The New Orleans-based court, which hears Texas cases, is pushing the federal judiciary to the right, even when it gets overturned by a higher court.

More than a dozen federal appellate judges have heard arguments on whether Mississippi can continue to permanently strip voting rights from people convicted of certain felonies.

The Supreme Court is returning to a new term with familiar topics such as guns and abortion, as well as concerns about ethics swirling around the justices.

An appellate court added another twist in the ongoing legal battle over buoys placed in the Rio Grande river as a deterrent to illegal immigration. Earlier this week a federal court judge ordered Texas to move the buoys to the riverbank, but the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals stayed that order roughly 24 hours after it was issued.

The legal challenge to mifepristone now returns to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.

Lawyers for abortion providers argue the case should go to federal district court rather than the Texas Supreme Court, which could take months to issue a ruling.

Senate Bill 8 is poised to officially become law on Wednesday.

Miguel Gutierrez Jr./The Texas TribuneAfter a series of losses in state and federal courts, Texas Democrats are looking to the U.S. Supreme Court to expand voting by mail during the coronavirus pandemic. The Texas Democratic Party on Tuesday said it asked the high court to immediately lift the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals' block on a sweeping ruling that would allow all Texas voters who are seeking to avoid becoming infecting at in-person polling places to instead vote by mail. The fight to expand who can qualify for a ballot they can fill at home and mail in has been on a trajectory toward the Supreme Court since Texas Democrats, civil rights groups and individual voters first challenged the state's rules months ago when the new coronavirus reached Texas. Under his order, voters under the age of 65 who would ordinarily not qualify for mail-in ballots would now be eligible. In their appeal, the Democrats are asking the Supreme Court to leave in place Biery's order and take up the case on the claim that the state's age restrictions for voting by mail violate the 26th Amendment's protections against voting restrictions that discriminate based on age.