Politics

(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned the conviction of an online stalker from Colorado, tightening the standard by which threats made on social media can be punished as crimes.

Justice Elena Kagan, writing for a 7-2 majority, said the “the First Amendment still requires proof that the defendant had some subjective understanding of the threatening nature of his statements.”

In 2016, Colorado prosecuted the plaintiff, Billy Raymond Counterman, winning a state court conviction by showing that hundreds of Facebook messages Counterman sent to a female singer-songwriter were objectively threatening and received that way by the victim.

He served 4½ years behind bars, even though he has always maintained that he never intended to threaten the musician, Coles Whalen.

“The state must show that the defendant consciously disregarded a substantial risk that his communications would be viewed as threatening violence,” Kagan wrote.

That the state did not prove evidence of intent or state of mind “is a violation of the First Amendment,” she wrote.

Whalen has not yet publicly commented on the decision. Her younger sister, Marita, previously told ABC News that some of Counterman’s messages “had a significant impact on [Whalen] — that lightheartedness that she used to always carry, sharing that joy with other people, it really got dampened. She became much more protective and afraid.”

Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Clarence Thomas dissented.

“Counterman communicated true threats, which, everyone agrees, lie outside the bounces of the First Amendment protection,” Barrett wrote. “He knew what the words meant. Those threats caused the victim to fear for her life, and they upended her daily existence. Nonetheless, the court concludes that Counterman can prevail on a First Amendment defense. Nothing in the Constitution compels that result.”

Legal scholars supportive of Counterman’s case say the decision bolsters free speech protections and reduces the chance of “criminalizing misunderstandings” — as Counterman’s attorneys put it in previous court documents.

Critics of the ruling, however, warn it will make it more difficult for law enforcement to protect people online at a time when threatening behavior is rampant.

“Stalkers are often oblivious to reality, and if you require the state to have to show that they understood that their words were threatening and creating this fear of physical violence, you could actually let a lot of stalkers go,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said in an interview with ABC News earlier this year.

Kagan acknowledged those concerns on behalf of the court’s majority, but wrote in her opinion on Tuesday that the new standard would not sacrifice “too many of the benefits of enforcing laws against true threats.”

“The rule we adopt today is neither the most speech-protective nor the most sensitive to the dangers of true threats,” she wrote. The balance keeps “much of what is important on both sides of the scale.”

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(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Supreme Court decision on Tuesday rejecting a theory that would grant state legislatures broad authority to unilaterally craft and enforce election laws has little impact on the actual issue that sparked the case — North Carolina’s House map.

The state Legislature, controlled by Republicans and able to set congressional district lines without the Democratic governor’s signoff, initially drew a map favoring their party after the 2020 census. But those lines were swiftly the center of a lawsuit, and the state Supreme Court ordered new ones to be created.

Republicans appealed, ultimately bringing their case to the U.S. Supreme Court where they argued that they had broad, ultimately power to define the terms of federal elections, including congressional maps.

That “independent state legislature” theory was shut down in Tuesday’s 6-3 ruling, written by Chief Justice John Roberts.

“State courts retain the authority to apply state constitutional restraints when legislatures act under the power conferred upon them by the Elections Clause,” the majority found (with three conservative justices dissenting). “In interpreting state law in this area, state courts may not so exceed the bounds of ordinary judicial review as to unconstitutionally intrude upon the role specifically reserved to state legislatures by Article I, Section 4, of the Federal Constitution.”

Yet the dispute over the map itself is now moot — and the court did not rule on whether the lines had to be redrawn.

That’s because the North Carolina Supreme Court, which was controlled by a 4-3 Democratic majority last year, flipped to a 5-2 Republican majority after the 2022 midterms. And in April, the new majority overturned its prior ruling on partisan gerrymandering, allowing Republican lawmakers in the state to again move forward with crafting a favorable map.

“There is no judicially manageable standard by which to adjudicate partisan gerrymandering claims. Courts are not intended to meddle in policy matters,” the state’s chief justice, Paul Newby, wrote for the court’s majority.

Republicans hailed the move, saying they plan on drawing new maps later this year.

“Today the United States Supreme Court has determined that state courts may rule on questions of state law even if it has an impact on federal elections law. Ultimately, the question of the role of state courts in congressional redistricting needed to be settled and this decision has done just that. I am proud of the work we did to pursue this case to the nation’s highest court,” state House Speaker Tim Moore, R, said.

