WASHINGTON — A monumental Supreme Court term begins Monday with major tests of presidential power on the agenda along with pivotal cases on voting and the rights of LGBTQ people.
The court’s conservative majority has so far been receptive, at least in preliminary rulings, to many of President Donald Trump’s aggressive assertions of authority. Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson invoked the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip after one such decision allowing the cut of $783 million in research funding.
“This is Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist,” Jackson wrote. “Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed rules. We seem to have two: that one, and this administration always wins.”
The conservative justices could be more skeptical when they conduct an in-depth examination of some Trump policies, including the president’s imposition of tariffs and his desired restrictions on birthright citizenship.
If the same conservative-liberal split that has marked so many of Trump’s emergency appeals endures, “we are in for one of the most polarizing terms yet,” said Irv Gornstein, executive director of the Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown University’s law school.
The justices will pass judgment in the next 10 months on some of Trump’s most controversial efforts.
3 major cases on presidential power are on the docket
The justices are hearing a pivotal case for Trump’s economic agenda in early November as they consider the legality of many of his sweeping tariffs. Two lower courts have found the Republican president does not have the power to unilaterally impose wide-ranging tariffs under an emergency powers law.
States and small businesses argue Trump cannot usurp Congress’s taxation powers by declaring national emergencies and using tariffs to address them.
The administration, though, says the law does give the president the power to regulate importation, and that includes tariffs. Four dissenting judges on a federal appeals court in Washington bought that argument, mapping out a possible legal path at the high court.In December, the justices will take up Trump’s power to fire independent agency members at will, a case that probably will lead the court to overturn, or drastically narrow, a 90-year-old decision. It required a cause, like neglect of duty, before a president could remove the Senate-confirmed officials from their jobs.
The outcome appears to be in little doubt because the conservatives have allowed the firings to take effect while the case plays out, even after lower-court judges found the firings illegal. The three liberal justices have dissented each time.
Another case that has arrived at the court but has yet to be considered involves Trump’s executive order denying birthright citizenship to children born in the United States to parents who are in the country illegally or temporarily.
The administration has appealed lower-court rulings blocking the order as unconstitutional, or likely so, flouting more than 125 years of general understanding and an 1898 Supreme Court ruling. The case could be argued in the late winter or early spring.
The court could hand Republicans significant victories on voting rights and campaign finance
The future of electoral districts with majorities of Black, Hispanic or Native American voters hangs in the balance in a case about congressional redistricting in Louisiana that will be argued in mid-October.
The Republican-led state has abandoned its defense of a political map that elected two Black members of Congress. Instead, Louisiana wants the court to reject any consideration of race in redistricting in a case that could bring major changes to the Voting Rights Act.
Chief Justice John Roberts and the other five conservative justices have been skeptical of the consideration of race in public life, including a decision in 2023 that ended affirmative action in college admissions.
Louisiana’s position would allow it and other Republican-controlled states in the South to draw new political maps that eliminate virtually all majority Black House districts, which have been Democratic strongholds, voting rights experts say.
The justices failed to decide the case in June after hearing arguments during its last term. The court does not need to go as far as Louisiana wants to reject the congressional map.
But a second round of arguments is a rare occurrence at the Supreme Court, and sometimes presages a major change by the justices. The Citizens United decision in 2010 that led to dramatic increases in independent spending in U.S. elections came after it was argued a second time.
Republicans, including the Trump administration, also are behind a drive to wipe away limits on how much political parties can spend in coordination with candidates for Congress and president.
The justices are reviewing an appellate ruling that upheld a provision of federal election law that is more than 50 years old. Democrats had asked the court to leave the law in place, and the Supreme Court upheld it in 2001.
No date for arguments has been set.
Transgender women and girls face a test over their participation on school sports teams
More than two dozen states have enacted laws barring transgender women and girls from participating in certain sports competitions.
The justices are hearing cases from Idaho and West Virginia, where transgender athletes won lower court rulings.
The Supreme Court in June upheld a ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth, but pointedly did not decide any broader issues about transgender rights.
They quickly agreed to take up the state appeals, which raised questions under the Constitution’s guarantee of equal treatment and the federal law known as Title IX that dramatically expanded the participation of girls and women in sports in public schools and colleges.
The court has yet to set an argument date.
