Future Cases and Upcoming Court Docket

NPR's tiny desk can't come to you. I mean it's a desk, but the tiny desk contest tour can New York City join NPR's tiny desk contest winner, Cure for Paranoia at Warsaw this july ninth. It's all the NPR Tiny Dk ennerergy minus the office furniture Get your tickets now at tinydesktour. org Another Supreme Court term ended last week, and it was pretty monumental. The court made decisions on cases affecting elections and voting, presidential power over federal agencies, immigration, and transgender rights. So what can we take away from all of this? And what's coming when the court returns this fall? Let's talk about it It's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Ashy Lopez, I cover politics. I'm Kare Johnson. I cover the Supreme Court and I' Tamma Keeeith, senior P political correspondent. Care, I want to start like broadly here. I'm curious if you saw any through lines or themes that connected some of the decisions this term likeike so much in Washington, it was about executive power, the power of the president. The Supreme Court in a few cases ruled against President Trump cases that really mattered to him. But mostly it was a big term for executive power, power that the court handed not just to Trump, but also to future presidents. I'm thinking here of several of the immigration cases, like the court's victory that it handed Trump over his decision to end temporary protected status for people from Haiti and Syria and potentially with aftershocks for some of the other TPS programs too and also the decision which basically got rid of a ninety something year old precedent. which gave the president a whole bunch more power over agencies, federal agencies we used to think were independent. I'm talking here about a case involving the former federal trrade commommissioner, Rebecca Slaughter, who was fired by Trump He didn't give any cause. He basically just said under his Article II power, under the Constitution, he could get rid of her. The Supreme Court said, that's fine by them Yeah Yeah, And it's not just that they were thought to be independent, they were created by Congress to be independent. They were structured in that way But the court said, noah, that that infringes on the president's Article two powers Well, the court majority also said that basically if somebody is exercising the power of the executive branch, the president shouldn't be saddled with people in those kinds of jobs that he doesn't want to work with or doesn't want working for him. Yeah, I want to stick with the Rebecca Slaughter case. And I want you to give me examples of like what some of the bigger effects of this could be. These agencies do a lot of things, do a lot of regulating, and they were made independent for a reason. What could be the ramifications of this ruling? Well over a dozen federal agencies, some of which are very important, like the Equal Employment Oortunity Commission The agency that regulates nuclear power, the Consumer Products Safety Commission, which, among other things, assesses children's toys for their safety and effectiveness. In all of these agencies, the president could be able to fire members without giving any cause at all. And there's an argument to be made that the logic, the court majority used here in the firing of this single Federal Trade Commission member could extend all the way down the federal bureaucracy into many, many more positions Yeah, and One of the questions is If these people are not independent, if these commissioners are not independent, if they have to worry about being fired by the president at any given moment, will they make difficult decisions? Will they do things that they know will upset the president? Um, and traditionally going back, yeah, sometimes these commissioners because they're appointed on staggered terms and they're definitely holdovers, sometimes they do make decisions that the president wouldn't like because That was their responsibility One other potential implication, I'm hearing a lot of law professors and other people who are experts in the government talk about this. You know the structure of many of these boards is that Congress allowed for several members to be the same party, political party as the president, and others to be of the opposing party. Is it possible, for instance, for President Trump to fire all the Democratic appointees on a board keepeing in place just the Republican appointees. And how would that work over time? And then you get whiplash. Yeah. right? So you have a Republican president now. He says, I want all these people to reflect my view. then Three years from now, two years from now, you could end up with a deemocratic president who's like, all right, let's get rid of all of them and I'll put all my people in. And the sort of stability that the business community talks about wanting, you wouldn't have it because it would just there'd be that whipplash. Yeah. But they would have more influence Yes, the business community, depending on who the president is, would have more influence, but you could get a very liberal president who could make dramatic changes in the other direction. And then the business community wouldn't like that at all Carry, I do w want to gut check here because the court has been expanding executive power for some terms now. I mean, in terms of like the last few sessions of the Supreme Court, how does this sort of raate? Is it moving more in the direction of executive power? O is this sort of like like where does it f on the continuum? I guess is my question. Yeah, so as you noted, the court's been moving in this direction for a while now It's really been a long time project of several of these justices who actually worked earlier in their careers in the executive branch. either for the White House or in senior roles at the Justice Department. I'm thinking here of the Chief Justice, John Roberts of Justice Sam Alito, even Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was occupied an important job in the George W. Bush presidency. All these people have a pretty strong conception of executive power and they've been moving toward This idea that there should be a unitary executive, you know that the executive branch really is more important and more politically accountable, they would argue. But one interesting theme of this term in part is that the Supreme Court has been grasping more power for