“Fortunately the current Supreme Court of North Carolina has rectified bad precedent from the previous majority, reaffirming the state constitutional authority of the NC General Assembly. We will continue to move forward with the redistricting process later this year.”

North Carolina’s 14-seat House delegation is currently split evenly, though conservatives in Raleigh could conceivably draw a map that wins them 11 seats, a prospect that Democrats on the state Supreme Court noted in their April dissent.

“Today, the majority strips the people of this right; it tells North Carolinians that the state constitution and the courts cannot protect their basic human right to self-governance and self-determination,” wrote Justice Anita Earls. “Efforts to downplay the practice do not erase its consequences and the public will not be gaslighted.”

The potential four-seat gain by Republicans looms large ahead of the 2024 elections, where the GOP will seek to defend a narrow five-seat majority in the House and recently faced setbacks in redistricting elsewhere in the country.

Democrats could see one-seat gains in Alabama and Louisiana, respectively, after the U.S. Supreme Court paved the way for each of those states to add a second majority-Black district to be more representative of Black voters’ power relative to their share of population.

There are similar legal battles over redistricting playing out in Georgia and South Carolina.

New York Democrats, who control the state government there, are also optimistic that they will be able to redraw their own maps before the 2024 cycle.

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(WASHINGTON) — Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is expected to sit for an interview on Wednesday with investigators in special counsel Jack Smith’s office, the secretary’s spokesperson confirmed to ABC News.

Raffensperger, the top election official in Georgia, was the recipient of former President Donald Trump’s infamous phone call in January 2021, during which the then-president asked Raffensperger to “find” the exact number of votes he needed to win the state. Trump has repeatedly defended the call, calling it “perfect.”

Smith, who is overseeing the Justice Department’s investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election, issued subpoenas to election officials in Georgia and states across the country in late 2022 for communications with or involving Trump, his 2020 campaign aides, and a list of Trump allies involved in his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, ABC News previously reported.

A steady drumbeat of witnesses involved in the Jan. 6. Insurrection and other efforts to stymy the peaceful transition of power in early 2021 have been spotted in recent weeks entering the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., where a grand jury has been convened by Smith’s office.

Smith is also investigating Trump’s handling of classified documents after leaving the presidency. That investigation has resulted in a 37-count indictment against Trump for allegedly refusing to return hundreds of documents containing classified information ranging from U.S. nuclear secrets to the nation’s defense capabilities. The former president has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has launched a separate investigation into efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

News of the interview was first reported by the Washington Post.

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(CONCORD, N.H.) — The focus of the Republican primary has turned to New Hampshire on Tuesday, with former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis holding competing events.

The scheduling pileup in the first-in-the-nation state has some primary voters excited about the front-runners’ campaign activity while others are disappointed with the simultaneous stops — which stirred drama in a locally influential GOP group.

DeSantis spoke first, on Tuesday morning, in a stump speech in Hollis a few hours before Trump headlines the New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women’s (NHFRW) Lilac Luncheon an hour north in Concord. Trump is also set to open his state campaign office on Tuesday.

When news broke last week that DeSantis had added a visit to the key primary state, the NHFRW put out a statement citing their disappointment with him for scheduling a campaign event during their event with Trump.

The organization’s president, Elizabeth Girard, claimed the move was a slight: “This attempt to pull focus from our Lilac Luncheon only diminishes the efforts of Republican women in New Hampshire who are volunteers, working hard to provide opportunities for our membership to have access to all of the candidates.”

However, Girard’s statement was not agreed upon by all members of her group, and two of them resigned.

Kate Day, who had been the public relations chair for the NHFRW, wrote on Twitter that the statement violated the group’s neutrality policy in the primary.

She echoed that to ABC News. “We often have same day multiple campaign events. It is not an issue. In this case, the DeSantis event was not announced until after the NHFRW luncheon was sold out. There was no foul by the DeSantis campaign whatsoever,” Day said. “However, beaching neutrality is.”

The back-and-forth underlines New Hampshire’s continued importance in the GOP primary campaign. Whomever wins there next year heads into the following primary contests with the boost of voter approval — something DeSantis hopes to win in his quest to defeat Trump. Early polls show the former president is still leading the primary nationwide and in the Granite State.

