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SCOTUS 2025 Wrap Up-Part 1 [1]

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Date: 2025-06-08

SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) 2025 Wrap Up–Part 1 June 8, 2025

The song in the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway musical “Carousel” declares, “June Is Bustin’ Out All Over.” Well, here we are in June 2025, 80 years later, and in the U.S. legal world, “June Is Also Bustin’ Out All Over” with major decisions coming from 1 First Street, NE, Washington, DC, the home of SCOTUS, the Supreme Court of the United States. https://www.supremecourt.gov This is the time I devote several blog posts to what I consider the most interesting and major actions and decisions of the High Court’s most recent term. To quote from the “Sound of Music’s” “Do Re Mi,” song, “Let’s Start From the Very Beginning.” https://rodgersandhammerstein.com >song>do-re-mi

On June 5, 2025, SCOTUS, in a unanimous opinion, ruled that the State of Wisconsin violated the First Amendment’s protection for religion and discriminated against the religious organization in that state when it denied a tax exemption to a Catholic charities chapter. https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2025/06/05/supreme-court-catholic-charities-tax-exemption-religious-rights/83386550007/?tbrf=hp

WI’s law, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, is similar to most states’ and federal governments. It grants exemptions from its unemployment insurance program for certain church-controlled organizations that are “operated primarily for religious purposes.” https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2025/06/05/supreme-court-catholic-charities-tax-exemption-religious-rights/83386550007/?tbrf=hp

WI argued that since Catholic Charities was providing mainly secular work in participating in the state’s unemployment benefits system, it should get no exemption, even if it was “motivated by religious belief.” Catholic Charities, unlike other religious organizations, which receive tax exemptions for such work, was incorporated separately from the diocese and offered its services without proselytizing and helped everyone regardless of faith. https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2025/06/05/supreme-court-catholic-charities-tax-exemption-religious-rights/83386550007/?tbrf=hp

SCOTUS agreed with Catholic Charities. It held that by denying this exemption to some religious organizations and not others “based on theological differences” was really favoring one type of religion over another,” strongly forbidden by the 1st Amendment’s Establishment of Religion Clause. As Eric Rassbach, an attorney with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represented Catholic Charities in this case stated, “It was always absurd to claim Catholic Charities wasn’t religious because it helps everyone, no matter their religion.”

https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2025/06/05/supreme-court-catholic-charities-tax-exemption-religious-rights/83386550007/?tbrf=hp

Yes, the Roberts Court is known to favor faith groups in many cases and have often had sharply divided opinions on such matters, but not in this case. As liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor aptly wrote in this opinion, “There may be hard calls to make in policing whether a state violated the First Amendment’s protection for religion, but this is not one.” https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2025/06/05/supreme-court-catholic-charities-tax-exemption-religious-rights/83386550007/?tbrf=hp

And none of us should be surprised that on that on June 6, 2025, SCOTUS allowed members of the Trump Administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to access Social Security Administration data.https://www. nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court-/supreme-court-trump-doge-social-security-data-access-elon-musk-rcna206515

The conservative-majority court, with the three liberal justices (Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson) objecting, granted an emergency application filed by the Trump administration asking the Justices to lift an injunction by a federal judge in Maryland. The unsigned order said that members of the DOGE team assigned to the Social Security Administration should have “access to the agency records in question in order for those members to do their work.” This lawsuit was filed by the progressive group Democracy Forward on behalf of two unions, the American Federation of Teachers and the Alliance for Retired Americans. These two prominent groups stated, according to NBC News, “This is a sad day for our democracy and a scary day for millions of people.This ruling will enable President Trump and DOGE’s affiliates to steal Americans’ private and personal data.” https://www. nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court-/supreme-court-trump-doge-social-security-data-access-elon-musk-rcna206515

The lawsuit, according to what NBC News stated, would by its allowing broader access to personal information, would violate a federal law called the Privacy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.https://www. nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court-/supreme-court-trump-doge-social-security-data-access-elon-musk-rcna206515

Now, of course, we can certainly “trust” the Trump administration in protecting our personal data (NOT).

In a second June 6, 2025 SCOTUS ruling also involving DOGE, the Trump administration won another key victory. As reported by NBC News, when it was once again, DOGE v. the American people, the High Court shielded that organization from freedom of information requests for material. With the same three liberal judges disagreeing with this decision as well, the SCOTUS conservative majority indicated that Trump’s government will not have to respond to requests for documents and allow for the deposition of DOGE administrator Amy Gleason, while litigation in this case proceeds. A spokesperson for Citizens Responsibility in Washington, which filed this lawsuit, said they were “obviously disappointed” with the decision, but “pleased that the Court allowed discovery to proceed.”https://www. nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court-/supreme-court-trump-doge-social-security-data-access-elon-musk-rcna206515

Yes, the litigation can proceed but without, IMHO, key information that could help this group. It is quite clear, however, that the conservative Roberts SCOTUS is no big friend of helping plaintiffs get broader discovery, especially when going up against a conservative administration.

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