The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled for the Food and Drug Administration in its crackdown on sweet-flavored vaping products following a surge in teen electronic cigarette use.

But the justices’ unanimous decision throwing out a federal appeals court ruling is not the final word in the case, and the FDA could change its approach now that President Donald Trump has promised to “save” vaping.

The high court ruled that the FDA, during President Joe Biden’s administration, did not violate federal law when it denied an application from Dallas-based company Triton Distribution to sell e-juices like “Jimmy The Juice Man in Peachy Strawberry” and “Suicide Bunny Mother’s Milk and Cookies.” The products are heated by an e-cigarette to create an inhalable aerosol.

Yolonda Richardson, president and CEO of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, called the decision “a major victory for the health of America’s kids and efforts to protect them from the flavored e-cigarettes that have fueled a youth nicotine addiction crisis.”

The FDA has rejected applications for more than a million nicotine products formulated to taste like fruit, dessert or candy because their makers couldn’t show that flavored vapes had a net public benefit, as required by law.

It has approved some tobacco-flavored vapes, and recently it allowed its first menthol-flavored e-cigarettes for adult smokers after the company provided data showing the product was more helpful in quitting.

But the conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Triton, agreeing that the FDA changed its standards with little warning in violation of federal law.

While mainly ruling for the FDA on Wednesday, the Supreme Court noted that the agency had said the company’s marketing plan would be an important factor in evaluating its application. But it ultimately did not consider the marketing plan, Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the court.

Attorney Eric Heyer, who represented the company, expressed disappointment with the ruling but said Triton believes “in the great harm reduction potential” of the products and plans to continue litigation.

The appeals court was ordered to consider if the failure to do so is an important mistake that might still lead to a decision in Triton’s favor.

The chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court announced Wednesday that she is stepping down from the court by the end of April, opening the door for the court to have a 6-1 majority of Democratic-backed justices.

Elizabeth Clement did not give a reason for her upcoming resignation.

“Leading our state’s highest court has been an opportunity to continue a proud record of independence, fairness, and commitment to the rule of law,” Clement said in a statement. “I am thankful to my colleagues for their support and friendship, as well as for their willingness to seek common ground in serving the people of Michigan.”

Michigan’s justices are technically nonpartisan, but they are nominated by parties or appointed by the governor in the case of a vacancy. The court currently has a 5-2 majority of justices backed by Democrats after picking up a seat in the November election.

Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has the opportunity to appoint a justice to fill Clement’s vacancy and create a 6-1 majority of Democratic-backed justices. Whoever fills the vacancy must run for retention in 2026 for a full eight-year term.

Clement was appointed to the Michigan Supreme Court in 2017 by Republican Gov. Rick Snyder. She secured a full term in the 2018 general election and her term was set to end in 2026. In November 2022, she was chosen to serve as Chief Justice.

“Going forward, my plan is to continue working to find ways to bring people together, to put data to work, and to make a difference in the lives of people so that interactions with our justice system result in safer communities and stronger families,” Clement said in the statement released by the court.

Justice Brian Hagedorn, who played a key role in drafting the law known as Act 10 while serving as chief legal counsel for then-Gov. Scott Walker, has recused himself from the case. His decision leaves the court with four liberal justices and two conservatives.

Earlier this week, the Republican-controlled Legislature requested that liberal Justice Janet Protasiewicz also step aside, citing her past opposition to Act 10. Before joining the court, she had called the law unconstitutional, signed a petition to recall Walker, and participated in protests at the Capitol in 2011.

In a brief two-page order, Hagedorn stated that legal ethics required his recusal. Democratic lawmakers had urged him to withdraw from the case on Tuesday.

“The issues raised involve matters for which I provided legal counsel in both the initial crafting and later defense of Act 10, including in a case raising nearly identical claims under the federal constitution,” Hagedorn wrote.

Justice Janet Protasiewicz has not responded to calls for her recusal. However, even if she were to step aside, the court would still hold a 3-2 liberal majority.