DeSantis’ campaign declined to comment on the dust-up over his Tuesday event. A spokesperson for the pro-DeSantis political group Never Back Down said in a statement, however, that they feel he has momentum building “across the country, and Never Back Down’s historic grassroots efforts are accelerating his support in the first four primary states.”

“Our canvassers have knocked nearly 84,000 in New Hampshire alone, turning votes to the Governor as more Republicans learn his story and record of fighting for American families. By mid-July, we expect to have talked to every one of our primary targets,” the spokesperson said. “No other candidate’s on-the-ground efforts come anywhere close to ours, which is why you’ll continue to see Gov. DeSantis’ support grow.”

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung shot back in a statement of his own: “DeSantis is drawing tiny crowds and micro poll numbers. If he’s not careful, he could kill his chances in 2028.”

Outside Republican operatives are encouraging the flurry of activity, with many believing the split-screen provides an opportunity for undecided or independent voters, who make up 41% of New Hampshire voters, an ability to shop around.

Greg Moore, a conservative activist and state director for the group Americans for Prosperity, described the events as a “big day for the primary.”

“Obviously, we’ll be comparing their styles, their messaging and watching how the crowds react,” Moore said. “That’s particularly true for Gov. DeSantis, who’s still introducing himself to Granite Staters.”

Democrats also weighed in.

“The Trump people believe that there shouldn’t be anyone else in the state when Trump’s in the state,” New Hampshire Party Chair Raymond Buckley said. “And the DeSantis people are going to do whatever they can to try to goad him into behaving badly with the hope that that might garner some votes for DeSantis.”

New Hampshire state Sen. Donna Soucy was more succinct, joking that the snafu has been “kind of fun to watch.”

Since announcing their respective presidential runs, Trump has visited New Hampshire three times while Tuesday’s speech by DeSantis will mark his second official visit to the state.

Fellow GOP candidate Nikki Haley will also make an appearance in New Hampshire on Tuesday, hosting a town hall.

ABC News’ Hannah Demissie and Soo Rin Kim contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday delivered a strong rejection of a controversial legal theory that threatened to upend state election laws nationwide and give state legislatures unchecked power over federal election rules.

In a 6-3 decision, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Supreme Court sided with a group of North Carolina voters who challenged an attempt by state Republican lawmakers to circumvent a state court decision that struck down a new gerrymandered election map.

Roberts was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

At the heart of the case was a controversial legal concept dubbed the “independent state legislature” theory, which contends the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution provides state legislators alone the power to govern federal elections unencumbered by traditional oversight from state constitutions, courts and governors.

Election and democracy experts warned the theory, if adopted in its most extreme application, could have a dramatic impact on how elections are run and voting rules are written in the U.S. Challengers said the theory would’ve unleashed a dangerous and unprecedented scheme on the eve of the 2024 presidential election.

Roberts roundly repudiated the theory, stating the Elections Clause “does not insulate state legislatures from the ordinary exercise of state judicial review.”

“In interpreting state law in this area, state courts may not so exceed the bounds of ordinary judicial review as to unconstitutionally intrude upon the role specifically reserved to state legislatures by Article I, Section 4, of the Federal Constitution,” Roberts wrote.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito dissented.

The justices argued the case should have dismissed given state-level developments. The North Carolina Supreme Court, under a new Republican majority, in April reversed its previous ruling that said the gerrymandered maps were illegal.

“This is a straightforward case of mootness,” Thomas wrote. “The federal defense no longer makes any difference to this case — whether we agree with the defense, disagree with it, or say nothing at all, the final judgment in this litigation will be exactly the same.”

Abha Khanna, the attorney representing the plaintiffs in the case, celebrated the ruling as a “resounding victory for free and fair elections in the United States.”

“The independent state legislature theory is a dangerous, fringe legal theory that has no place in our democracy. In its most extreme form, the Independent State Legislature Theory could have weakened the foundation of our democracy, removing a crucial check on state legislatures and making it easier for rogue legislators to enact policies that suppress voters and subvert elections without adequate oversight from state court,” Khanna said in a statement. “We are incredibly relieved that the Supreme Court decisively rejected this dangerous theory.”

Voting rights advocates also praised the decision as upholding a key protection for voters. Former Attorney General Eric Holder described the decision as win “for our system of checks and balances, the cornerstone of American democracy.”

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(WASHINGTON) — ABC News has obtained an audio recording of former President Donald Trump appearing to acknowledge he held onto a sensitive military document after leaving office — but can no longer declassify it because he is no longer president.

