by J. Maria Glover | Jul 1, 2026 | Opinion, Supreme Court
While many are tracking Supreme Court rulings as wins or losses for President Donald Trump, what they should be watching is a broader and more disturbing trend: For several years, and at an accelerating pace this term, the Supreme Court has been seizing power for itself — from the lower courts, from Congress and from the voters. Whichever way it rules for Trump, the court always rules for itself. The Supreme Court, the one branch of government that can’t be voted out, answerable to no one, is making itself the branch that rules all others.
This is Supreme Court authoritarianism, built to outlast any president.
Start with the ruling on birthright citizenship. When Trump loses (though barely; three justices were ready to deny citizenship to children born on U.S. soil) most court-watchers exhale — and miss the danger already taking hold: a high court wresting power from the courts beneath it and the supposedly co-equal branches beside it.
When Trump loses most court-watchers exhale — and miss the danger already taking hold: a high court wresting power from the courts beneath it and the supposedly co-equal branches beside it.
Consider last term’s ruling on nationwide injunctions. What many commentators scored as a win for Trump did far more for the high court. For centuries, courts’ power to fashion a remedy that fits the harm has been flexible by design — it’s what courts do. In Trump v. CASA Inc., the Supreme Court declared that centuries-old power fixed and frozen: A federal court may only order from a short catalog of remedies that the Roberts Court says an English court could award in 1789. In his
by Thomas Wolf | Jul 1, 2026 | Opinion, Supreme Court
The Supreme Court’s decision striking down President Donald Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship is a vital victory for the children and communities that would have been hurt. But let’s be clear: While Trump v. Barbara was a weighty case, it shouldn’t have been a hard one. And the decision does not make the court some guardian of multiracial democracy. This court has been taking a sledgehammer to it throughout this term.
In Barbara, the court faced this choice: Rewrite the Constitution, revive one of its most embarrassing precedents, overturn 130 years of its own decisions, disown the collective understandings of generations of presidents and federal lawmakers and endorse an overhaul of citizenship that would endanger hundreds of thousands of children. Or just follow the law.
Ultimately, the court chose to follow the law.
While Trump v. Barbara was a weighty case, it shouldn’t have been a hard one.
Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion for the majority affirmed that the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees citizenship to all children born on American soil. This invalidated an executive order Trump issued the first day of his second term claiming to deny citizenship to babies born in the United States to noncitizen parents.
The flaws of that order were immediately obvious.
For one thing, Trump’s order was inhumane. It would have relegated hundreds of thousands of children to a new subclass without legal rights and protections and put them in danger of deportation. These children and their parents would have suffered greatly. American communities would have, too.
The order violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s plain language: “[A]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are
by Chris Walker | Jun 30, 2026 | 14th Amendment, Birthright Citizenship, Congress, Donald Trump, News, Supreme Court
After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against President Donald Trump’s attempt to redefine birthright citizenship through executive order on Tuesday, Trump demanded that Congress pass a law rescinding birthright citizenship rights instead. The birthright citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution reads, in part, that: Trump’s executive order, issued on the first…
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by Brett Wilkins | Jun 30, 2026 | Article, Politics and Movements: US, Reprint, Supreme Court, Trump
by Shireen Akram-Boshar | Jun 30, 2026 | Athletes, Brett Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas, Donald Trump, News, Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court, Transgender, transgender athlete bans
The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that states may bar transgender athletes from girls’ sports, in a continuation of the Trump administration’s attacks on trans rights. The conservative judges’ written opinions were replete with transphobia — and even the dissenting, liberal position from the court failed to fundamentally uphold the rights of transgender athletes. The court ruled that laws in…
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by Ray Brescia | Jun 30, 2026 | Opinion, Supreme Court
The Supreme Court issued two seemingly irreconcilable decisions on Monday: one that authorized the president to fire heads of otherwise independent agencies created by Congress, and another that seemingly halted President Donald Trump’s efforts to remove Lisa Cook as a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, also a body created by Congress.
But Cook’s narrow win still hands this president and future presidents a clear path forward to take action that could intimidate members of the Fed in ways that threaten its independence. Instead of strengthening the Federal Reserve’s ability to protect its independence, the Court has handed the administration yet another tool for applying pressure on its members: the punishment of procedure.
The differing outcomes of the cases — one involving Rebecca Slaughter, a member of the Federal Trade Commission, and the other involving Cook — cannot really turn on the differences in the statutes that created those entities and specify the grounds on which the president may remove their members.
Cook’s narrow win still hands this president and future presidents a clear path forward to take action that could intimidate members of the Fed in ways that threaten its independence.
In the case of Slaughter at the FTC, the relevant statute provides that she could not be removed except for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” In contrast (but not really in contrast), the statute that identifies the terms of office of members of the Federal Reserve and their grounds for removal provides that such officers may only be removed for “cause.” It is hard to draw a distinction between the words of these two authorizing
