The US Supreme Court will conclude its current term in the coming days, with a series of pivotal decisions still pending, including three cases that scrutinise Donald Trump’s expansive of presidential authority.
The court, which holds a 6-3 conservative majority, has seven disputes yet to be resolved and has scheduled Monday as its next day for issuing rulings. Supreme Court terms typically commence in October and conclude around the end of June, occasionally extending into early July.
The cases involving Donald Trump centre on actions taken last year: his attempts to dismiss a member of the US Federal Reserve Board of Governors and a member of the Federal Trade Commission, alongside an executive order seeking to limit birthright citizenship. These actions collectively test the established boundaries of presidential powers.
Beyond these, the court is also set to rule on two significant election-related cases and one concerning state-level bans on transgender athletes.
The Republican president has recently seen favourable outcomes from the court, securing victories in two immigration-related cases on Thursday. Furthermore, since his return to office last year, the court has backed him in multiple emergency rulings, allowing policies previously blocked by lower courts to proceed while legal challenges continued. However, the court delivered a notable setback in February when it rejected his sweeping tariffs, which were issued under legislation intended for national emergencies.
FIRING FEDERAL OFFICIALS
The justices signaled skepticism during arguments in January toward Trump’s bid to fire the Fed’s Lisa Cook, a move that threatened the central bank’s independence.
No other president has tried to fire a Fed official since its founding in 1913. In creating the Fed, Congress passed a law that included provisions meant to insulate it from political interference, requiring governors to be removed by a president only “for cause.” The statute does not define the term nor establish procedures for removal.
Trump cited unsubstantiated mortgage fraud allegations — denied by Cook — to justify the firing. Cook, who has remained in the post while the case plays out, called the allegations a pretext to oust her over monetary policy differences. The conservative justices during arguments in December signaled they would uphold Trump’s firing of Democratic Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter over policy differences. Lower courts ruled Trump exceeded his authority.
U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer, arguing for the administration, urged the justices to overturn a Supreme Court precedent in a 1935 case called Humphrey’s Executor v. United States that has constrained presidential power by protecting the heads of certain independent agencies from removal. The court in recent decades has narrowed the precedent’s reach but stopped short of overturning it.
The conservative justices appeared sympathetic to the administration’s arguments that tenure protections given by Congress to the heads of independent agencies encroach on presidential powers under the U.S. Constitution. The court last year let Trump remove Slaughter while the case proceeded.
ELECTION-RELATED CASES
Two election-related decisions are due as the November midterm elections loom, with Republicans seeking to retain control of Congress. The conservative justices signaled skepticism during arguments in March toward a Mississippi law challenged by Republicans that permits a five-day grace period for mail-in ballots received after Election Day to be counted. That case could lead to stricter voting rules around the country.
The administration argued in favor of the challenge. Mississippi’s law permits mail-in ballots sent by eligible voters to be counted if they were postmarked on or before Election Day but received up to five business days after a federal election. A lower court ruled against the law. Trump, who has made false claims about widespread fraud in U.S. elections, issued an executive order in March to restrict mail-in ballots nationwide, but a federal judge in Boston on Thursday blocked its implementation. The court heard arguments in December in a Republican-led bid to strike down federal limits on spending by political parties in coordination with candidates in a case involving Vice President JD Vance. Some of the conservative justices appeared sympathetic toward the challenge. The court’s liberal members seemed inclined to preserve the restrictions.
The dispute centers on whether these limits violate the Constitution’s First Amendment protection against government abridgment of freedom of speech. A lower court upheld the restrictions.
TRANSGENDER ATHLETES
The court heard arguments in January over the legality of laws in Idaho and West Virginia banning transgender athletes from female sports teams at public schools including universities. The conservative justices appeared ready to uphold the laws. The states said the measures preserve fair competition for women and girls. Critics see them as part of wider efforts to restrict the rights of transgender Americans.
‘GEOFENCE’ WARRANTS
The court heard arguments in April in a case from Virginia involving whether law enforcement’s use of a “geofence” warrant to identify potential suspects based on data from cellphones near crime scenes violates the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment bar on unreasonable searches.