The contents of the recording, made during a July 21, 2021, meeting at Trump’s Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club, have been previously reported and are quoted in the Justice Department’s 37-count indictment related to Trump’s handling of classified documents after leaving office — but the recording itself has never before been heard publicly.

ABC News was able to confirm the authenticity of the recording from another source who has heard it.

The meeting involved people who were helping Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, with his memoir, according to sources. Special counsel Jack Smith’s team has spoken to the meeting’s attendees, which included autobiographers for Meadows and at least two aides to Trump, sources tell ABC News.

On the recording, Trump is heard attacking Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley and referencing a document that Trump claimed Milley had compiled.

“Well, with Milley — uh, let me see that, I’ll show you an example,” Trump says on the recording. “He said that I wanted to attack Iran. Isn’t that amazing? I have a big pile of papers, this thing just came up. Look. This was him. They presented me this — this is off the record, but — they presented me this. This was him. This was the Defense Department and him. We looked at some — this was him. This wasn’t done by me, this was him. All sorts of stuff — pages long, look.”

“Wait a minute, let’s see here. I just found, isn’t that amazing?” Trump says. “This totally wins my case, you know. Except it is like, highly confidential. Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this. This was done by the military and given to me. As president I could have declassified, but now I can’t.”

Trump pled not guilty this month to 37 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials, after prosecutors said he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information ranging from U.S. nuclear secrets to the nation’s defense capabilities. He has denied all charges and denounced the probe as a political witch hunt.

Prosecutors say that Trump’s acknowledgement on the recording that he could no longer declassify the document undercuts his argument that he had declassified all the documents in his possession before leaving the White House.

The audio recording was first published by CNN.

“The audio tape provides context proving, once again, that President Trump did nothing wrong at all. The president is speaking rhetorically and also quite humorously,” a Trump campaign spokesperson said regarding the recording.

“As we’ve been saying from the moment President Trump rode down the golden escalator, the president did nothing wrong,” Trump himself said in a statement.

In an interview with Fox News last week, Trump denied that the material in his possession at Bedminster was a classified document.

“It wasn’t a document, OK? I had lots of paper — I had copies of newspaper articles, I had copies of magazines,” Trump said during the Fox News interview. “There was no document. That was a massive amount of papers and everything else talking about Iran and other things. And it may have been held up or may not, but that was not a document.”

“I didn’t have a document, per se,” Trump said. “There was nothing to declassify. These were newspaper stories, magazine stories and articles.”

ABC News reported earlier this month that Trump’s attorneys had not located the material Trump was referencing in the recording.

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(WASHINGTON) — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is considering launching an impeachment inquiry over Attorney General Merrick Garland’s handling of the investigation into President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.

McCarthy tweeted on Sunday that he wants Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney David Weiss to provide answers to the House Judiciary Committee regarding accusations made by two former IRS agents about Weiss’ probe of the younger Biden, on which they worked.

“If the whistleblowers’ allegations are true, this will be a significant part of a larger impeachment inquiry into Merrick Garland’s weaponization of DOJ,” McCarthy wrote. (An inquiry would be a precursor to the House potentially voting on specific articles of impeachment on Garland.)

On Monday, McCarthy said on Fox News: “If it comes true what the IRS whistleblower is saying, we’re going to start impeachment inquiries on the attorney general.”

One of the whistleblowers, Gary Shapley, has claimed that during an Oct. 7, 2022, meeting at the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office, Weiss said he did not have the ability to charge in other districts and unsuccessfully requested special counsel status from the Department of Justice.

Garland refuted that account last week.

“The only person with authority to make somebody a special counsel or refuse to make somebody a special counsel is the attorney general,” he said. “Mr. Weiss never made that request to me.”

Garland also told ABC News’ Alexander Mallin that he would approve of Weiss speaking or testifying whenever he sees fit.

In a June 7 letter to House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, Weiss wrote that Garland had granted him “ultimate authority” over the Hunter Biden investigation, “including responsibility for deciding where, when, and whether to file charges.”

On Monday, McCarthy referred on Fox News to a July 6 deadline set by Republicans for Weiss to answer the Judiciary Committee’s questions before initiating an impeachment inquiry.

Weiss’ office did not respond to a request for comment from ABC News on Monday.

Hunter Biden has agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanors for failing to pay federal income tax in 2017 and 2018. Under the deal, he would also enter into a pretrial diversion agreement to avoid prosecution on a felony gun charge, potentially ending the DOJ’s yearslong probe of his conduct.

