The U.S. Supreme Court

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Supreme Court rejects Trump’s push to toss $5 million verdict in E. Jean Carroll sexual abuse case

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a push by President Donald Trump to throw out a jury’s $5 million finding that he sexually abused the writer E. Jean Carroll at a New York City department store in the mid-1990s and later defamed her.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-supreme-court-e-jean-carroll-sexual-abuse-1a50d1e9e1d12898e78e0803c4627771?

Supreme Court rules states can count late-arriving mailed ballots, rejecting Trump-led challenge

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that states can count ballots that arrive after Election Day, a persistent target of President Donald Trump.

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-mailed-ballots-trump-elections-5f24f718ea92a33838485ce6302e079e?

Supreme Court says Fed’s Cook can keep her job for now, but it upholds other Trump firings

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday dramatically expanded presidential power, upholding President Donald Trump’s firings of the heads of independent federal agencies with one important exception: the Federal Reserve.

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-executive-power-trump-firing-cook-7b7676e5a066f8df41077a0920b9f334?

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🏛️ Another big SCOTUS day

Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios The Supreme Court today cleared the way for President Trump to freely fire officials from the FTC and most other politically independent agencies, Axios' Ashley Gold and Courtenay Brown report. The ruling — which overturns a nearly century-old precedent — vastly expands presidential power and influence. (Go deeper.) 🏦 Yes, but: The 6-3 decision came with a carve-out for the Federal Reserve, in line with earlier signals that the Supreme Court sees the central bank differently. SCOTUS also ruled today that Trump can't immediately remove Fed governor Lisa Cook, a blockbuster decision limiting the president's influence there. 🗳️ The Court also upheld a Mississippi law allowing mailed ballots to be counted if they're postmarked on or before the date of the election and received within five business days, Axios' Avery Lotz reports. That ruling could protect mail voting in states with similar laws this November — and is sure to feed Trump's frequent criticism of voting by mail. 👮 Finally, SCOTUS restricted law enforcement's use of "geofence warrants" that compel tech companies to identify users who were near the scene of a crime when it was committed. (Go deeper.)

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Supreme Court upholds state laws banning transgender girls and women from school athletic teams

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld state laws barring transgender girls and women from playing on school athletic teams, in another setback for transgender people.

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-transgender-athletes-school-teams-e01548be1fc0f574d9c274e077414075?

Supreme Court upholds birthright citizenship, rejecting Trump’s proposed limits

WASHINGTON (AP) — A divided Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a broad conception of birthright citizenship, rejecting President Donald Trump’s executive order declaring that children born to people who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens.

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-birthright-citizenship-trump-immigration-c73cf0c70bb550ebf0a55fafddbd935c?

Supreme Court will consider whether laws known as assault weapons bans violate the Second Amendment

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Supreme Court that has expanded gun rights will consider whether bans on semiautomatic rifles, often called assault weapons, violate the Second Amendment.

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-assault-weapons-ban-ar15-a362863265ba8630e71068fe5b75bb8e?

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Birthright survives

A journalist runs an opinion to her news organization outside the Supreme Court today. Photo: Alex Wroblewski/AFP via Getty Images The Supreme Court handed President Trump a major loss today by axing his executive order restricting birthright citizenship. In their final ruling of a blockbuster term, five justices reaffirmed the long-held belief that any person born on American soil is a citizen, Axios' Josephine Walker reports. ✍️ Chief Justice John Roberts wrote: "Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights — to freely participate in our political community." Trump's executive order would have limited birthright citizenship to people who have at least one legally present parent in the U.S. Millions of babies would no longer have been eligible for citizenship, losing their rights to work authorization, safety nets and voting, among other things. 👀 Trump called on Congress to start working today "on ending expensive and unfair to our Country, Birthright Citizenship." GOP lawmakers are swiftly answering his plea, pushing for legislation — or even a constitutional amendment — to end automatic citizenship, Axios' Stef Kight reports. A constitutional amendment is highly unlikely. 🥊 Still, for immigration advocates, the sigh of relief is short-lived. Efrén Olivares, the vice president of litigation and legal strategy at the National Immigration Law Center, tells Axios: "We need to keep fighting." 🏛️ Just last week, the high court expanded Trump's power over immigration, including by clearing the administration's way to remove deportation protections for Haitians and Syrians. Go deeper ... What advocates are bracing for.