On Thursday, Protasiewicz did not participate in an incremental ruling related to the case.

Last month, a Dane County Circuit judge struck down most of Act 10, ruling that it violates the Wisconsin Constitution’s equal protection guarantees by categorizing public employees into “general” and “public safety” workers. The ruling would restore collective bargaining rights to all public sector employees who lost them under the 2011 law.

However, the judge placed the ruling on hold pending an appeal. The school workers’ unions that filed the lawsuit have asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court to take the case directly, bypassing the appeals court. The justices have not yet decided whether to hear it.

The Supreme Court has reinstated a key provision of the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), requiring owners of over 32.6 million small businesses to register personal information with the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). This act, designed to combat money laundering and the misuse of anonymous shell companies, was previously blocked by a federal judge in Texas and held by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

[Image credit: Pexel]

Key Details of the Ruling:

• What is Required: Small business owners must provide personal information, including photo IDs and home addresses, to FinCEN.
• Purpose: To deter financial crimes and increase transparency in corporate ownership.
• Legal Challenges: Opposed by Republican-led states, conservative groups, and business associations, the law was initially struck down on grounds that Congress overstepped its authority.

Reactions:

• Supporters: Labor, environmental, and progressive groups applaud the decision as a win for transparency.
• Opponents: Business organizations express concerns about compliance challenges and legal uncertainty. The National Small Business Association and Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council have called for clarity and leniency for late filers.

Next Steps:

• The Supreme Court’s decision allows enforcement to proceed while the Texas case continues.
• Advocates for repeal, including business leaders, urge Congress to reassess the mandate.

This decision marks a significant step in the federal government’s efforts to curb illicit financial activities, though its future enforcement and impact remain subjects of heated debate.

by breakinglegalnews.com

The justices are weighing a free speech challenge to the law, which takes effect Sunday, against the national security concerns that prompted its enactment with broad bipartisan support last year. A lawyer for TikTok and ByteDance, its Chinese owner, told the court last week that TikTok will “go dark” on Sunday unless the justices grant it a temporary reprieve or strike down the law.

During courtroom arguments, most of the justices seemed likely to uphold the law.

Alongside the ongoing court case, a potential lifeline for TikTok has emerged. President-elect Donald Trump, who once supported banning the app, is exploring options to “preserve” TikTok, his incoming national security adviser, Florida Rep. Mike Waltz, said in a televised interview on Wednesday.

It’s not clear what authority Trump has to intervene, although he could direct the Justice Department not to enforce the law, which threatens sanctions against the technology companies that make the app available and host it. The Supreme Court indicated Thursday that the justices will issue at least one decision Friday, adhering to its custom of not saying which one. But it also departed from its usual practice in some respects, heightening the expectation that it’s the TikTok case that will be handed down.

Except for when the end of the term nears in late June, the court almost always issues decisions on days when the justices are scheduled to take the bench. The next scheduled court day is Tuesday.

And apart from during the coronavirus pandemic, when the court was closed, the justices almost always read summaries of their opinions in the courtroom. They won’t be there Friday.

The Supreme Court turned back a push by the state of Utah to wrest control of vast areas of public land from the federal government, marking a small victory for land conservation advocates who worry that similar efforts may escalate in a Republican-controlled Washington.

The high court on Monday refused to let the Republican-controlled state file a lawsuit seeking to bring the land and its resources under state control. The decision came in a brief order in which the court did not explain its reasoning, as is typical. It marks the latest roadblock for states in a running feud with the U.S. government over who should control huge swaths of the West and the enormous oil and gas, timber, and other resources they contain.

Utah’s top state leaders said they have not ruled out taking their lawsuit to a lower court.

In the Western state known for its rugged mountains popular with skiers and red-rock vistas that draw throngs of tourists, federal agencies control almost 70% of the land. Utah argues that local control would be more responsive and allow the state access to revenue from taxes and development projects.

The complaint sought control of about half of federal land, which still amounts to an area nearly as large as South Carolina. The parcels are used for things like energy production, grazing, mining and recreation. Utah’s world-famous national parks and national monuments would have stayed in federal hands.

