The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to review a decision by the Wisconsin Supreme Court rejecting efforts by Catholic Charities to seek an exemption from the state’s unemployment tax. Catholic Charities contends that both it and the four agencies that operate under its umbrella qualify for the exemption because they are operated “primarily for religious purposes.” The group, which is controlled by the bishop of the diocese of Superior, says that the state supreme court’s contrary decision, which rested on its conclusion that the group’s activities are not “typical” religious activities, violates the First Amendment.
In a brief list of orders
from the justices’ private conference earlier in the day, the justices also agreed to weigh in on whether a group of fuel producers have a legal right to sue, known as standing, to challenge California’s role in the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.
An additional list of orders from Friday’s conference, including the list of cases that the justices have declined to review, is expected on Monday morning.
The Wisconsin dispute dates back to 2016, when the Catholic Charities Bureau in the Diocese of Superior, Wis., sought a determination that it and four of its agencies – which provide a variety of services to people with disabilities – were exempt from the state’s unemployment tax. The case made its way to the state supreme court, which earlier this year ruled for the state.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court explained that to determine whether an organization is “operated primarily for religious purposes” and therefore qualifies for the tax exemption, both the organization’s motivations and its activities are relevant.
In this case, the court accepted “at face value” assertions by Catholic Charities and the four agencies that their services were “based on gospel values and the principles of the Catholic Social Teachings.” But the court found it dispositive that the activities of Catholic Charities and the agencies were “primarily charitable and secular.” The groups do not “attempt to imbue program participants with the Catholic faith nor supply any religious materials to program participants or employees,” the court stressed.
Catholic Charities came to the Supreme Court last summer
, asking the justices to weigh in. The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s decision, it argued, “thrusts state governments into a thicket of First Amendment questions,” “not least because it forces agencies and courts to second-guess the religious decisions of religious bodies.” The question matters, the group added, because it means that Catholic Charities and others like it must pay unemployment taxes with money “that otherwise could be helping the needy.”
The state urged the justices to stay out of the dispute, insisting that courts “routinely deny religious tax exemptions to entities that assert religious motivations without overly entangling themselves in religious matters.” In doing so, the state wrote, courts do not “regulate internal church governance or compel any church activity.”
After considering the case at two consecutive conferences, the justices granted the petition for review filed by Catholic Charities.
The justices also granted review in Diamond Alternative Energy v. Environmental Protection Agency, a challenge arising from a provision of the Clean Air Act that allows California to seek a waiver of the general bar on the adoption of emission standards by states. The waiver recognizes that California was the only state to regulate emissions before the CAA was enacted. In 2009, California began to set standards to curb greenhouse gas emissions, stepping beyond the localized pollution it had previously regulated. The Environmental Protection Agency granted a waiver, which was then partially withdrawn during the Trump administration and reinstated in 2022. The 2022 waiver allowed the state to set standards to limit greenhouse gas emissions, as well as require all passenger vehicles sold in the state to be zero-emission vehicles by 2035.
The justices on Friday agreed to hear an appeal filed by fuel producers, who seek review of a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit holding that they did not have a legal right to challenge the waiver. The court declined, however, to hear the fuel producers’ challenge to the legality of the waiver itself.
Both cases will be argued sometime in the spring, with a decision to follow by late June or early July.
UPDATED: A group of TikTok users filed a separate application
on Monday afternoon, also asking the court to block enforcement of the law.
Social media giant TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, on Monday asked the justices to block a federal law that would require TikTok to shut down in the United States unless ByteDance can sell off the U.S. company by Jan. 19. Unless the justices intervene, the companies argued in a 41-page filing
, the law will “shutter one of America’s most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration.”
The request came three days after a federal appeals court in Washington turned down a request to put the law on hold
to give TikTok time to seek review in the Supreme Court. A panel made up of judges appointed by Presidents Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Ronald Reagan explained that the companies were effectively seeking to delay “the date selected by Congress to put its chosen policies into effect” –particularly when Congress and the president had made the “deliberate choice” to “set a firm 270-day clock,” with the possibility of only one 90-day extension.
Congress enacted the law, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, earlier this year, and President Joe Biden signed it on April 24. The law identifies China and three other countries as “foreign adversaries” of the United States and bans the use of apps controlled by those countries.
