{"id":408,"date":"2026-07-20T13:42:34","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T13:42:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=408"},"modified":"2026-07-20T13:42:34","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T13:42:34","slug":"when-it-comes-to-getting-the-supreme-courts-attention-does-one-state-have-an-edge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=408","title":{"rendered":"When it comes to getting the Supreme Court\u2019s attention, does one state have an edge?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Everything\u2019s bigger in Texas \u2013 even the number of people who brought a case that was ultimately argued before the Supreme Court during the 2025-26 term.<\/p>\n

Read more Almost Half of Americans View SCOTUS as Political<\/a><\/p>\n

A SCOTUSblog analysis of the 35 argued cases with a single person (who was not a government official sued in their professional capacity) or family on one side of the \u201cv.\u201d found that five of these disputes centered on Texans. The next-closest states on this metric can claim only two.<\/p>\n

A Texas man, Ali Danial Hemani, was victorious in United States v. Hemani<\/em>, in which the Supreme Court held that a federal law barring users of illegal drugs from possessing a gun violates the Second Amendment when it was applied to Hemani, a marijuana user.<\/p>\n

A Texas woman, Lebene Konan, lost her years-long battle over intentionally misdelivered mail. In U.S. Postal Service v. Konan<\/em>, the court held that a federal law barring lawsuits against the government for the \u201closs\u201d or \u201cmiscarriage\u201d of mail prevents Konan\u2019s suit from proceeding.<\/p>\n

In the three other disputes involving Texans, the court considered what to do when a trial court\u2019s improper dismissal of a defendant leads to a jurisdictional issue, the circumstances under which an agreement not to appeal a sentence is unenforceable, and what topics criminal defendants may discuss with their counsel during an overnight recess in their testimony. The Texans won two out of the three.<\/p>\n

As these brief descriptions make clear, the five Texas cases raised legal questions that weren\u2019t specific to the Lone Star State. They focused on federal laws or on circuit or Supreme Court precedents that apply beyond the state\u2019s borders. In other words, the prominence of Texas cases at the Supreme Court this term can\u2019t be explained by unique (or uniquely problematic) state laws.<\/p>\n

So what does explain why Texas stood out this term \u2013 and why the state often looms large at the court? There are a few possible reasons, including, most notably, that appeals from federal courts in Texas go to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which is somewhat frequently reversed by the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

A discretionary docket<\/strong><\/p>\n

But before we dig further into this Texas question, let\u2019s talk about how the Supreme Court fills out its oral argument docket.<\/p>\n

Each term, the justices consider thousands of petitions for review from individuals and organizations across the country. With their clerks, they search for appeals that raise pressing legal questions and that do so without procedural baggage, such as factual disputes in the record of the case. Then, at regularly scheduled private conferences, the justices vote on whether to grant the petitions they\u2019ve analyzed. An appeal needs four \u201cyes\u201d votes to be taken up for argument.<\/p>\n

The court is able to use this voting process to pick cases because, as most SCOTUSblog readers are likely aware, its oral argument docket is largely discretionary, meaning the justices aren\u2019t required to grant every petition for review they receive. They also aren\u2019t required to prioritize specific constitutional issues or take up a certain number of cases from each state or each circuit. The lack of requirements gives the justices the freedom to focus on other factors, such as the presence of a circuit split \u2013 that is, a disagreement between the federal courts of appeals \u2013 on the legal issue raised in a case.<\/p>\n

Still, certain geographic patterns seem to appear in the makeup of the oral argument docket term after term. Why? For one thing, in states with larger populations, there are (obviously) more people to file lawsuits. So, from the get-go, it makes sense that there would be more cases with California (with its approximately 39 million residents) or New York (approximately 20 million residents) ties than cases tied to Vermont or Wyoming, both of which have fewer than three-quarters of a million residents.<\/p>\n

Read more Johnny Brown, Justice Jackson\u2019s father, passes away at 80<\/a><\/p>\n