Monday’s decision by the high court comes as the newly Republican-controlled Congress adopted a rules package that includes language allowing lawmakers to more easily transfer or sell off public lands managed by federal agencies. The rules consider public lands to have no monetary value, meaning lawmakers will no longer need to account for lost revenue if they decide to give parcels to states or extractive industries.

While conservationists applauded the court’s rejection of what they called a land-grab lawsuit, many remained worried that the efforts will continue.

Public lands under state control could be vulnerable to privatization, degradation and oil drilling, said Steve Bloch, legal director for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

“If successful, Utah’s lawsuit would result in the sale of millions of acres of public lands in red-rock country to the highest bidder, an end to America’s system of federal public lands and the dismantling of the American West as we know it,” Bloch said.

Utah’s Republican Sens. Mike Lee and John Curtis criticized the court’s decision and promised legislative action. Curtis, who campaigned on being a climate-conscious Republican, said the people of Utah should be entrusted to manage the land they have lived on for generations.

“Building roads, moving cattle and cleaning up campgrounds all require navigating a behemothic bureaucracy that’s stacked up against the average Utahn,” Curtis said.

In a joint statement with Utah’s Republican legislative leaders and attorney general, Gov. Spencer Cox said he was disappointed in the court’s decision to turn away the lawsuit.

“Utah remains able and willing to challenge any BLM land management decisions that harm Utah,” state leaders said. “We are also heartened to know the incoming administration shares our commitments to the principle of ‘multiple use’ for these federal lands and is committed to working with us to improve land management.”

While lawsuits typically start in federal district courts and eventually work their way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, disputes involving states can start at the nation’s highest court if the justices agree to hear them.

Utah leaders noted that the high court did not comment on the merits of their arguments or prevent them from filing the lawsuit in a federal district court. Conservation groups say they’ll remain ready to challenge any future lawsuits.

“This lawsuit is an assault on the country’s long-standing and successful history of safeguarding valuable and vulnerable landscapes in trust for all Americans,” said Chris Hill, who leads the Conservation Lands Foundation. “And while the Supreme Court’s decision to not hear the case is a reprieve, we fully expect this small group of anti-public lands politicians to continue to waste taxpayer dollars and shop their bad ideas.”

The federal Bureau of Land Management declined to comment.

Advocates for transgender rights are turning to a conservative-dominated Supreme Court after a presidential election in which Donald Trump and his allies promised to roll back protections for transgender people.

The justices on Wednesday are taking up the issue of gender-affirming care for transgender minors, which has been banned by Tennessee and 25 other Republican-led states.

The fight over whether transgender adolescents can access puberty blockers and hormonal treatments is part of a broader effort to regulate the lives of transgender people, including which sports competitions they can join and which bathrooms they can use.

Trump backed a national ban on such care as part of his 2024 campaign in which he demeaned and mocked transgender people.

In its waning days, the Biden administration, along with families of transgender adolescents, will appeal to the justices to strike down the Tennessee ban as unlawful sex discrimination and protect the constitutional rights of vulnerable Americans.

“The stakes are high, of course, for transgender adolescents, but also for the parents who are watching their children suffer, who are just trying to do right by their kids,” Chase Strangio, who represents the families at the Supreme Court, said in an interview. Strangio, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, will be the first openly transgender person to argue before the high court.

A lawyer for Tennessee will argue that the “life-altering gender-transition procedures” are risky and unproven and that it’s the state’s role to protect children.

Trump nominated three justices in his first term who pushed the court in a more conservative direction that included the decision in 2022 overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, which had protected abortion rights for nearly 50 years.

Yet one of Trump’s appointees, Justice Neil Gorsuch, also authored a ruling in 2020 that protected LGBTQ people from discrimination in the workplace under federal civil rights law.

The administration and transgender families both rely on that decision to bolster their arguments.

After Trump takes office on Jan. 20, 2025, it’s possible the new administration could weigh in on the case, which is not expected to be decided until the spring.