ABC News’ Alexander Mallin contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) –Donald Trump this weekend insisted that he viewed his two indictments as a “badge of honor,” telling supporters in Washington that “I’m being indicted for you.”

The remarks, made during a Saturday speech at the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference, echo how the former president has described his reelection campaign, urging voters to see him as their avatar.

“In 2016, I declared: I am your voice. Today, I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice,” he said in March. “And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”

His Saturday comments drew pushback from one Republican primary rival.

“He had the audacity to say that he got indicted for us,” former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said on ABC’s “This Week,” later adding, “It’s absurd.”

Trump is charged in two cases and has pleaded not guilty in each. In New York state court, he is accused of falsifying business records related to hush money paid to an adult film actress before the 2016 election. He is separately accused by federal prosecutors in Florida of holding onto government secrets after leaving the White House and refusing to give them back.

On Saturday, Trump, as he often does, cast the criminal cases against him as an escalating campaign of political persecution — a claim that prosecutors have disputed.

“I consider it a great badge of courage. I’m being indicted for you,” Trump said, “and I believe the ‘you’ is more than 200 million people that love our country that are out there, and they love our country. This is a continuation of the greatest witch hunt of all time.”

Earlier this month, after Trump was indicted by a federal grand jury, prosecutor Jack Smith said, in part, “This indictment was voted by a grand jury of citizens in the Southern District of Florida, and I invite everyone to read it in full to understand the scope and the gravity of the crimes charged.”

In his Saturday speech, Trump also again falsely invoked the Presidential Records Act as giving him the authority to take the government documents with him after leaving office in 2021.

“What the hell are we talking about with this phony case?” he said.

Prosecutors have said they recovered several hundred classified records that were in Trump’s possession — some of which he returned after the government demanded them back and others which the FBI found in a court-authorized search of his home last year.

He faces 37 federal charges, including 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information.

Christie, one of Trump’s primary opponents — whom Trump has dismissed as a “failed” governor and candidate — on Sunday slammed Trump’s latest reaction to his indictments.

“I don’t know how it benefited the American people for him to take highly sensitive intelligence and secret documents out of the White House, to stonewall the government on returning them for over a year and a half, to subject himself to a raid by the FBI, even though they asked him voluntarily to return this stuff, and to then be subject to an indictment which is obviously going to be one of great trouble for the country because no one wants to see this happen,” Christie said on “This Week.”

Elsewhere in his speech on Saturday, Trump criticized President Joe Biden and Biden’s son Hunter and touted his record on Supreme Court nominations, leading to the overruling of Roe v. Wade last year, as he called himself “the most pro-life president in American history.”

However, while stressing a “vital role of the federal government,” Trump stopped short of pointing to any specific anti-abortion legislation unlike some of his 2024 rivals, like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former Vice President Mike Pence.

Trump also made a number of promises about what he will do if elected to another term, including seeking to end so-called “birthright” citizenship as described in the Constitution, which includes children born in the U.S. if their parents enter the country illegally.

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(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed a case involving Louisiana’s House map to move forward with review by a lower court ahead of the 2024 elections. That raises the possibility that lawmakers will have to draw a second majority-Black district in a state where Black people make up a third of the population.

The order by the high court comes only a few weeks after it decided, in a separate 5-4 ruling, that Alabama’s current House map packs too many Black voters into just one congressional district, thereby diluting their power relative to their share of the population and violating the Voting Rights Act (VRA).

More than a quarter of Alabama residents are Black.

Monday’s decision directs the Louisiana legal battle to proceed before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals before next year’s congressional races.

A district judge originally ruled that Louisiana’s House map — which the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature passed over Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards’ veto — violated the VRA and lawmakers were ordered to create a second majority-Black district, out of six total districts.

The state’s top election official, Republican Kyle Ardoin, appealed the district judge’s ruling. Louisiana Republicans have disputed that they are diluting the power of Black voters.

Louisiana Assistant Attorney General Angelique Freel said Monday that the state will continue to advocate for its original maps: “Our job is to defend what the Legislature passed, and we trust the 5th Circuit will review the merits in accordance with the law.”

Ardoin’s office declined to comment to ABC News because the case is pending.

While the 5th Circuit is seen as conservative and may not rule as favorably as the district court did, Democrats hailed the order from the Supreme Court, touting it as a victory for “fair representation” in Congress.