TikTok, which has roughly 170 million users in the United States and more than a billion worldwide, ByteDance, and others filed challenges to the law in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
In an opinion by Senior Judge Douglas Ginsburg
, a Reagan appointee, the court of appeals concluded that TikTok had a legal right to sue, known as standing, to challenge the enforcement of provisions of the law that specifically target the company and that the lawsuit could go forward.
But the court of appeals rejected the company’s argument that the law violates the Constitution, explaining that the law was the “culmination of extensive, bipartisan action by the Congress and by successive presidents.” The law, Ginsburg stressed, was “carefully crafted to deal only with control by a foreign adversary, and it was part of a broader effort to counter a well-substantiated national security threat posed by the People’s Republic of China.”
Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan, an Obama appointee, agreed the law does not violate the First Amendment, but he would have applied a less stringent standard of review in reaching that conclusion.
Calling the law an “unprecedented attempt to single out” TikTok and prohibit it from “operating one of the most significant speech platforms in” the United States, TikTok urged the justices to step in and put the law on hold while the company seeks review of the D.C. Circuit’s ruling. Represented by Noel Francisco, who served as the U.S. solicitor general during the first Trump administration, the company contended that blocking enforcement of the law would not “materially harm” the federal government. Even the government, Francisco observed, “asserts only that China ‘could’ engage in harmful conduct through TikTok, not that there is any evidence China is currently doing so or will soon do so.”
Moreover, Francisco added, Trump and his aides “have voiced support for saving TikTok,” so a “modest delay in enforcing” the law will give both the justices time to review the issues presented by the case and the new administration an opportunity to weigh in—“before this vital channel for Americans to communicate with their fellow citizens and the world is closed.”
Citing the need to “coordinate with their service providers to perform the complex task of shutting down the TikTok platform only in the United States” if the Supreme Court declines to intervene, TikTok asked the justices to act on its request by Jan. 6.
TikTok also suggested that the justices could treat its request as a petition for review and take up the case now, without waiting for additional filings.
TikTok’s request will go first to Chief Justice John Roberts, who handles emergency appeals from the D.C. Circuit. Roberts could act on the request himself, but he is more likely to call for a response from the Biden administration and to then send the matter to the full court.
The Supreme Court on Monday morning declined to take up a challenge to New York’s caps on the price that its low-income residents pay for broadband internet access. The denial of review in New York State Telecommunications Association v. James
came on a list of orders
released from the justices’ private conference on Friday.
After adding two new cases
to their docket for the 2024-25 term on Friday, the justices did not grant any new cases on Monday. Friday’s grants included Diamond Alternative Energy v. Environmental Protection Agency
, in which the court will consider whether a group of fuel producers have a legal right to challenge the EPA’s consent to a waiver for California that will allow the state to adopt its own emissions standards for greenhouse gas emissions. On Monday the justices denied review in Ohio v. Environmental Protection Agency
, in which a group of states had argued more broadly that Congress violated the Constitution when it created the waiver mechanism for California because it treats California differently from the other states. Justice Clarence Thomas indicated that he would have granted the states’ petition for review.
The justices did not act on several high-profile cases that they considered at Friday’s conference, including a pair ofpetitions
asking them to reconsider a 2000 decision upholding a Colorado law intended to protect patients and staff at abortion clinics from demonstrators and a challenge by Native Americans
to the transfer of federal land in Arizona to a mining company, on the ground that it violates their religious rights.
Last Friday’s conference was the final regularly scheduled conference of 2024. The justices will meet again on Friday, Jan. 10, 2025.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday morning agreed to take up a dispute
over whether a South Carolina woman can bring a lawsuit challenging that state’s decision to end Planned Parenthood’s participation in its Medicaid program.
The court’s announcement that it will hear arguments next spring in Kerr v. Planned Parenthood
came at approximately 11 a.m. Eastern, along with an order setting oral arguments on Jan. 10 in a pair of appeals seeking to block enforcement of a federal law that would require TikTok to shut down in the United States unless its parent company can sell it off by Jan. 19.
The justices granted two cases
from their Dec. 13 conference on Friday afternoon and issued additional orders
(mostly denying review) from that conference on Monday morning. Although the justices’ next regularly scheduled conference will not occur until next year, they have sometimes issued additional grants from their final conference of the year a few days later, just as they did on Wednesday.
Under federal law, Medicaid funds cannot generally be used to provide abortions. But Planned Parenthood provides other medical services to women, including gynecological and contraceptive care but also screenings for cancer, high blood pressure, and cholesterol.