There are about 300,000 people between age 13 and 17, and 1.3 million adults who identify as transgender in the United States, according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law. The Williams Institute is a think tank that researches sexual orientation and gender identity demographics to inform laws and public policy decisions.

Most Republican-controlled states have adopted a ban similar to the one in Tennessee, and those laws mostly are in effect, despite legal challenges. The Tennessee case is the first time the nation’s top court will consider the constitutionality of the bans.

Sivan Kotler-Berkowitz, a 20-year-old college student in Massachusetts who is transgender, said his life would have been very different if he were just a few years younger and living in one of the states.

“These bans are denying people the opportunity to live and excel,” he said in an interview. “There are thousands of transgender youth across the country that are thriving just like me because we’ve had the love and understanding of our families and because we’ve had access to proper care.”

The bans in Tennessee and elsewhere have put families in the position of deciding whether to travel for ongoing health care, go without or wait until their children turn 18.

Erin Friday, a leader of Our Duty, an international group that supports the bans on gender-affirming care for minors, said the case is going to be as important as Roe v. Wade. She said upholding the Tennessee law would bolster the cases for the laws restricting sports participation and bathroom use.

The Supreme Court on Friday stepped into a major legal fight over the $8 billion a year the federal government spends to subsidize phone and internet services in schools, libraries and rural areas, in a new test of federal regulatory power.

The justices will review an appellate ruling that struck down as unconstitutional the Universal Service Fund. The Federal Communications Commission collects money from telecommunications providers, who then pass the cost on to their customers.

A conservative advocacy group, Consumer Research, challenged the practice. The justices had previously denied two appeals from Consumer Research after federal appeals courts upheld the program. But the full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, among the nation’s most conservative, ruled 9-7 that the method of funding is unconstitutional.

The Biden administration appealed that ruling, but the case probably won’t be argued until late March. At that point, the Trump administration will be in place and it not clear whether it will take a different view of the issue.

The 5th Circuit held that the funding method is unconstitutional because Congress has given too much authority to the FCC and the agency in turn has ceded too much power to a private entity.

The last time the Supreme Court invoked what is known as the non-delegation doctrine to strike down a federal law was in 1935. But several conservative justices have suggested they are open to breathing new life into the legal doctrine.

Pennsylvania’s state Supreme Court on Monday weighed in on a flashpoint amid ongoing vote counting in the U.S. Senate election between Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and Republican David McCormick, ordering counties not to count mail-in ballots that lack a correct handwritten date on the return envelope.

The order is a win for McCormick and a loss for Casey as the campaigns prepare for a statewide recount and press counties for favorable ballot-counting decisions while election workers are sorting through thousands of provisional ballots.

McCormick’s campaign called it a “massive setback” for Casey.

The Democratic-majority high court’s order reiterates the position it took previously that the ballots shouldn’t be counted in the election, a decision that Republicans say several Democratic-controlled counties nevertheless challenged.

In a statement, Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said a lack of legal clarity had surrounded the ballots, putting county officials in a position where they were “damned if they did and damned if they didn’t — likely facing legal action no matter which decision they made on counting.”

It comes amid a gust of fresh litigation in recent days filed by both campaigns, contesting the decisions of about a dozen counties over whether or not to count thousands of provisional ballots.

Casey’s campaign says the provisional ballots shouldn’t be rejected for garden-variety errors, like a polling place worker forgetting to sign it. Republicans say the law is clear that the ballots must be discarded.

The Associated Press called the race for McCormick last week, concluding that not enough ballots remained to be counted in areas Casey was winning for him to take the lead.

As of Monday, McCormick led by about 17,000 votes out of almost 7 million ballots counted — inside the 0.5% margin threshold to trigger an automatic statewide recount under Pennsylvania law.

Statewide, the number of mail-in ballots with wrong or missing dates on the return envelope could be in the thousands.

Republicans last week asked the court to bar counties from counting the ballots, saying those decisions violate both the court’s recent orders and its precedent in upholding the requirement in state law that a voter write the date on their mail-in ballot’s return envelope.

