While Washington Waits on the Voters, the Supreme Court Opens Its November Session: Younge and Maxwell on Monday, St. Mary on Election Day Itself
Congress is out and the campaign is over, but the Court is in: the November argument session runs through November 10, opening with a summary-judgment defense case and a First Step Act habeas case.
Washington is quiet today because the decision has moved to the voters - Congress is out of session, and neither chamber votes again until November 9. The one branch working a full public schedule in the capital on Monday is the Supreme Court, which opens its November argument session, running through November 10 with seven hours of arguments across five days.
Monday's calendar holds two cases. In Younge v. Fulton Judicial Circuit District Attorney's Office (No. 25-352), the justices consider whether a party may rely on an affirmative defense raised for the first time at summary judgment - a civil-procedure question with employment-discrimination roots. In Maxwell v. Thomas, Warden (No. 25-5930), the Court considers whether a federal prisoner may use a habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. 2241 to challenge the Bureau of Prisons' handling of First Step Act time credits affecting earlier transfer to a halfway house or home confinement.
The session's most-watched argument lands on Election Day itself. On Tuesday the Court hears St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy (No. 25-581), which asks whether a Catholic preschool's exclusion from Colorado's universal preschool program amounts to religious discrimination, alongside Guerrero v. Johnson (No. 25-1003). No opinions are scheduled in the sources checked Monday morning.
For the capital region, the session is the week's other decision track: the voters will settle control of Congress on Tuesday, but the arguments heard this week - over court procedure, federal prison credits and religious inclusion in a state preschool program - will be decided on the Court's own calendar, with rulings expected by the end of the term. The House Press Gallery lists the House's next votes for Monday, November 9, and the Senate returns the same day at 3 p.m. Eastern.
