The Supreme Court has (probably) chosen all the cases it will hear this term

The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it will hear argument in Salazar v. Paramount Global, on the interpretation of a federal law passed in 1988 intended to protect videotape rental histories from public disclosure. For some court watchers, the line on the order list that said “[t]he petition for a writ of certiorari is granted” was notable, as it did not include details – such as an expedited briefing schedule – that would be expected if the justices planned to hear argument in Salazar this term.

So is the oral argument docket for the current term complete? Unless the court decides to take up and fast-track a high-profile or otherwise particularly urgent case, it seems likely. Here’s what we know.

2025-26 oral argument docket

Before Monday’s cert grant in Salazar, the court had 64 cases on its oral argument docket for the current term. One of those cases – Department of Education v. Career Colleges and Schools of Texas – was dismissed before argument, and 10 were consolidated, meaning that the court will hear 59 arguments in the 64 cases.

Some court watchers expected the justices to add a few more cases to this term’s docket this week because 59 would be the lowest number of arguments in a term in three years (the court heard 62 in the 2024-25 term and 61 in the 2023-24 term after also hearing 59 in the 2022-23 term). But Monday’s order list appeared to dispel that possibility. This is because, in taking up Salazar, the court did not expedite that case’s briefing schedule.

As Stephen Wermiel recently reported for SCOTUSblog, under the court’s standard briefing schedule, petitioners – the litigants who asked the justices to address the case – have up to 45 days after the Supreme Court grants review to file a brief on the merits. After that brief is filed, the respondents – the litigants who prevailed in front of the lower court – have up to 30 days to file their own brief on the merits. Then, the petitioners have up to 30 days to file a reply to the respondents’ brief, although this final brief must be submitted at least 10 days before oral argument, which is why, as Wermiel noted, some petitioners do not get the full 30 days.

If you count backward from the court’s final regularly scheduled argument session in April using these deadlines, you will see that cases need to be granted by mid-January to be fully briefed by late April under the standard briefing schedule. Last term, the final cases to be taken up without a noted change to the briefing schedule were granted on Jan. 17. The court added additional cases to the 2024-25 oral argument docket, including a high-profile dispute over a first-of-its-kind religious charter school, on Jan. 24 and Jan. 27, but the order lists announcing those grants detailed an expedited briefing schedule.

Monday’s order list included no such schedule change, and under the standard schedule, Salazar will thus not be fully briefed until early May, unless Michael Salazar is given just a week to reply to Paramount Global’s merits brief. For that reason, it is likely that Salazar will not be argued until the fall, just as Glossip v. Oklahoma, a death penalty case granted on Jan. 22, 2024 – without a noted change to the briefing schedule – was not argued until October 2024. (That said, the court does not confirm when it is done choosing cases for a particular term, and we can’t know for sure that this term is complete until it releases its schedules for the March and April argument sessions.)

To sum it up: the court’s oral argument docket for the current term is likely complete, unless the court opts to fast-track a dispute that (at least in its view) can’t wait until the fall. Last term, for example, the justices agreed in April to hear oral argument in Trump v. CASA on lower courts’ authority to issue nationwide, or universal, injunctions, in May – when they would otherwise normally be finished hearing arguments. But it’s hard to imagine right now what such a case might be.

Looking ahead

If the oral argument docket for the 2025-26 term is indeed complete, then we already know which cases will be heard over the next three months. Many of these upcoming cases have somewhat low profiles, with one (very) big exception.

In Trump v. Barbara, which will likely be heard in March, the justices are considering whether President Donald Trump’s executive order limiting access to birthright citizenship violates the 14th Amendment, which states that “[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”

The Trump administration contends that this clause was “adopted to confer citizenship on the newly freed slaves and their children, not on the children of aliens temporarily visiting the United States or of illegal aliens.” As a result, according to the administration, it is not violated by the executive order, which makes children’s access to automatic citizenship dependent on their parents’ immigration status.

The Trump administration is also the petitioner in United States v. Hemani and Noem v. Al Otro Lado. In Hemani, which is scheduled to be argued on March 2, the court will consider whether a federal law that prohibits drug users from owning guns violates the Second Amendment. In Al Otro Lado, the court is set to determine whether an asylum seeker must physically enter the United States to apply for asylum under the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Another notable dispute is Watson v. Republican National Committee, in which the court will consider whether federal law requires ballots to not only be cast by voters but also received by Election Day in order to be counted. The court’s eventual ruling could force changes to voting rules across the country (and potentially benefit Republican candidates), because around 30 states allow ballots that arrive within a specified amount of time after Election Day to be counted so long as the ballots are postmarked by then.

These cases, along with cases that have already been argued on tariffs, transgender athletes, the Voting Rights Act, and the president’s authority to remove the heads of independent agencies, ensure that the 2025-26 term will be a memorable one, even if the court’s oral argument docket is now complete.