Democratic-majority election boards in Montgomery County, Philadelphia and Bucks County voted to count the ballots that lacked a correct date, echoing election officials around the state who say the date tells them nothing about a voter’s eligibility or a ballot’s legitimacy.

Republicans maintain that the date is a critical element of ballot security.

At first, Republicans also asked a court to block the count in Centre County. They later withdrew the protest of two ballots and its challenge to a third was filed too late, a court ruled. Centre County said one ballot had too many characters in the “date” boxes, another voter had changed a digit and another voter wrote the date as day-month-year, rather than month-day-year.

The vast majority of counties — including several heavily populated counties controlled by Democrats — didn’t count them.

Democrats cast more mail-in ballots than Republicans, and Democrats in the past have supported counting ballots that trip over what they view as meaningless clerical requirements in state law.

Various courts have ruled against the dating requirement in at least a half-dozen cases — including once by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — but higher courts have always reinstated it.

Meanwhile, the state Supreme Court has put off ruling on a pending case that calls into question whether the law violates the constitutional right to vote.

A conservative prosecutor’s attorney struggled Monday to persuade the Wisconsin Supreme Court to reactivate the state’s 175-year-old abortion ban, drawing a tongue-lashing from two of the court’s liberal justices during oral arguments.

Sheboygan County’s Republican district attorney, Joel Urmanski, has asked the high court to overturn a Dane County judge’s ruling last year that invalidated the ban. A ruling isn’t expected for weeks but abortion advocates almost certainly will win the case given that liberal justices control the court. One of them, Janet Protasiewicz, remarked on the campaign trail that she supports abortion rights.

Monday’s two-hour session amounted to little more than political theater. Liberal Justice Rebecca Dallet told Urmanski’s attorney, Matthew Thome, that the ban was passed in 1849 by white men who held all the power and that he was ignoring everything that has happened since. Jill Karofsky, another liberal justice, pointed out that the ban provides no exceptions for rape or incest and that reactivation could result in doctors withholding medical care. She told Thome that he was essentially asking the court to sign a “death warrant” for women and children in Wisconsin.

“This is the world gone mad,” Karofsky said.

The ban stood until 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide nullified it. Legislators never repealed the ban, however, and conservatives have argued the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe two years ago reactivated it.

Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul filed a lawsuit challenging the law in 2022. He argued that a 1985 Wisconsin law that prohibits abortion after a fetus reaches the point where it can survive outside the womb supersedes the ban. Some babies can survive with medical help after 21 weeks of gestation.

Urmanski contends that the ban was never repealed and that it can co-exist with the 1985 law because that law didn’t legalize abortion at any point. Other modern-day abortion restrictions also don’t legalize the practice, he argues.

Dane County Circuit Judge Diane Schlipper ruled last year that the ban outlaws feticide — which she defined as the killing of a fetus without the mother’s consent — but not consensual abortions. The ruling emboldened Planned Parenthood to resume offering abortions in Wisconsin after halting procedures after Roe was overturned.

Urmanski asked the state Supreme Court in February to overturn Schlipper’s ruling without waiting for a lower appellate decision.

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected an emergency appeal from Republicans that could have led to thousands of provisional ballots not being counted in Pennsylvania as the presidential campaigns vie in the final days before the election in the nation’s biggest battleground state.

The justices left in place a state Supreme Court ruling that elections officials must count provisional ballots cast by voters whose mail-in ballots were rejected.

The ruling is a victory for voting-rights advocates, who had sought to force counties — primarily Republican-controlled counties — to let voters cast a provisional ballot on Election Day if their mail-in ballot was to be rejected for a garden-variety error.

While the Supreme Court action was a setback for Republicans, the GOP separately claimed victory in a decision by Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court. That court rejected a last-ditch effort by voting rights advocates to ensure that mail-in ballots that lack an accurate, handwritten date on the exterior envelope will still count in this year’s presidential election.

