three Trump – With the Supreme Court set to wrap up its term soon, three major cases tied to President Donald Trump’s assertions of presidential power are still undecided. The court is also weighing election rules, state bans on transgender athletes, and whether “geofence”
By the time the Supreme Court leaves the bench for the summer, the difference between “maybe” and “final” could land in households across the country.
The court, with a 6-3 conservative majority, is expected to finish its current term in the coming days. It still has seven disputes to resolve, and it has set June 29 as its next day to issue rulings. Supreme Court terms begin in October and typically wrap up around the end of June. sometimes spilling over into early July.
For President Donald Trump, the clock is especially consequential. Among the cases still waiting are three that probe the outer limits of presidential power—two involving efforts to remove top federal officials and one involving an executive action that narrowed birthright citizenship. Thursday’s decisions already delivered two immigration-related victories for Trump. and the justices have repeatedly allowed policies blocked by lower courts to move forward through emergency rulings. But the court also handed Trump a significant loss in February when it rejected his sweeping tariffs issued under a law meant for use in national emergencies.
None of that uncertainty is likely to feel abstract to the people living under the policies that could be upheld or reversed.
The court’s term has also been a test of how much independence Congress built into federal agencies—independence the administration argues must yield to presidential authority.
In January, justices showed skepticism toward Trump’s bid to fire Lisa Cook, a member of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Cook’s removal would have raised the stakes for the Fed’s independence. No other president has tried to fire a Fed official since the central bank’s creation in 1913. When Congress created the Fed. it passed a law that included provisions designed to insulate it from political interference. requiring governors to be removed by a president only “for cause.” The statute does not define the term “for cause” nor establish procedures for removal.
Trump justified the move by citing unsubstantiated mortgage fraud allegations—claims Cook denied—saying he had acted to address the alleged misconduct. Cook said the allegations were a pretext aimed at ousting her over differences related to monetary policy.
Those same questions—who can remove whom. and on what basis—are also central to another Trump dispute involving the Federal Trade Commission. In arguments in December. conservative justices signaled they would uphold Trump’s firing of Democratic Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter. a move that lower courts had found exceeded the president’s authority. U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer. arguing for the administration. urged the justices to overturn a Supreme Court precedent from a 1935 case called Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, which 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.
In December’s arguments. the conservative justices appeared receptive to the administration’s argument that tenure protections Congress gave to heads of independent agencies encroach on presidential powers under the U.S. Constitution. The court had previously allowed Trump to remove Slaughter while the case proceeded. even as the underlying legality was still being contested.
The third unresolved Trump-related issue ties to a broader change he made last year: an executive order to limit birthright citizenship.
Two election-related decisions are also due as the November midterm elections loom, with Republicans seeking to retain control of Congress.
In March, conservative justices signaled skepticism during arguments toward a Mississippi law challenged by Republicans. That law permits a five-day grace period for mail-in ballots received after Election Day to be counted. The administration argued in favor of the challenge. Mississippi’s law allows 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 has made false claims about widespread fraud in U.S. elections, and he issued an executive order in March to restrict mail-in ballots nationwide. But a federal judge in Boston blocked its implementation.
The Court’s election docket also includes a dispute tied to political spending. In arguments in December. the justices heard 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 to the challenge. while 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.
While election rules and federal power battles move through the court, another case puts the spotlight on how states are attempting to redraw the boundaries of opportunity in school athletics.
In January. the Supreme Court heard arguments 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 view the laws as part of wider efforts to restrict the rights of transgender Americans.
The term is also weighing the limits of surveillance technology.
In April, the Court heard arguments in a case from Virginia about whether law enforcement’s use of a “geofence” warrant—aimed at identifying potential suspects using cellphone data from near crime scenes—violates the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches.
Taken together, the court’s remaining docket places a clear thread through the term: who gets to decide—president, agencies, states, courts, or law enforcement—and how far power can reach before the Constitution steps in.
As the Supreme Court nears the end of its term. the June 29 deadline looms over multiple fronts: the independence of federal institutions under presidential pressure. the timing and rules of voting. the placement of transgender athletes in school sports. and whether advanced cellphone tracking crosses constitutional lines. The decisions that arrive next will not just settle legal disputes. They will determine how millions of Americans experience governance in real time.
Supreme Court Trump rulings presidential powers Federal Reserve Lisa Cook Federal Trade Commission Rebecca Slaughter birthright citizenship election mail-in ballots Mississippi law JD Vance transgender athletes Idaho West Virginia geofence warrants Fourth Amendment