The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to consider whether Congress had the constitutional authority to impose a ban on distilling spirits in private homes more than 150 years ago.

Plaintiffs challenging the prohibition on home distilling claim the 1868 law is an antiquated relic of Reconstruction-era politics. They argue that Congress overstepped its taxation powers when it enacted the home distilling ban as part of a tax reform measure designed to curb fraud by commercial distillers.

Government attorneys counter that Congress properly restricted where spirits can be distilled to prevent producers from evading federal excise taxes. They warn that lifting the ban would violate Supreme Court precedent and erode congressional powers.

Federal law makes home distilling a crime punishable by a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Separate challenges to the law divided two federal circuit courts, which issued conflicting decisions in April, only 11 days apart.

A three-judge panel from the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the federal ban in a case brought by John Ream, a brewpub owner from Newark, Ohio, who wants to distill whisky at home for his personal consumption.

A Fifth Circuit panel ruled in favor of different plaintiffs — members of the Texas-based Hobby Distillers Association — and concluded that statutory prohibitions on in-home distilling are outside the scope of Congress' taxing power under the Constitution.

The Supreme Court agreed to review the Fifth Circuit decision, which was the Justice Department's preference. Plaintiffs' attorney Robert Alt said they are "thrilled" that the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.

"Our country's founders would be rolling over in their graves to learn that a pastime in which even George Washington partook, which is as American as apple pie and certainly a lot older, has quite absurdly been turned into a federal crime," Alt said in a statement.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs in both cases argue that Congress could ban a broad array of activities inside private homes — including cooking, gardening and remote work — under the government's interpretation of the 19th century law.

"The importance of this case and the questions it presents could hardly be overstated," the plaintiffs' lawyers wrote. "It presents fundamental questions of the extent of federal power and the powers reserved to the states and the people."

Justice Department attorneys said the government's regulation and taxation on the production of distilled spirits is as old as Congress itself. They noted that Congress outlawed home distilling to prevent those producers from evading taxes or government inspections.

"And because the location restrictions were enacted only after lengthy experience with tax evasion, upholding those restrictions would not open the door to hypothetical laws restricting other conduct lacking that history," they wrote. The government says Ream asked the Supreme Court to resolve an "additional question" of whether location restrictions on home distilling exceed the scope of Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce. But the government urged the high court to avoid that question, saying it wasn't part of Ream's case or the government's current arguments in either case.

The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to hear arguments in a watchdog's lawsuit seeking public records about billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.

The high court is intervening for a second time in Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington's case, which seeks access to DOGE records from its operations in the early days of President Donald Trump's second term. The Trump administration asked the court to hear the case.

Last year, the high court reined in a district court's order for the government to produce DOGE-related records to CREW. The high court's conservative majority concluded in June 2025 that U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled too broadly in ordering documents to be turned over to the group.

CREW claims DOGE is a federal agency and therefore is subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

The Trump administration argues that DOGE is exempt from FOIA's requirements as a presidential advisory body.

Cooper ruled in CREW's favor and ordered expedited processing of the group's records request. An appeals court panel also sided with CREW.

The Trump administration claims the panel ignored the Supreme Court's direction to consider separation-of-powers concerns and intruded on the "autonomy and confidentiality" of presidential advisers.

"Subjecting advisory bodies to intrusive discovery triggers the very concerns that Congress sought to avoid by excluding presidential advisory bodies from FOIA's reach," Justice Department attorneys wrote.

The administration also says the appeals court impermissibly authorized the plaintiffs to take a sworn deposition of DOGE acting administrator Amy Gleason.

CREW says the appeals court fully complied with the Supreme Court's previous order. The group also asserts that the public has a right to know how DOGE helped the administration carry out a sweeping overhaul of government operations in 2025.

"Undisputed facts in the public record — including the President's statements — confirmed that (DOGE) was wielding enormous independent authority across the federal government," its attorneys wrote.

In a statement Tuesday, CREW attorney Nikhel Sus said the lower courts have uniformly ruled that it is entitled to records that could help the court determine whether DOGE wields the type of authority that would make it subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

"We will continue to pursue transparency for the American people, who deserve to know the details of the Trump Administration's efforts to unilaterally remake the federal government," Sus said in the statement.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday turned away an appeal from former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, leaving intact a ruling that wiped out the $8.2 million defamation verdict he won over a political ad aired during his 2017 U.S. Senate campaign.

By declining to hear the case, the justices let stand a decision by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that set aside a jury's finding that the ad had defamed Moore. The outcome is a win for Senate Majority PAC, the Democratic-aligned super PAC that paid for the ad and has maintained that it was accurate.

Monday's order follows an earlier setback for Moore. In June, the Court denied his emergency request to freeze the 11th Circuit ruling while his appeal was pending.

Background of the 2017 race

Moore, known for his opposition to same-sex marriage and his support for displaying the Ten Commandments in public places, lost the 2017 Senate election after his campaign was engulfed by allegations of misconduct. Leigh Corfman accused Moore of touching her inappropriately in 1979, when she was 14 and he was a 32-year-old assistant district attorney. Moore denied the allegation. Other women said Moore had dated them or asked them out when they were in their late teens.

The disputed ad

Senate Majority PAC financed Highway 31, a group that ran a heavy advertising campaign against Moore during the race. Moore's defamation suit focused on one of its television spots. His lawyers argued that the ad combined statements and fragments of quotes from different news stories in a way that falsely suggested he had been accused of soliciting sex from young girls at a shopping mall. They described it as a "fabricated accusation, never made by any reporter," and said it aired 533 times in Alabama in the closing days of the election.

From jury win to reversal

A federal jury sided with Moore in 2022 and awarded him $8.2 million. The 11th Circuit later vacated that award, concluding that Moore had not proven the PAC acted with actual malice, the standard a public figure must meet to win a defamation claim.