A New Supreme Court Term Brings Familiar Trouble

The Supreme Court’s new term begins under the long shadow of Trump-era influence—and the conservative justices’ growing willingness to back his administration.

“The dominant theme of the term is going to be the Court’s relationship with President Trump.”

–Steven Vladeck

Supreme Court term previews typically consist of major or anticipated cases that have the potential to meaningfully impact the state of the union. However, as we discover with the help of Michele Goodwin and Steven Vladeck in the newest episode of On the Issues with Michele Goodwin, the story for this upcoming term can be better understood by examining the Trump administration’s ongoing relationship with the federal courts.

The Court’s previous term was marked by the Trump administration’s use of the emergency docket, which is part of the shadow docket. These are expedited orders handed down by the Court, which are often unsigned and lack supportive legal reasoning. In the last year, the Supreme Court ruled on 140 emergency applications, compared to 55 signed opinions in cases that were decided on the merits—a stark increase from years past.

The Court ruled on several important cases via the emergency docket over the last year, including Trump v. Cook, Trump v. Slaughter, Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo, and United States v. Shilling. While the shadow docket consists of orders that operate as temporary rules while the case makes its way through the courts, they have the real consequences for the rights of individuals impacted. In many of these cases, the Court offered deference to the Trump administration’s position, despite the possibility of irreparable harm to the parties involved.

In these cases, Vladeck explains, the balance of equities calculus the Court should be using would not reasonably support the outcomes in these unsigned orders. The Court can be seen to favor the Trump administration in the face of “a million Venezuelans who lose their ability to be protected from arrest, detention, and removal from the country. Transgender service members who get kicked out of the military. Federal employees who are getting fired. [T]hose are imposing immediate, and in many cases, not reparable harms, against the government’s, at best, loosely differentiated irreparable harm, and not being able to carry out some of its policies.”

In her critical dissent to an unsigned order in National Institutes of Health v. American Public Health Association allowing the NIH “to terminate $783 million in grants linked to DEI initiatives,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that, as a rule, “this Administration always wins.”

It is with this backdrop of permissible rulings on the shadow docket in favor of the Trump administration that we enter this new term of the Supreme Court. Though, Vladeck imagines that the merits docket might play a bigger role for the Trump administration in the new term. As shadow docket cases are not decided on the merits of the case, we might also expect more pushback from the Court in the cases coming up through the merits docket, where legal reasoning is required.

The merits docket boasts a few key cases to watch, both in terms of impact and for understanding the Trump Administration’s relationship with the Court.

In June of this year, the Court upheld a Tennessee law restricting medical treatments for transgender minors under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause in United States v. Skrmetti. This is an important indicator for understanding how the Court might approach other cases dealing with discrimination based on gender identity. This term, they will be considering two cases involving laws in Idaho and West Viriginia banning transgender girls and women from participating in girls’ and women’s sports. While distinct from the ban on medical treatment, there is reason to believe the Court will continue its efforts to further limit the rights of transgender children and adults.

Other cases to watch for this term deal with voting rights, the president’s authority to impose tariffs and the constitutionality of conversion therapy. Those cases are Louisiana v. Callais (section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and its constitutionality under the 14th and 15th Amendments), Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections (the constitutionality of allowing the counting of mail-in ballots sent in by election day after poll close), Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump (the president’s authority to impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act) and Chiles v. Salazar (the constitutionality of conversion therapy under the First Amendment).

While there are some big cases on the horizon that harken back to what we might expect from terms past, our eyes are firmly planted on the Trump administration and the cases they are bringing in this upcoming term.

Hear more from Vladeck and Goodwin on the podcast episode, “The Supreme Court Is Back in Session. What Fresh Hell Awaits?“ Listen below, or head to the episode landing page for a full transcript and additional resources.