Coronavirus crisis thrusts politically charged legal battles before Supreme Court
Washington — The ongoing coronavirus crisis has spurred governors of nearly all 50 states to issue orders requiring residents to remain in their homes and mandating certain businesses and schools close their doors to slow the spread of the sometimes fatal illness.
But the efforts related to the public-health crisis have also sparked a flurry of activity in the federal courts, as the coronavirus becomes a factor in politically charged cases dealing with voting rights, abortion and immigration that are weaving their way closer to or have already arrived at the Supreme Court.
The first legal battle stemming from the coronavirus landed before the justices last week when GOP lawmakers in Wisconsin and the Republican National Committee (RNC) asked the high court to curtail extended absentee voting.
Wisconsin Democrats had asked a federal district court to extend the deadline for absentee voting because of the coronavirus pandemic, which roiled the state's April 7 election and led Governor Tony Evers, a Democrat, to issue a stay-at-home order. The court agreed and gave voters six extra days to mail in their absentee ballots. State Republican leaders asked the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to halt the ruling, though it declined to do so.
Wisconsin Republicans and the RNC then appealed to the Supreme Court, which, split along ideological lines, granted the request from Republicans to curb absentee voting, and in-person voting in the state continued despite efforts to delay the primary.
Also moving through the lower courts are challenges mounted by abortion rights groups to orders in at least seven states banning nonemergency medical procedures, including abortions, during the coronavirus outbreak.
One of those legal battles, involving an order from Texas Governor Greg Abbott prohibiting nonessential procedures during the pandemic, landed before the Supreme Court this week after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals twice sided with the state.
But the groups withdrew their request to the high court Tuesday after the New Orleans-based court said medication abortions can continue in Texas. It's unclear whether Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.
Lower courts have largely sided with abortion rights groups in disputes over the limitations, as they argue the restrictions are an attempt to circumvent Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark Supreme Court decision that affirmed the right to an abortion.
Like the 5th Circuit, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled medication abortion can continue in Oklahoma despite Governor Kevin Stitt's ban on the procedure. Federal district courts in Alabama and Ohio have ruled against states and said abortions can proceed. In Iowa, where Governor Kim Reynolds limited nonessential surgeries, the state and the American Civil Liberties Union reached an agreement allowing women to obtain "essential" abortions, according to the Des Moines Register.
The challenges to restrictions imposed by Republican governors aren't slowing down. The Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood and the ACLU on Tuesday filed lawsuits in federal courts in Louisiana and Tennessee in response to orders halting nonemergency medical procedures during the coronavirus pandemic.
"This is a shameful abuse of power," Center for Reproductive Rights President Nancy Northup said of the Louisiana order in a statement. "Louisiana has been trying for decades to end abortion. We are already fighting a separate Louisiana law at the Supreme Court that would shut down nearly every clinic in the state. If the state's latest actions are not blocked, that will become a reality before the Supreme Court even rules."
The justices in March heard oral arguments in a challenge to a Louisiana law requiring doctors that perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. A decision is expected by the end of June.
The court said this week that it would hold oral arguments in several high-profile pending cases over the phone, with justices participating remotely to comply with social distancing guidelines. Arguments in other pending cases could be pushed to the next term in October, or justices could rule without hearing oral arguments at all.
Meanwhile, a trio of states have asked the Supreme Court this week to halt the Trump administration's implementation of the so-called "public charge" rule, which gives immigration officials the power to deny visas or green cards to immigrants if they have used or might use public benefits, including Medicaid or housing assistance.
The Supreme Court gave the green light to the Trump administration in January to begin enforcing the public charge rule, but the states say the measure is "especially destructive" as states rush to curtail the spread of the coronavirus.
"The public charge rule is hindering those efforts by deterring immigrants from accessing healthcare and public benefits that are tools for protecting the public at large by limiting the spread and severity of COVID-19 and promoting our nation's recovery from the economic crisis that the disease has caused," officials from New York, Vermont and Connecticut told the Supreme Court in a filing.
The coronavirus outbreak and its impacts on public health, the states argued, "present sudden and stark new circumstances not previously considered by the court and have vastly changed and amplified the irreparable harm caused by the rule."
In addition to spurring new legal battles, the coronavirus pandemic is also weighing on pending cases before the justices.
Late last month, lawyers representing young undocumented immigrants who are protected from the threat of deportation under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, asked the justices to take the coronavirus pandemic into account before deciding whether the Trump administration can terminate DACA. The Supreme Court heard arguments in a challenge to the administration's efforts to rescind the program last year.
"Healthcare providers on the frontlines of our nation's fight against COVID-19 rely significantly upon DACA recipients to perform essential work," they wrote.
Roughly 27,000 DACA recipients are healthcare workers, the lawyers said in the filing, while another 200 are medical students, residents and physicians.
"DACA recipients are essential to protecting communities across the country endangered by COVID-19," the letter to the Supreme Court said. "Termination of DACA during this national emergency would be catastrophic."