Some states are also led by officials who actively seek out high-profile legal battles. This includes Texas, where, when former President Joe Biden was in office, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Biden administration more than 100 times and where lawmakers continue to pass laws aimed at challenging Supreme Court precedent, such as legislation requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public school classrooms.<\/p>\n

Yet another reason why some states seem to command a disproportionate share of the court\u2019s attention is that some circuit courts<\/em> do. Among the 13 federal courts of appeals, there are a few that find their rulings reviewed by the Supreme Court more often than the others, generally because they are comprised of judges that are out of step with the justices, whether that means further to the left (think of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit up until a few years ago) or further to the right.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most notable example of this phenomenon, at least currently, is the 5th Circuit, which, for three terms running, has had more rulings reversed by the Supreme Court than any other circuit (although, to be fair, in absolute rather than percentage terms). During the 2025-26 term, the Supreme Court reviewed 11 cases out of the 5th Circuit on its oral argument docket, two more than the next closest appellate court. The justices reversed the 5th Circuit\u2019s decision in eight of those cases, according to the .<\/p>\n

As Bloomberg Law noted in a recent analysis of Supreme Court reversals, the 5th Circuit is \u201carguably the nation\u2019s most conservative appellate court\u201d \u2013 even more conservative than the Supreme Court itself. For this reason, it sometimes creates circuit splits with less conservative courts, and these splits are one of the factors justices focus on when deciding which cases to take up, as noted above. It also \u201cstands out for its unusually high rate of reviewing decisions en banc\u201d (that is, by the full court); and, according to Bloomberg Law, \u201c[c]lose en banc decisions can motivate the justices to take up a case to settle a controversy among the lower court.\u201d (That said, others, including SCOTUSblog columnist Brian Fitzpatrick, have emphasized that a basic comparison of each circuit\u2019s number of reversals can be misleading because the 5th Circuit \u201cdecide[s] many more appeals than other circuits,\u201d which \u201cobviously gives the Supreme Court many more chances to reverse it than other circuits.\u201d).<\/p>\n

Why Texas?<\/strong><\/p>\n

This brings us back to Texas. As noted above, several factors help explain why some states appear on the court\u2019s oral argument docket more regularly than others, and the Lone Star State benefits from many of them.<\/p>\n

First, Texas is the second-largest state in terms of population, with nearly 32 million residents as of last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Relatedly, Texas has the , which is relevant because cases brought by criminal defendants make up a significant share of the Supreme Court\u2019s oral argument docket each term.<\/p>\n

Second, Texas is litigious. As noted earlier, Paxton, the state attorney general who is running for U.S. Senate, challenged, with the support of other Texas officials, dozens of Biden administration policies related to such issues as immigration, the environment, and overtime pay. And state Sen. Mayes Middleton, a Republican running to become the next Texas attorney general, has said that he supports efforts to overturn major Supreme Court precedents on whether noncitizen students can be excluded from public schools and Ten Commandments displays in public school classrooms.<\/p>\n

But perhaps most importantly, Texas is part of the 5th Circuit. Indeed, four of the five disputes discussed in the introduction involved an appeal of a 5th Circuit ruling, including Hemani<\/em>, which was among the most discussed cases of the term.<\/p>\n

We shall see if these factors lead Texans into the Supreme Court spotlight next term, as well.<\/p>\n

Read more Rebecca Slaughter speaks out<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everything\u2019s bigger in Texas \u2013 even the number of people who brought a case that was ultimately argued before the Supreme Court during the 2025-26 term. Read more Almost Half of Americans View SCOTUS as Political A SCOTUSblog analysis of the 35 argued cases with a single person (who was not a government official sued […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":284,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scotus-focus"],"yoast_head":"\nWhen it comes to getting the Supreme Court\u2019s attention, does one state have an edge? - American Service Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/americanservicereview.com\/?p=408\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"When it comes to getting the Supreme Court\u2019s attention, does one state have an edge? - American Service Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Everything\u2019s bigger in Texas \u2013 even the number of people who brought a case that was ultimately argued before the Supreme Court during the 2025-26 term. 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