“Today’s Supreme Court order means the people of Louisiana are one step closer to achieving fair representation in Congress that better reflects the state’s diversity and reaffirms that the voices of Black voters matter,” Washington Rep. Suzan DelBene, the chair of House Democrats’ campaign arm, said in a statement.

The governor echoed that.

“Louisiana can and should have a congressional map that represents our voting population, which is one-third Black. As I have consistently stated, this is about simple math, basic fairness, and the rule of law,” Edwards said in a statement. “I am confident we will have a fair map in the near future.”

The Supreme Court decisions on state congressional maps come as Democrats gear up for a concerted effort to retake the House in 2024 after Republicans won a five-seat majority in the chamber during the 2022 midterms.

Beyond Alabama and Louisiana, where Democrats now see opportunities to win races in new Black districts, Democrats are also bullish on victories in cases regarding congressional maps in Georgia and one in South Carolina, which is focused on the 14th and 15th Amendments, rather than the VRA, but won’t be heard until the Supreme Court’s next term.

New York Democrats, who dominate the state government there, are also hopeful that they will be able to redraw their own maps before the 2024 cycle.

“It feels great on a democracy level that people are not going to be silenced,” one House Democratic strategist told ABC News after the Alabama ruling earlier this month. “On the other on hand, electorally, you can’t help but be happy about it. It’s always a good thing when you’re going to know you’re going to pick up more seats at the end of the day.”

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(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court has left this term’s blockbuster decisions for last, with rulings expected this week on student loans, affirmative action and more.

The justices will hand down their next round of opinions on Tuesday at 10 a.m. ET. There are 10 total cases remaining from the term that began back in October.

Their rulings will decide the fate of millions of Americans with federal student loans, a 40-year precedent of race-conscious college admissions processes, how federal elections are run in the U.S. and LGBTQ+ rights.

Already this term, the Supreme Court has weighed in on cases involving the Voting Rights Act, the Biden administration’s deportation policy, the Indian Child Welfare Act and social media liability.

Here’s a closer look at four major issues left to be resolved by the month’s end.

Affirmative action

A conservative advocacy group is asking the justices to reverse decades of precedent and ban the use of race-conscious admissions policies, arguing they discriminate against Asian-American applicants, in Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina and Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.

The universities, in their respective cases, insisted race is one factor among many used in a holistic assessment of student applicants and that their processes adhere to precedent.

The court’s conservative majority appeared poised to roll back affirmative action after hearing more arguments in both cases last fall.

Election law and the ‘independent state legislature’ theory

In Moore v. Harper, a redistricting case out of North Carolina, the justices are being asked to consider a controversial legal theory about who oversees elections — a decision that could have major implications for the 2024 cycle.

The “independent state legislature” theory contends state lawmakers have ultimate power to regulate federal elections free from traditional constraints such as state constitutions or courts. The theory is being backed by conservative advocates, though democracy and election experts contend the theory could upend election laws around the country if embraced in its most extreme application.

The court appeared dubious of the theory during oral arguments late last year and later issued an order for both sides to submit explanations on why they should continue to weigh the case in light of developments at the state level.

LGBTQ+ rights and free speech

In 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, a Colorado wedding website designer is asking the Supreme Court to strike down Colorado’s public accommodation law, arguing it infringes on her First Amendment right to free speech.

The designer, who opposes gay marriage, said the law — which requires her to serve LGBTQ+ customers or face a fine — compels her to go against her religious beliefs.

Lower courts ruled in Colorado’s favor but the Supreme Court seemed sympathetic to the designer’s case during arguments late last year.

Student loans

The court will determine whether President Joe Biden’s $400 billion plan to forgive student loan debt will move forward. The plan, announced by the administration last September, would wipe out up to $20,000 in federal student loan debt for more than 40 million Americans.

The move was challenged by six Republican-led states, which argued the administration exceeded its authority while also unfairly excluding Americans who don’t qualify and costing loan servicers revenue. Two student-loan borrowers denied relief under the program also sued.

The two cases are Biden v. Nebraska and Department of Education v. Brown.

The court’s conservative bloc seemed skeptical during February oral arguments of the Department of Education’s power to waive billions in debt because of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there were also questions about whether the states had legal standing to sue and how they would be harmed by the policy.

ABC News’ Devin Dwyer contributed to this report.

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