Search
Filter Search
Reuss v. Arizona
Healthcare providers sought to block enforcement of Arizona's 15-week abortion ban on the basis that it violates a state constitutional amendment passed in November 2024 that establishes a fundamental right to pre-viability abortion. On plaintiffs' motion for judgment on the pleadings, which the state did not contest, the trial court permanently blocked the ban.
State v. Francisco Edgar Tirado
Held that North Carolina's "cruel or unusual" punishment clause — construed consistently with a separate state constitutional provision specifying the types of punishment laws may impose, without limitations based on age — would provide less protection against life-without-parole sentences for juveniles than the Eighth Amendment, so must be interpreted in lockstep with the federal "cruel and unusual" punishment clause.
Cherokee Nation v. U.S. Department of the Interior
Held that the governor possesses constitutional and statutory authority to represent the state’s interests in litigation involving tribal gaming contracts, including to choose the counsel who will represent his position. The governor was a named defendant in his official capacity in the underlying litigation, and the state attorney general sought to assume control of defending the state’s interests over the objection of the governor, who had already employed separate counsel to represent the state.
Glen Oaks Village Owners v. City of New York
Will consider whether a New York City law establishing greenhouse gas emission limits for large city buildings is field preempted by a state climate law that sets emissions targets statewide. An intermediate appellate court reversed dismissal of the plaintiffs' preemption claim.
Montanans Against Irresponsible Densification v. State
Reversed lower court's preliminary injunction against state laws requiring municipalities to allow multi-unit dwellings in single-family zoned areas, finding that the state constitutional right to acquire and protect property is subject to the state's police power and that the "possibility" of constitutional harm is insufficient to support an injunction.
Texas v. Margaret Daley Carpenter
Texas’s attorney general sued a New York doctor for mailing abortion-including drugs to a woman in Texas, claiming she practiced medicine in Texas without a Texas license and improperly aided an abortion. After the doctor did not respond to the complaint, a Texas trial court issued a default judgment enjoining her from prescribing abortion-inducing drugs to state residents and imposing $100,000 in civil penalties, as sought by the attorney general.
An Ohio Court Strikes Down Ban on Gender-Affirming Care for Minors
Citing the state’s health care freedom amendment, the court ruled that Ohio’s restrictions on transgender youth care violate the state constitution.
League of Women Voters of South Carolina v. Alexander
Original petition challenging 2022 congressional district map as partisan gerrymandering in violation of the South Carolina Constitution and arguing that the more explicit guarantee of equal voting rights in the state constitution (as compared to the federal) make such a challenge justiciable, unlike federal partisan gerrymandering claims under Rucho v. Common Cause (U.S. Supreme Court 2019). The same map was previously challenged in federal court as racially discriminatory line-drawing in violation of the U.S. Constitution, but the U.S. Supreme Court in Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP (2024) found that the plaintiffs did not meet their burden of proving that racial considerations predominated over partisan political motivations.
Washington, DC Needs Stronger ‘Home Rule’
Most state constitutions allow municipal governments autonomy over local matters. Washington, DC’s policies, by contrast, must go to Congress for approval.
Smith v. BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee
Held that an insurance company’s termination of an at-will employee for petitioning legislators about Covid-19 vaccine requirements did not fall within a “violates clear public policy” exception to at-will employment. Because the right to petition in the TN Constitution only constrains the government, not private parties, a private employer does not violate “public policy” by terminating an employee for exercising that right.
