The U.S. Supreme Court formally opens a new term on Monday, October 5, 2026, facing a docket of high-stakes cases on Second Amendment gun bans, voting requirements, religion, climate litigation, and presidential power as its nine justices return to Washington.
The nine justices return to the bench with the same roster they have maintained for the past five years as the high court opens its session. Summer speculation that veteran conservative justices might retire to allow President Donald Trump to name successors with a Republican-controlled Senate has not materialized, leaving the court’s established 6-3 conservative majority intact.
That stability places the court’s eldest conservative members at the center of upcoming debates. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito enter the term positioned to help push American law further rightward on contentious issues including gun rights, religious schooling, and voting restrictions. Both justices backed every major administration policy that came before the court during the previous term.
Second Amendment Challenges to Semicutomatic Rifles
Among the central disputes on the calendar is Viramontes v. Cook County, a December case testing whether state and local government bans on AR-15 and similar semiautomatic rifles violate the Second Amendment and the 14th Amendment.
The challenge builds on a decades-long expansion of gun rights by the high court, reflecting what legal scholars describe as an ongoing effort to give life to individual liberties associated with the Second Amendment.
Well, this is an important case because we see the Supreme Court’s efforts to give life to individual liberties associated with the Second Amendment and gun rights. You see that further cemented in this challenge. We don’t know how the Supreme Court would rule, but, you know, there are some tea leaves that we could follow. The Second Amendment has truly gained speed, if you will, before the United States Supreme Court.
Michele Goodwin, Georgetown Law professor
Voter Documentation and Citizenship Proof in Arizona
The justices will also examine ballot access in Republican National Committee v. Mi Familia Vota, a challenge to Arizona requirements demanding documentary proof of citizenship for voter registration. A federal circuit court previously blocked the state provision after labeling certain measures unlawful voter suppression.
Republicans have asked the justices to set aside that lower court decision and permit proof-of-citizenship mandates in Arizona and elsewhere to remain in force.
Boulder County Sues Fossil Fuel Producers over Climate Impacts
Environmental litigation reaches the high court in Suncor Energy (U.S.A.) Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County. Boulder County and the City of Boulder filed suit in Colorado state court against Exxon Mobil Corp. and three Suncor Energy entities seeking damages for climate change impacts.
The municipal plaintiffs argue that fossil fuel producers knowingly contributed to global greenhouse gas accumulations while misleading the public about product dangers. Energy company defendants counter that federal law precludes state common-law claims addressing interstate emissions.
He says that what the companies were telling the public for years is the opposite of what the company's own scientists knew, and the local cost of that deception.
Legal observers view the environmental challenge as an uphill battle for advocates seeking to hold corporate energy producers liable under state tort doctrines.
Trump Administration Uses Shadow Docket to Bypass Appellate Courts
Beyond the merits docket, legal scholars note a shift in how the court resolves disputes through its emergency, or shadow, docket.
The Trump administration has frequently utilized the emergency process to bypass lower appellate courts viewed as hostile.
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