Supreme Court decision reshapes civil rights and federal power
Justice Department correspondent Aisha Bagchi dissects three major Supreme Court decisions.
WASHINGTON – In many ways, those were President Trump’s words.
When the Supreme Court returned to the bench in October, the big question was how the justices would rule on the president’s priorities.
What’s the answer?
In nine months of 6-3 rulings by the conservative court in June, the justices expanded the president’s powers, but also ruled against him on some of President Trump’s most important cases, particularly birthright citizenship and tariffs.
President Trump has been pleased with most of the court’s rulings in election-related cases, including a major ruling limiting the scope of the landmark civil rights law. Some Republican-led states were quick to take advantage of the decision to impose new electoral maps that would boost Republicans’ chances in this fall’s midterm elections.
And President Trump declared victory over the biggest culture war decision of the season, allowing states to ban transgender women and girls from competing on women’s sports teams.
Here are highlights from the biggest cases in court.
Expanding Presidential Powers – But So Far
President Trump’s attempt to remove the head of an agency that Congress seeks to maintain independence allows the court to advance the unified executive doctrine long promoted by conservatives. Under that theory, the Constitution gives the president complete control over executive functions, which must include the power to remove government agency leaders for any reason.
But while the court applied that reasoning in allowing President Trump to fire Democratic commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission, the majority blocked the president from firing the head of the Federal Reserve. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that Congress limited the president’s power to remove the head of the Federal Reserve Board “for just cause.”
The court also said that President Trump cannot change his long-held understanding of birthright citizenship with the stroke of a pen and cannot use the emergency statue to impose sweeping tariffs.
Conservative court observers said the mixed results show that court critics are wrong to say conservative justices won’t stand up to Mr. Trump.
But Erwin Chemerinsky, a liberal legal expert and dean of Berkeley Law School, summed up the outcome, which included many of Trump’s emergency appeal victories throughout his term, as “bad, but it could have been worse.”
Big immigration decisions
President Trump may have lost the birthright citizenship case that is the centerpiece of his hard-line approach to immigration, but the court’s other immigration decisions largely allow him to decide who can enter the United States and who must leave.
One clears the way for President Trump to halt humanitarian programs for Haitians and Syrians temporarily living in the country. In another example, it allowed asylum-seeking refugees to be turned away at the border. The third allowed for tighter surveillance of green card holders returning from abroad.
These opinions, along with hundreds of policy changes that have not been challenged in the high court, affect millions of people.
Courts have traditionally given presidential administrations of both parties wide discretion over immigration policy, even if they have drawn the line at forcing President Trump to redefine what an American is through executive orders.
Republicans won most election-related lawsuits.
Republicans won nearly every challenge in election-related litigation, scoring their biggest victory in a ruling that watered down key parts of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act.
This decision in the Louisiana House Districts case makes it extremely difficult, if not nearly impossible, for racial minorities to claim that Congressional maps unfairly weaken their voting power.
Republicans also succeeded in challenging one of the last remaining monetary limits in politics. The rule is designed to prevent wealthy donors from circumventing restrictions they can place on federal candidates by funneling money through political parties.
And the court sided with Republicans in a ruling that made it easier for candidates to challenge election laws.
But the court rejected a Republican challenge for a grace period for mail-in ballots that are postmarked and arrive after Election Day, dealing a loss to President Trump’s efforts to restrict mail-in voting.
precedent to be overturned
Over the objections of the court’s three liberals, six conservative justices overturned several precedents this term.
Reversing a 90-year-old ruling, the court said Congress-imposed limits on the president’s ability to remove members of independent agencies like the Federal Trade Commission violate presidential authority.
The court also overturned a quarter-century-old ruling that upheld limits on how much political parties can spend in collaboration with candidates.
The court’s liberals complained that the majority’s decision to limit challenges to congressional districts as unfair to minority voters would essentially overturn previous decisions, even if the opinion was otherwise.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor made similar accusations in her ruling, making it more difficult for foreign nationals to bring lawsuits in U.S. courts alleging serious violations of international law.
Sotomayor said the majority reversed its previous decision “without even acknowledging that it was doing so.”
More legal setbacks for transgender Americans
After an unexpected victory in 2020 to protect transgender employees from workplace discrimination, transgender Americans continue their losing streak in the high court.
This term, the justices rejected Colorado’s ban on “conversion therapy” for young people. The court said the ban violated Christian counselors’ right to free speech.
The court also upheld efforts to prevent transgender women and girls from competing on women’s sports teams in more than half of the states.
The setbacks followed a ruling last year that states can ban gender-affirming care for transgender minors.
Next term, the court will take up the issue of the rights of parents involved in their children’s gender identity transitions in a case over a Washington state law protecting transgender runaway children.
A series of losses in Colorado’s LBBTQ+ case
The court’s decision against a Christian counselor in a conversion therapy dispute was just the latest LGBTQ+ case to begin in Colorado, a pioneering state for gay rights.
In the past few years, courts have sided with website developers and cake shops who objected to providing some services to gay customers because of their religious beliefs.
Next term, a judge will decide whether Catholic preschools in Colorado must accommodate LGBTQ+ families if they want to participate in the state’s tuition-free program.
Gun rights advocates win further challenge
The justices continued to limit gun regulations by applying the court’s landmark 2022 ruling that said firearms regulations “must be consistent with this nation’s historical tradition of firearms regulation.”
This session, the court struck down a Hawaii law that required gun owners to obtain a permit before taking firearms into stores and other private property open to the public. The justices also limited the application of a decades-old federal law that prohibits certain drug users from possessing firearms.
An even bigger event is expected to occur next season. Before the summer recess, the justices announced they would decide whether a ban on semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15 is constitutional.
Such bans were passed in response to mass shootings, but gun rights advocates argue that millions of Americans own AR-15s for self-defense.
