The Important Supreme Court Cases To Be Decided In 2026

Axios.com lists some of the important Supreme Court cases for 2026: 

Birthright citizenship 

The Supreme Court will likely decide Trump's executive order ending birthright citizenship in early 2026 in Trump v. Barbara.

Trump's tariff case 

SCOTUS will decide the legality of Trump declaring a national emergency to impose sweeping tariffs on foreign goods without congressional approval, in what he has called the "most important case ever" in Learning Resources v. Trump.

Banning conversion therapy 

SCOTUS is expected to rule on a case challenging bans on LGBTQ+ conversion therapy for minors — a discredited practice aimed at changing young people's sexual orientations or gender identities in Chiles v. Salazar.

Trans athletes in women's sports

 

SCOTUS will hear arguments in two major cases — one from Idaho and another from West Virginia — where states banned transgender athletes from participating in girls' sports in West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox.

The Voting Rights Act

 

The high court appears poised to severely curtail Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in a decision that would reshape how legislative and congressional maps are drawn nationwide and potentially reduce minority representation by significant margins in Louisiana v. Callais.

Campaign finance

SCOTUS will rule on a Republican-backed challenge that aims to overturn decades-old limits onhow much political parties can spend in coordination with candidates in NRSC v. FEC.

Firing independent agency heads

 

The Supreme Court will decide whether Trump has the unilateral authority to fire leaders of independent agencies in Trump v. Cook and Trump v. Slaughter.

Hawaii law prohibiting guns 

SCOTUS will rule on the legality of a Hawaii law that prohibits individuals from carrying guns onto private property unless the owner gives explicit consent in Wolford v. Lopez.

Study Shows Red States Had Higher Rates Of COVID-19 Cases & Deaths Than Blue States Did

Some red state governors are bragging about what a good job they did with the pandemic. Don't believe them. They are just doing what Republicans do best -- LYING!

The COVID-19 pandemic did hit blue states first (especially Washington, New York, and California), so blue states initially had higher rates of cases and deaths from the virus. 

But that changed about the middle of the year. And by the end of the year, the red states had the highest rate of cases and deaths.

Why? Because the blue states listened to the scientists and initiated procedures to protect their citizens as much as possible. The red states did not. They used the pandemic to play politics -- and the result was that far too many people were infected and died unnecessarily.

This is verified by a study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Here is some of what that study had to say:

Results: From March to early June, Republican-led states had lower COVID-19 incidence rates compared with Democratic-led states. On June 3, the association reversed, and Republican-led states had higher incidence (RR=1.10, 95% PI=1.01, 1.18). This trend persisted through early December. For death rates, Republican-led states had lower rates early in the pandemic, but higher rates from July 4 (RR=1.18, 95% PI=1.02, 1.31) through mid-December. Republican-led states had higher test positivity rates starting on May 30 (RR=1.70, 95% PI=1.66, 1.73) and lower testing rates by September 30 (RR=0.95, 95% PI=0.90, 0.98).

Conclusion: Gubernatorial party affiliation may drive policy decisions that impact COVID-19 infections and deaths across the U.S. Future policy decisions should be guided by public health considerations rather than political ideology. 

Number Of COVID-19 Cases & Deaths In February For Texas

 

The Numbers in all of these charts is from The COVID Tracking Project.

The charts above show the average number of deaths and cases for each day in February for Texas. Note that the deaths dropped in February, but still averaged more than in October, November, and December.

The average number of cases also dropped, but was still larger than in October or November.

It's good that the numbers are finally beginning to fall, but both cases and deaths are still far too many. Hopefully, as more people get vaccinated, we can finally get control of this pandemic.

January COVID-19 Cases And Deaths In Texas

 

The numbers in these charts are from The COVID Tracking Project. The bottom large charts show the daily number of deaths and cases of COVID-19 in Texas in January. The top two charts show the average number of deaths and cases daily in Texas for the last four months.

Note that things are not getting better in Texas. The pandemic continues to get worse.

Hopefully, if the Biden administration can fix the vaccination delivery problem, that will change soon. We can only hope.

Cases And Deaths From COVID-19 Continue To Rise In Texas

These charts use the numbers from The COVID Tracking Project.

Texas Had Increase Of COVID-19 Deaths/Cases In November

 

The charts above reflect the number of new COVID-19 cases and deaths in Texas for the month of November. The numbers are from The COVID Tracking Project. 

There were 267,535 new cases of CIVID-19 in November in Texas. That is a daily average of 8917.8. The daily average for October was 4891.3.

There were 3,355 new deaths from COVID-19 in November in Texas. That is a daily average of 111.8. The daily average for October was 74.6.

Texas had a significant increase from October to November in both cases and deaths, and it is likely that December will show an increase over November.

COVID-19 Deaths And Cases In Texas In September

 The charts above reflect the numbers from The COVID Tracking Project.

It shows that there were 3,175 deaths due to COVID-19 in Texas during the month of September. That's an average of 105.8 deaths for each day of the month.

There were 135,998 new cases of COVID-19 in Texas during the month of September. That's an average of 4,533.2 cases for each day of the month.