After a summer recess that offered little respite, the Supreme Court began a new term Monday — one poised to yet again shape the direction of U.S. policy and presidential power in consequential ways, legal experts say. “The big picture here: this is a term where you’re going to see more clashes between [President Donald] Trump’s view of the power of the presidency and the Supreme Court’s view of the power of the presidency,” says Dan Urman, director of the law and public policy minor at Northeastern University, who teaches courses on the Supreme Court.
The top cases include a host of Trump administration policies and executive actions, including the former president’s sweeping tariff policies, his authority to fire federal agency heads, and his attempt to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. Other notable cases include legal challenges to state laws barring transgender athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports; a dispute over Louisiana’s congressional map with implications for the 1965 Voting Rights Act; and a free speech case involving Colorado’s ban on so-called “conversion therapy.”
The court typically breaks in late June or early July for a three-month recess. That wasn’t the case this year, as the justices faced a surge of emergency applications related to the Trump administration’s actions in recent months. That resulted in more than 20 so-called “shadow docket” decisions.
Procedurally, those decisions are often issued after very limited briefing and no oral argument. The shadow docket, Urman says, is “without a doubt taking up an increasing amount of the court’s time.” These are five major cases to keep an eye on this term.
