Rules of the Game: 2026 SCOTUS Term Preview and Advocacy for 501(c)(3)s

As they say, “It’s fall y’all!” And along with pumpkin spice lattes – the US Supreme Court is back in session on Monday October 5 – what is known as “First Monday,” the official start of the Court’s annual term. A little trivia: First Monday was established by law in 1917.

On today’s episode, we have a special guest from AFJ’s Justice team, our colleague and Dorot Fellow, Morgan Flitt.

Morgan is here to help us break down some of the major cases coming before the Supreme Court this term – cases that could have real consequences for everyday people and the issues they care about, including climate change, gun rights, voting, immigration, and LGBTQ+ rights

Then, we’ll bring it right back to nonprofits: what can organizations do to engage in Supreme Court advocacy, weigh in on judicial nominees, and make their voices heard while remaining nonpartisan and mindful of lobbying limits.

Our Attorneys This Episode

• Brittany Leonard
• Susan Finkle Sourlis
• Our Special Guest: Morgan Flitt, Dorot Fellow

Introduction to Justice Program: Brittany  

• Our justice team works on both federal and state judicial appointments and elections and runs numerous invaluable resources including our judicial vacancy tracker and helps keep us and the public informed about nominees. This includes the decisions they make after they’ve been confirmed, and how cases in federal courts – especially the supreme court – are impacting our civil rights and democracy.

• Today, we are thrilled to be joined on the pod by our friend and colleague Morgan Flitt. Morgan is a fellow attorney who serves as the Senior Dorot Fellow on the Federal Courts team.

• Today we want to talk about the upcoming cases in this supreme court term, what we should be keeping an eye on, the potential impacts for our c3 partners, and what nonprofits can do during this term and future terms to advocate.

Cases to Watch Out for This Term

(Four across four different critical issue areas) 

Climate Change 

• Suncor Energy (U.S.A.) Inc. v. Commissioners of Boulder County (No. 25-170) 
  • Issue: Whether federal law precludes state-law claims seeking relief for injuries allegedly caused by the effects of interstate and international greenhouse-gas emissions on the global climate; and (2) whether this court has statutory and Article III jurisdiction to hear this case
  • Brief context: The Board of County Commissioners of Boulder County and the City of Boulder sued Exxon Mobil and Suncor, arguing that they should share in the costs of mitigating climate change because they knowingly contributed to causing it through producing, marketing, and selling fossil fuels while misrepresenting its dangers. The companies argued federal law preempted these claims, but the lower court agreed with the Board and the City of Boulder.
  • Consequences: If the Supreme Court sides with Big Oil and Gas Companies, giving them blanket federal immunity from state tort law, this could potentially wipe out the dozens of climate deception cases that states and localities have filed around the country.
  • Argument: Oct 5, 2026

Voting & Democracy

• Republican National Committee v. Mi Familia Vota (No. 25-1017)
  • Issue: (1) Whether the National Voter Registration Act or a federal consent decree prohibits Arizona from requiring voter-registration applicants to produce “satisfactory evidence” of U.S. citizenship when registering with a state registration form; and (2) whether the NVRA prohibits Arizona from implementing a program within 90 days of a federal election to cancel the registrations of voters who are not U.S. citizens.
  • Brief context: In 2022, Arizona passed two additional hurdles to voting. First, they required new voter registrants to provide a physical “documentary proof of citizenship.” Secondly, Arizona enabled county recorders to conduct citizenship audits of voter registration rolls against both state and federal databases. Mi Familia Vota and others filed suit against the Republican National Committee (RNC) to block these state laws from going into effect. The Ninth Circuit sided with Mi Familia Vota.
  • Consequences: Siding with the RNC to greenlight these additional hurdles would render another blow to voting access and our democracy. Such demands would screen out lower income voters, people who have changed their names, naturalized citizens, and anyone who doesn’t happen to have easy ways to obtain a passport or their birth certificate. It would also open the door for other states to impose similar inequitable requirements.
  • Argument: December 8, 2026

LGBTQ+ Rights

• International Partners for Ethical Care, Inc. v. Ferguson (No. 25-840)
  • Issue: Whether parents have standing to challenge a law or policy that deliberately displaces their decisionmaking role as to “gender transitions” of their children, and in so doing creates present and likely future impediments to their ability to parent their children as they deem best for them.
  • Brief context: Washington took “modest steps to address the crisis of transgender youth homelessness” by updating its laws to allow minors in shelters to access “health care — including gender-affirming care — without contacting their parents.” Staff must still make good faith efforts to notify the minor’s parents and are only allowed to withhold information if sharing it would cause harm to the minor. In response, the International Partners for Ethical Care and a group of parents challenged these laws, claiming they chill speech and “deliberately displace their decision-making role.” The Ninth Circuit court of appeals dismissed their case for lack of legal standing.
  • Consequences: The issue of legal standing is often political, and if the Court grants these parents standing, it could open the door for special interest groups to manufacture so-called grievances to bring challenges to school curricula, library books, vaccination policies, and confidential reproductive care.
  • It would also advance yet another challenge to the medical necessity of gender-affirming care for transgender people while protecting the abuse of anti-LGBTQ+ parental rejection.
  • Argument: December 7, 2026

Gun Safety 

• Viramontes v. Cook County (No. 25-238), consolidated with Grant v. Higgins (No. 25-566)
  • Issue: Whether the Second and 14th Amendments guarantee the right to possess AR-15 platform and similar semiautomatic rifles.
  • Brief context: When Cutberto Viramontes and Christopher Khaya were barred from owning AR-15 style weapons after they were banned in Cook County, Illinois, they joined two gun-rights organizations and filed a suit arguing that the law banning the sale, transfer, and possession of semiautomatic rifles violates the Second and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution. Both an Illinois district court and the Seventh Circuit sided with Cook County and upheld the assault weapons ban.
  • What will happen if the ban is overturned? 
    • Consequences: A decision overturning this ban could void other assault weapons bans in Connecticut, California, New York, and a dozen other states — bans that have drastically reduced mass shootings, including school shootings, compared to states without such bans.
    • Argument: December 2, 2026

What C3s Can Do 

• Supreme court advocacy is nonpartisan. You are free to stand for or against cases before any court or get involved in the cases.
  • Litigation at the supreme court
  • Amicus briefs
  • Educating the public about cases and impacts of opinions

Advocacy and Lobbying Work About the Courts 

• Nominee advocacy: Advocate for or against nominees to supreme court (lobbying)
  • Remember the lower district courts and circuit courts as well
  • Remember the lobbying rules if you are a c3: must track and report your lobbying the IRS and stay within your lobbying limits. Great place for c4s to get involved because they can lobbying in an unlimited amount.
• Ethics advocacy: Ask congress for more oversight or ethics rules (Lobbying if it will require a legislative vote).
• Supreme court reform: Increasing the size of the bench, retirement requirements, and more

Resources 

• Alliance for Justice, Being a Player

• Alliance for Justice, Confirmation of Supreme Court Justices

• Alliance for Justice, Judicial Nominee Tracker

• Alliance for Justice, Supreme Court Reform

• See more of our coverage of critical Supreme Court cases this term here.