on the new map, responded to Hoskins' request on Monday, stating the case "does not present a real emergency." In a separate development, Republican groups requested the Supreme Court block a U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit decision concerning preferential broadcast rates for political ads. On Friday, the court agreed to temporarily pause that ruling. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from this decision. The Supreme Court also released its calendar for the December argument session, scheduled from November 30 to December 9. Among the cases scheduled for argument on December 2 are two challenges concerning the constitutionality of bans on AR-15s and other semiautomatic rifles, *Viramontes v. Cook County* and *Grant v. Higgins*, which have been consolidated. Additionally, the court released its third and final summer order list on Friday. This list included the denial of a petition for rehearing from New York healthcare workers who sought a religious exemption from the state's COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The workers lost their jobs after not being vaccinated. Justice Fred Vinson, who served on the Supreme Court for seven years, died unexpectedly at age 63 on this day in 1953 from a heart attack.