At two clinics in Charleston and Columbia, Planned Parenthood has tried to make it easier to lower-income patients, many of whom are covered by Medicaid, to use its services – by, for example, offering same-day appointments and extended clinic hours. One of those Medicaid patients is Julie Edwards, who suffers from diabetes. She went to Planned Parenthood for birth control but says she wants to return to receive other care in the future.
In 2018, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster ordered the state’s Department of Health and Human Services to bar abortion clinics from participating in the Medicaid program. McMaster explained that the “payment of taxpayer funds to abortion clinics, for any purpose, results in the subsidy of abortion and the denial of the right to life.”
Edwards and Planned Parenthood went to federal court in South Carolina. They argued that McMaster’s order violated a provision of the Medicaid Act that allows any patient who is eligible for Medicaid to seek health care from any “qualified” provider.
A federal appeals court agreed with Edwards and Planned Parenthood and blocked the state from excluding Planned Parenthood from its Medicaid program. That decision prompted the state – represented by the conservative Alliance Defending Freedom – to come to the Supreme Court this summer, asking the justices to decide whether Edwards and Planned Parenthood have a legal right to sue to enforce the Medicaid Act.
The state told the justices that five federal courts of appeals “have wrongly subjected states to private lawsuits Congress never intended.” Moreover, it added, with 70 million Americans receiving Medicaid benefits and tens of thousands of health-care providers participating in the program, the question at the center of the case is “of great national importance.”
But Planned Parenthood and Edwards countered that the question does not come up very often these days. And most of the cases in which it did arise, they continued, “were efforts by states to target Planned Parenthood in ways courts have recognized are unwarranted and politically motivated.” But in any event, they concluded, as all three judges on the court of appeals agreed in this case, the Medicaid law is “clear and unambiguous in conferring a privately enforceable right.”
The justices considered the state’s petition at nine consecutive conferences before finally granting review on Wednesday. The case will likely be slated for argument in either March or April, with a decision to follow by summer.
The Supreme Court will hear two hours of oral arguments on Jan. 10 in TikTok’s appeal to block enforcement of a federal law that would require TikTok to shut down in the United States unless its parent company can sell off the U.S. company by Jan. 19.
In a one-page unsigned order
issued on Wednesday morning, the justices agreed to take up the dispute and fast-track the briefing schedule for oral arguments early next year. The law will remain in place while the justices consider TikTok’s request
, as well as a separate request
filed by TikTok users.
TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, came to the Supreme Court on Monday, asking the justices to temporarily block enforcement of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. The law – which Congress enacted earlier this year and the president signed in April – identifies China and three other countries as “foreign adversaries” of the United States and bans the use of apps controlled by those countries. Unless the justices stepped in, the companies contended in their 41-page filing, the law will “shutter one of America’s most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration.”
TikTok, which has roughly 170 million users in the United States and more than a billion worldwide, ByteDance, and the TikTok users had first filed challenges to the law in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
But that court rejected
TikTok’s argument that the law violates the Constitution, explaining that the law was the “culmination of extensive, bipartisan action by the Congress and by successive presidents.” The law, Senior Judge Douglas Ginsburg stressed, was “carefully crafted to deal only with control by a foreign adversary, and it was part of a broader effort to counter a well-substantiated national security threat posed by the People’s Republic of China.”
And after the D.C. Circuit turned down a request
to put the law on hold to give TikTok time to seek review in the Supreme Court, TikTok and its users asked the Supreme Court to intervene – and to do so quickly. Represented by Noel Francisco, who served as the U.S. solicitor general during the first Trump administration, TikTok noted that because President-elect Donald Trump and his aides “have voiced support for saving TikTok,” a “modest delay in enforcing” the law will give both the justices time to review the issues presented by the case and the new administration an opportunity to weigh in—“before this vital channel for Americans to communicate with their fellow citizens and the world is closed.”
Citing the need to “coordinate with their service providers to perform the complex task of shutting down the TikTok platform only in the United States” if the Supreme Court declines to intervene, TikTok asked the justices to act on its request by Jan. 6. The company also suggested that the justices could treat its request as a petition for review and take up the case now.
On Wednesday morning the justices agreed to weigh in – and, in a relatively unusual move that likely reflects the time-sensitive nature of the dispute, did so without first asking the Biden administration to respond. Both sides will file an opening brief by 5 p.m. on Dec. 27, followed by reply briefs by 5 p.m. on Jan. 3.