The rulings are the latest in four years of litigation over voting by mail in Pennsylvania, where every vote truly counts in presidential races. Republicans have sought in dozens of court cases to push the strictest possible interpretation for throwing out mail-in ballots, which are predominantly cast by Democrats.

Taken together, Friday’s near-simultaneous rulings will ensure a heavy emphasis on helping thousands of people vote provisionally on Election Day if their mail-in ballot was rejected — and potentially more litigation.

As of Thursday, about 9,000 ballots out of more than 1.6 million returned have arrived at elections offices around Pennsylvania lacking a secrecy envelope, a signature or a handwritten date, according to state records.

Pennsylvania is the biggest presidential election battleground this year, with 19 electoral votes, and is expected to play an outsized role in deciding the election between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris.

It was decided by tens of thousands of votes in 2016 when Trump won it and again in 2020 when Democrat Joe Biden won it.

A voting-rights lawyer in Pennsylvania who helped bring both cases said it is almost certain that another case over undated ballots will be back before the state Supreme Court within days after the presidential election if it is close.

“It’s almost certain that this is going to be raised again after the election, especially if it’s a close election,” Witold Walczak, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, said in an interview.

In its unsigned, two-page order, the state’s highest court put a lower court ruling on hold that would have required counties to count the ballots. The high court said the case won’t apply to the presidential election being decided next week, but held out the possibility that it would still rule on the case at a later time.

The rulings came as voters had their last chance Friday to apply for a mail-in ballot in a bellwether suburban Philadelphia county while a county clear across the state gave voters who didn’t receive their ballot in the mail another chance to get one. A judge in Erie County, in Pennsylvania’s northwestern corner, ruled Friday in a lawsuit brought by the Democratic Party that about 15,000 people who applied for a mail ballot but didn’t receive it may go to the county elections office and get a replacement through Monday.

The Georgia Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an attempt by national and state Republicans to immediately reinstate recently passed election rules that a judge had ruled were invalid.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox last week ruled that the State Election Board didn’t have the authority to adopt the new rules, and declared them “illegal, unconstitutional and void.” The Republican National Committee and the Georgia Republican Party had appealed that ruling to Georgia’s highest court. They asked that it be handled in an expedited manner and for the rules to be reinstated while the appeal was pending.

The Supreme Court unanimously declined the request for expedited handling and declined to put Cox’s order on hold. The court’s order says that once the appeal is docketed it will “proceed in the ordinary course,” which means it will likely take months before there’s a ruling.

The three-person Republican majority on the State Election Board, which was praised by former President Donald Trump during a rally in Atlanta in August, voted to adopt multiple rules in August and September over the objections of the board’s lone Democrat and the nonpartisan chair. The controversial new rules met resistance from the start, not least from local election officials who worried about changes so close to the general election. But Tuesday’s order may mark the end of the legal fight over election rules in this critical battleground state — at least until after the election.

The rules that Cox declared invalid included three that have gotten a lot of attention. One would require three poll workers to count ballots — not votes — by hand once polls close. The other two had to do with the process to certify county election results.

Democrats and some voting rights groups had raised concerns that the rules could be used by allies of Trump to slow or deny certification or election results, or to cast doubt on results if the former president loses the presidential election to Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

While some prominent Republicans in Georgia, including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, have criticized the flurry of last-minute rules the State Election Board introduced, the state and national Republican parties have been supportive. They have said the rules promote transparency and accountability in the state’s elections.

Cox’s ruling came in a lawsuit filed by Eternal Vigilance Action, an organization founded and led by former state Rep. Scot Turner, a Republican. The suit argued that the State Election Board overstepped its authority in adopting the seven rules. In addition to invalidating the rules, he ordered the State Election Board to immediately inform all state and local election officials that the rules are void and not to be followed.

Reached by phone Tuesday, Turner said he was glad for the election workers, who will not have to be trained on new election rules with just two weeks to go before Election Day. Many county election officials had expressed concern over the tight timeline for implementing the rules, saying they risked causing confusion for poll workers and undermining public confidence in the election results.