State Court Oral Arguments to Watch for in March

Each month, State Court Report previews upcoming oral arguments in prominent or interesting state court cases.

In March, state supreme courts will take up a wide range of issues, including an effort to undo a voter-approved minimum wage increase, state constitutional challenges to a near-total abortion ban, gun restrictions for people with prior drug offenses, and more.

Disarmament for Prior Drug Crimes — March 3

State v. Rudy Nino Parras, Oregon Supreme Court

The Oregon Supreme Court will consider whether a state law banning people convicted of drug felonies from possessing guns violates the state constitution’s “right to bear arms” clause or the federal Second Amendment. A defendant convicted of such possession argues that the historical circumstances behind Oregon’s clause — including “a decade of bloody conflict with Indigenous tribes in an era when Oregon’s settlers understood firearms to be vital to their survival” — show that the framers intended the clause to protect “the broadest swath of people,” including prior offenders. Based on recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions interpreting the Second Amendment, the defendant also contends permanently disarming people for past drug crimes, regardless of individual dangerousness, is inconsistent with the nation’s history of firearm regulation.

The state — with which the lower courts sided — asserts that a separate legal process permits people with drug or other nonviolent convictions to apply to have their firearm rights restored and that historical evidence shows state legislatures have always had the power to restrict gun possession by people deemed a risk to social order or public safety.

The state’s largest trial-level public defender group submitted an amicus brief against the law, arguing it disproportionately impacts minority and unhoused Oregonians.

Watch the arguments here.

Can “Dark Money” Disclosure Requirements Adopted by Voters Stand? — March 6

Montenegro v. Fontes, Arizona Supreme Court

The Arizona Supreme Court will take up a 2022 campaign finance-related ballot measure hailed as a model for other states and passed overwhelmingly by voters. It requires groups that spend significant sums on campaign media to identify their large donors, so the original source of the money is no longer secret from voters. The intermediate court agreed with legislative leaders that a portion of the voter-approved statute, which says rules and enforcement activity by a commission charged with implementing the law are not subject to approval or limit by any “legislative governmental body,” violates separation of powers by restricting the legislature from enacting future campaign spending laws. At issue before the Arizona high court is whether the appellate court was right to block only that provision and leave the rest of the law — including the “dark money” disclosure requirements — in effect. The state supreme court will also consider whether legislative leaders have standing to claim that voters’ grant of implementing power to the state’s clean elections commission more generally “usurps legislative authority.”

One of the amicus groups siding with legislative leaders also has filed a separate petition with the high court asserting that the disclosure requirements “chill” campaign contributors’ speech and violate their right not to be “disturbed” in “private affairs” under the state constitution. The court has not yet decided whether to hear that petition.

Watch the arguments in the current appeal here.

Should a wage increase approved by Missouri voters be set aside? — March 12

McCarty v. Missouri Secretary of State, Missouri Supreme Court

The Missouri Supreme Court will consider whether to set aside a ballot measure increasing the state’s minimum wage and giving workers paid sick leave that voters approved in November 2024 with 58 percent of the vote. The Missouri Chamber of Commerce and other business groups claim “irregularities” with the measure are of a “sufficient magnitude” to justify overturning the result under a state statute that allows voters to contest an outcome post-election under certain circumstances. The plaintiffs, who filed their petition directly with the Missouri high court, claim that the “fiscal note” that accompanied the measure insufficiently described its projected costs and that the summary of the measure, among other issues, didn’t properly explain the sick leave policy. They also claim that including minimum wage and sick leave in one measure violates state constitutional “single-subject” ballot measure requirements and that exempting some employers but not others violates state constitutional equal process protections. Despite the lawsuit, the measure went into effect in January.

Watch the arguments here.

Dispute over controversial election rules resurfaces in Georgia — March 19

Republican National Committee v. Eternal Vigilance Action; Georgia v. Eternal Vigilance Action, Georgia Supreme Court

The Georgia Supreme Court will consider whether the Fulton County Superior Court erred in voiding seven controversial rules the state board of elections enacted in the months before the November election, including rules requiring county boards to conduct a “reasonable inquiry” into vote tabulation and canvassing before certification; allowing any county board member to examine “all election related documentation” prior to certification; and requiring hand-counting of ballots. Voting rights groups have argued that these rules were created to allow election officials to delay or prevent certification of legitimate election results.

The trial court held that the state elections board lacked constitutional and statutory authority to issue the rules, including that the board usurped the legislature’s power to set election procedures. On appeal, the state of Georgia and Republican groups argue that the rules fall within properly delegated rulemaking authority the legislature gave the board. They also dispute the trial court’s conclusion that the role state legislatures play in dictating congressional elections cannot be delegated to other state entities, like the board. The Georgia high court refused to reinstate the rules by pausing the trial court ruling, or to expedite this appeal, before the election.

Watch the arguments here.

Challenge to North Dakota’s Near-Total Abortion Ban — March 25

Access Independent Health Services v. Wrigley, North Dakota Supreme Court

The North Dakota Supreme Court will take up the state’s abortion ban and its limited exceptions, including for abortions “deemed necessary based on reasonable medical judgment” and intended to prevent a pregnant person’s death or “serious health risk.” Before the court is an appeal of a trial court ruling striking down the ban for violating a fundamental right to obtain an abortion before the point of fetal viability — a right the trial court said flows from protections for life, liberty, safety, and happiness in the state constitution’s “inalienable rights” guarantee. The North Dakota high court has previously recognized a woman’s fundamental right to end a pregnancy when “necessary to preserve her life or health” but, in the trial court’s view, left open whether there are fundamental abortion-related rights that are “broader in scope.”

Whether the state supreme court uses this appeal to clarify that scope remains to be seen. In a January order refusing the state’s request to pause the trial court’s ruling, a majority of justices said they were not convinced that the ban’s medical exception is adequate enough for the law to satisfy even the more limited right to life- and health-preserving abortions previously identified. As such, they did not address the trial court’s recognition of a broader right to any pre-viability abortion. The justices at that juncture took issue with the exclusion of “psychological or emotional” conditions from the serious health risks that are excepted.

Also at issue before the state high court is whether the trial court erred in finding this medical exception unconstitutionally vague.

Watch the arguments here.

Sarah Kessler is an advisor to State Court Report.

Erin Geiger Smith is a writer and editor at the Brennan Center for Justice.

Suggested Citation: Sarah Kessler and Erin Geiger Smith, State Court Oral Arguments to Watch for in March, Sᴛᴀᴛᴇ Cᴏᴜʀᴛ Rᴇᴘᴏʀᴛ (Feb. 28, 2025), https://statecourtreport.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/state-court-oral-arguments-watch-march