On Wednesday, Connecticut Attorney General William Tong previewed several pending US Supreme Court decisions.
“As we near the end of the U.S. Supreme Court term, we are going to start to see decisions in some of the most consequential cases on the docket, including those involving abortion access, the Purdue bankruptcy, domestic violence and bump stock gun laws, social media regulation, administrative authority, January 6 prosecutions, and presidential immunity,” Tong said in a release.
See below for summaries of the major pending cases where Connecticut submitted briefs.
Access to Medication Abortion
FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine
In 2000, the FDA approved mifepristone as part of a two-drug regimen for medication abortion. Since then, millions of U.S. women have used mifepristone safely, and the FDA has eased some of the unnecessarily harsh restrictions on mifepristone prescriptions.
But last year, a Texas federal judge blocked the FDA’s decades-old approval. While the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit did not uphold that complete ban, it blocked recent regulatory reforms that, among other things, allow mifepristone to be prescribed and dispensed remotely. The Supreme Court will now decide whether to reverse the appellate and district courts, protecting access to mifepristone across the country. Connecticut joined other states in filing a Supreme Court brief supporting the FDA and explaining how vital mifepristone is to health care and reproductive justice across the country.
Mifepristone remains safe, legal, and accessible in Connecticut, both because the Supreme Court stayed the lower court rulings pending appeal and because Connecticut and other states won a preliminary injunction in a separate case, before the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington, barring the FDA from making mifepristone less available than it was in early 2023.
Link to Attorney General Tong’s amicus brief. Link to formal opinion issued by Attorney General Tong clarifying patients’ rights to access abortion, providers’ ability to prescribe mifepristone, and the state’s ability to cover mifepristone under its Medicaid program in Connecticut.
Purdue Pharma Bankruptcy
Harrington v. Purdue Pharma L.P.
Purdue Pharma sought bankruptcy protections against liability for its unscrupulous marketing of opioids – and, as part of its resolution, a bankruptcy court granted legal releases to members of the Sackler family, who steered Purdue and reaped enormous profits from fostering opioid addiction. Those releases protected the Sacklers from future lawsuits over their role in the opioid epidemic, even though the Sacklers weren’t a party to the bankruptcy case and even though many creditors objected.
Connecticut challenged those releases, as well as an inadequate $4.3 billion settlement with Purdue. The U.S. District Court sided with Connecticut and eight other non-consenting states, vacating the settlement. That decision paved the way for Attorney General Tong and the eight other states to force a new $6 billion settlement with Purdue and the Sacklers.
Now the Supreme Court will decide whether the bankruptcy court had the power to issue those non-consensual releases. If the Court invalidates the releases, that $6 billion settlement will head back to bankruptcy court.
Connecticut did not participate in the appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court due to the settlement, but we are watching this case closely.
Attorney General Tong testified in 2021 before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law in support of reforms to bankruptcy laws that would prohibit non-bankrupt individuals and businesses from exploiting loopholes in the bankruptcy code to evade accountability.
Emergency Medical Treatment and Abortion Care
Idaho v. United States
Moyle v. United States
The Biden Administration sued Idaho, arguing that the state’s near-total abortion ban conflicted with the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), which requires emergency departments to provide all patients who have an emergency medical condition with the treatment required to stabilize their condition. A federal district court agreed with the Administration that pregnancy and miscarriage complications are emergency medical conditions requiring time-sensitive stabilizing treatment – including abortion, where medically indicated. Now, the Supreme Court will decide whether EMTALA “preempts” conflicting state laws.
Since abortion remains safe and accessible in Connecticut, any decision in this case is unlikely to directly impact access to emergency medical care in our state. But a decision allowing Idaho to maintain standards less protective of women’s health than EMTALA’s could severely erode access to emergency reproductive healthcare in many states and further strain the resources of states like Connecticut where abortion remains legal and accessible.
Link to Attorney General Tong amicus brief.
Domestic Violence Restraining Orders and Access to Guns
United States v. Rahimi
This case asks whether the Second Amendment bars the federal law from prohibiting individuals with domestic violence restraining orders from possessing guns.
Zackey Rahimi assaulted the mother of his child and fired a gun at a bystander who had witnessed the attack. He was placed under a civil protective order, which prohibited him from having a gun. Rahimi violated the restraining order numerous times, including using a gun to threaten a different woman. But when prosecuted for possessing a gun while under a protective order, Rahimi claimed that the federal law violated his Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. The Fifth Circuit agreed – and now the Supreme Court will decide the issue.
This decision could have wide ranging implications for state and federal protections for victims of domestic violence from armed and dangerous abusers. A co-chair of the Judiciary Committee, Tong led efforts to strengthen Connecticut’s domestic violence gun laws.
Link to Attorney General Tong amicus brief.
Federal Bump Stock Ban
Garland v. Cargill
Cargill challenges the federal ban on bump stocks, which effectively convert semiautomatics into fully automatic weapons. Federal law bans machine guns – and bump stocks, according to the government, fall within the statutory definition.
This is case about what the statute means – whether a bump stock is a bannable machine gun – not about the Second Amendment. But a Supreme Court decision against the Biden Administration would present a serious threat to public safety.
Link to Attorney General Tong amicus brief.
Social Media Disinformation
Murthy v. Missouri
This case threatens the government’s ability to collaborate with social media companies to address the spread of disinformation and dangerous content on their platforms.
According to Missouri, Louisiana, and several individuals, federal officials jawboned social media companies into moderating disinformation about COVID-19 and other topics of vital public health and civic interest. The plaintiffs say that this communication crossed the line into coercion, violating their First Amendment rights.
Last summer, a federal district court agreed with the plaintiffs, and issued a preliminary injunction effectively barring any communications between many federal government officials and social media companies about the platforms’ content-moderation decisions. The Fifth Circuit largely affirmed – and now the Supreme Court will decide the case.
Connecticut joined other states in an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to allow the exchange of information between the government and social media companies — including communication to protect children from online predators and cyberbullying, and communication aimed at flagging scams, violent images, and public health disinformation.
Link to Attorney General Tong amicus brief.
Social Media Regulation
Moody v. Netchoice
Netchoice v. Paxton
In the wake of January 6, responding to GOP claims that social media platforms were censoring conservative views, Florida and Texas passed laws regulating how the platforms moderate content. The platforms sued, alleging that laws violate their First Amendment rights to speak freely.
Connecticut’s amicus brief did not support the specific laws in Florida or Texas, but did argue that the First Amendment should not be used to immunize social media platforms from all state regulation.
Link to Attorney General Tong amicus brief.
Deference to Agency Expertise in Federal Regulation
Loper Bright v. Raimondo
Relentless v. Department of Commerce
These cases may seem dry and technical, but there is potential for broad impact on the authority of government agencies to regulate a whole host of complex issues, from environmental regulations to consumer protection and public health. Plaintiffs are seeking to overturn the Chevron doctrine, which requires federal courts to defer to administrative agencies in cases where statutory intent is unclear. The U.S. Supreme Court has invoked Chevron at least 70 times since 1984 in upholding agency interpretations.
Link to Attorney General Tong amicus brief.