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⚖️ Court's summer avalanche

People gather to attend a Supreme Court open session today. Photo: Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images Before hanging up their robes for the summer, the court handed down two other key decisions sure to delight conservatives. A majority ruled that: States can ban transgender girls from girls' school sports teams. Federal limits on how much political parties may spend in coordination with candidates violate the First Amendment. 🏃‍♀️ The decision on sports participation caps a yearslong, Republican-led push through statehouses and school boards to define girls' sports by sex assigned at birth, Axios' Andrew Pantazi reports. 💰 In the latter ruling, the justices freed party committees from federal limits on how much they can spend alongside their candidates, making them a more powerful magnet for the kind of cash that's flooded super PACs. The decision overturns a 25-year-old precedent that upheld those limits. The bottom line: Trump applauded both rulings as a "BIG WIN." Go deeper on the sports decision ... and on campaign finance.

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The divided Supreme Court’s birthright citizenship decision exposes sharp rifts among justices The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that children born in the U.S. are citizens under the Fourteenth Amendment, rejecting an order President Donald Trump issued at the start of his second term declaring children born to people who are in the country illegally or temporarily are not American citizens. Read more.

Why this matters: The ruling highlights a significant rift between the justices, particularly between Justices Clarence Thomas and Ketanji Brown Jackson. The majority, which included Justice Jackson, determined that birth on U.S. soil plus being subject to U.S. law is enough for citizenship. Dissenters like Justice Thomas argued that the parents must have a deeper allegiance to the U.S.

RELATED COVERAGE ➤ Takeaways from Supreme Court term   Supreme Court strikes down limits on party spending in federal elections, backing Republican appeal   Writer E. Jean Carroll calls for Trump to pay $5.8M after high court appeal fails   Supreme Court will consider whether laws known as assault weapons bans violate the Second Amendment   NPR retracts article mistakenly reporting Justice Alito’s retirement, citing misunderstanding   Judges strike down Trump administration’s overhaul of student loan forgiveness program   Nursing gains ‘professional’ label for student loans after judge’s ruling, but theology now dropped

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The court reigns supreme

The Supreme Court spent its latest term sidelining Congress and amassing power for itself and the presidency, Axios' Andrew Pantazi writes.

• After the term that ended this week, Congress can no longer insulate regulators from the president, limit political parties' spending, or require race-conscious voting districts.

The justices overturned precedents, second-guessed Congress and brushed aside facts found by lower courts.

• Georgetown Law professor Steve Vladeck tells Axios: "The real headline of the current term is, 'Supreme Court rules for itself, 6–3.'"

⚖️ Some of the court's most notable recent decisions:

1. Choosing which parts of the FTC to keep (the powers Congress gave it) and which to shed (the independence Congress designed).
2. Making it nearly impossible to use the Voting Rights Act to challenge maps diluting Black and Latino voting power.
3. Striking down limits on coordinated political party spending (which it had upheld in 2001).
4. Curbing Congress' power to make state officials pay damages for violating federal funding laws.
5. Letting President Trump keep withholding $4 billion in congressionally appropriated foreign aid, at least for now.

Reality check: The president didn't win everything this term.

• Chief Justice John Roberts wrote all three major rulings against Trump: blocking emergency tariffs, sparing Fed governor Lisa Cook (for now), and rejecting the executive order ending birthright citizenship.

What's next: Trump's biggest defeat doubled as the term's loudest warning.

• Four justices were willing to say that Trump's birthright citizenship order didn't violate the 14th Amendment, which grants citizenship to all those born in the country.
• Georgetown's Vladeck says the fact that a position deemed "outlandish as recently as a decade ago" got four votes will "embolden" the next wave of once-fringe constitutional arguments.

Go deeper.