Supreme Court Term Opens With Major Rulings on Climate Lawfare and Parental Rights

Clear Facts

• The Supreme Court opens its new term Monday with an originalist majority prepared to hear cases on climate litigation, religious liberty, Second Amendment rights, election integrity, and parental authority.
• Colorado faces another constitutional challenge after excluding Catholic preschools from a universal preschool program because of their beliefs on sex and gender.
• Arizona defends its requirement for documentary proof of citizenship in voter registration against federal preemption claims and an old consent decree.

The Supreme Court begins its new term Monday with a docket that already includes several cases testing core constitutional principles.

The justices have not yet filled their entire schedule, but the cases granted so far point to another strong term for those who believe the Court should interpret the Constitution according to its text and history.

1. Climate lawfare: Suncor Energy v. Commissioners of Boulder County

The term opens with a case that could end one of the left’s most aggressive attempts to impose national energy policy through state courts.

Boulder, Colorado, is suing Suncor and ExxonMobil in state court under Colorado tort law, seeking massive damages for the effects of global climate change.

Boulder wants Colorado law to punish these companies for emissions in every state and around the world.

Dozens of states and cities have filed similar suits.

An outside counsel for Boulder’s legal team has publicly described such climate litigation as effectively imposing a “carbon tax” and acknowledged that it could raise fossil-fuel prices and potentially push energy companies toward bankruptcy.

Having failed to win their policy argument in Congress, activists are hoping they will have more success in friendly state courts.

The principal question for the justices is whether federal law bars these claims.

The Court will also consider whether it has statutory and Article III jurisdiction to hear the case.

It does.

For more than a century, the Court has treated emissions that cross state lines as a federal issue.

The Clean Air Act includes provisions that allow a state to regulate pollution sources within its borders, but sources outside them are a different matter, as the Court previously held in a case involving nearly identical Clean Water Act provisions.

Underneath all of this is a basic structural principle: The Constitution treats the states as equals, and none may govern beyond its own borders.

A clear reversal would check every state or municipality that tries to set national policy in defiance of the structural Constitution.

2. There Colorado goes again: St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy

Colorado promised every family in the state free preschool at the school of its choice, public or private.

Then it shut out Catholic preschools because they support Church teaching on sex and gender.

In testimony highlighted by the Catholic schools, the program’s director said hypothetically that a participating preschool could seek preferences for “gender-nonconforming children” or members of “the LGBTQ community,” provided the preference complied with the program’s nondiscrimination requirements.

That double standard is the antithesis of neutrality and a constitutional nonstarter.

The Court has considered similar discriminatory systems in recent years and has struck them down every time.

Three times since 2017—in cases from Missouri, Montana and Maine—the Court has ruled that the government cannot exclude people of faith from public benefits because of their religion.

Colorado itself has lost three major First Amendment cases for showing hostility to a baker’s faith (Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, 2018), threatening to force a web designer to create wedding websites against her beliefs (303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, 2023), and censoring a Christian counselor’s viewpoint in talk therapy while permitting the opposite one (Chiles v. Salazar, 2026).

The smart money is on another Colorado loss.

3. Second Amendment: Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins

The Court consolidated two cases for argument asking whether the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect the right to own an AR-15, the most popular rifle in America.

Viramontes challenges Cook County, Illinois’ ban on so-called “assault weapons,” and Grant challenges a similar Connecticut law.

These cases will be a showcase for originalist interpretation.

Under District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022), the Second Amendment protects arms in common use for lawful purposes, and a ban survives only if the state can point to historical analogues showing it fits the nation’s tradition of firearm regulation.

This will be an opportunity for the Supreme Court to clarify how to determine which weapons are protected as “arms” and how common they must be to be part of the right to keep and bear arms.

4. Election integrity: Republican National Committee v. Mi Familia Vota

Arizona passed laws in 2022 requiring documentary proof of citizenship from people who register to vote using the state’s form and allowing officials to remove confirmed noncitizens from the rolls as a federal election approaches.

The Ninth Circuit blocked both provisions as preempted by the National Voter Registration Act.

It also found the proof-of-citizenship requirement to be barred by a 2018 consent decree settling a lawsuit by left-wing advocacy groups, in which a former secretary of state agreed to register applicants who submitted no proof of citizenship as “federal-only” voters.

This case presents quite a spectacle: Arizona’s opponents will stand before the Supreme Court and argue that federal law forces a state to keep people it knows are noncitizens on its voter rolls.

And part of their case rests on rules no elected representative ever passed.

That decree lets a single official’s settlement do what only the legislature should, handing activists something with the force of law.

Left standing, arrangements like this can cause mischief well beyond Arizona.

5. Parental rights: International Partners for Ethical Care v. Ferguson

Parental rights keep returning to the Court, and this case illustrates why.

Washington amended its runaway-youth-shelter law so that when a minor is seeking so-called “gender-affirming” services, shelters no longer have to notify the parents.

Instead, they notify only the state, giving the parents the type of treatment normally reserved for abusers.

The state may then keep them from locating their child and delay reunification until they accept the state’s approach.

The immediate question before the Court is standing—whether these parents can sue at all because their gender-confused children, thankfully, have not yet run away.

But parents are already affected by the new law, walking on eggshells, knowing the state would take their children’s side against them.

The Ninth Circuit dismissed that harm as speculative and self-inflicted.

But parents should not have to wait until a child disappears or undergoes irreversible procedures before they can defend their rights in court.

With so many important issues riding on this term’s decisions—from climate lawfare and religious liberty to gun rights and election integrity—it is a relief to know that they will be heard by an originalist Court.

And with the Court set to grant even more cases on Monday, this is only the beginning.

Let us know what you think, please share your thoughts in the comments below.