itself. in some cases throwing out the findings of lower courts, very detailed findings and moving pretty fast to reject some of what the lower courts have found and impose its own authority. This is Howard University Lw prorofessor Cheryln Eiffel speaking in an event last week You know, we are in the midst of an absolute power grab by this court An absolute power gb. Not as though the Supreme Court didn't have a lot of power already. It is the eight hundred pound gerriilla. And the president, in terms of power he was pretty happy with this court term in a social media post about the sllaughter decision. and there were actually several of them. He writes, this decision gives tremendous additional power back to the presidency where it belongs. Yeah. I do want to talk about elections, though, because the court issued a few rulings that shape either this upcoming midterm or future elections And Notably, that would be Louisiana versus Cala A, which effectively dismantled what remained of the Voting Rights Act. Carrie, can you remind us what this ruling did Yeah, remember that the Voting Rights Act of nineteen sixty five was pererhaps the most important piece of legislation in American history. People marched and bled for that law to come about The Supreme Court back in twenty thirteen dismantled part of the Voting Rights Act and then this term, they also made it much, much harder to sue under a second part. This is section two of the law that deals with majority minority districts. These are districts where racial or ethnic minorities make up more than half the population And in this case, Justice Sam Alito found that the maps that Louisiana was trying to draw amounted to an unconstitutional racial gerrymander He basically says that you can't take race into account in that way. And the decision makes it a lot harder to prove that a state engaged in some kind of discrimination in the line drawing. because the plaintiffs would need to prove under this new standard that There was intentional discrimination on the basis of race. And because of a whole bunch of other Supreme Court precedents in recent years, it's hard for courts to assess partartisan gerrymanders. In other words, the court has basically thrown up its hand and said, if you do this for partisan political reasons, it's not our business. So people who want to draw these maps in ways that may be discriminatory can argue they did it for political reasons, not for racist reasons. and it's going to be difficult for future citizens and lawmakers to challenge discriminatory maps as a result. I think it's also just really important to note the timing here because this decision came down earlier than many of the other decisions in this session. and it came down early enough that several red states were able to redraw their congressional district lines to reduce the number of minority majority districts and increase the number of likely Republican districts. They were able to do that in time for these midterms because they were given that opportunity by the court issuing their decision early enough. mayaybe worth noting this case actually was on the docket last term. It actually got re argued. So in terms of acting early, some people would argue they acted late. Okay. Secondly This court created a principle for itself called the Pll, Pcell principle. Thank you. basasically saying that Judges should not tinker with election rules and processes too close to an election because it'll cause chaos actually you do with theself the time, R? Well, in Louisiana they had already set on ballots. So the house elections that were already underway, especially if you're an absentee voter got cancellled. So a lot of votes were just thrown out. and this is the reason that that even exists is it creates a lot of chaos for voters. Yeah. And so what this Louisiana case involving the voting rights act to stand for according to some election law experts is that the P seal principle may apply to lower court judges, but it sure as heck doesn't apply to the Supreme Court, which can do mostly whatever it wants. But you know, the Republican Party and President Trump didn't the table on voting in election cases. Ashley, I know you were looking at one in particular. Yeah. so there was a case regarding like grace periods for mail ballots. That was a case that was actually brought by the Trump campaign in twenty twenty four and the Republican National Committee. This is something that Republicans have been angry about for a while, which is that about a dozen states, a more than a dozen states give all their mail and voters the ability to like have their vote counted even they're postmarked, I should say, mail ballot counted, even if it comes in a little late, which is just like a way to help voters out. If there's bad weather, things happen. Republicans have been mad about this for a couple of years and now and the court said, you know, we have no problem with this for now. I mean thing to know about the court is sometimes they sort of wait for better times to move in a more conservative direction. but yeah All right, we need to take a quick break more in a moment As America marks two hundred and fifty years, remember, we the people make a free press possible. Together, we hold the powerful to account with reporting for the public funded by the public at plus. npr. org This week on Up first, President Trump heads to the NATO summit with a stark warning for Iran, make a deal or the US will quote finish the job. We're tracking what the escalating tension means for energy prices. Plus, a critical Senate race upended as Democrat Graham Platinner faces sexual assault allegations. That's this week on Up firstirst. Listen every morning on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts This week on Short Wave Hood your next ride to the airport B In a flying taxi. So you open up your Uber app and you've got UberX and Uberpet, and now they'll be Uberir. That reality may be only a few years away, But how is this futuristic travel possible? Find out on Shortwave NPR Science podcast. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts And we're back. And I do want to talk a little bit more about some cases that didn't go President Trump's way. Let's start with a case that upheld birthright citizenship. Care, did anything surprise you about this ruling Yes, but it was so close. Remember until about ten years or so, nobody serious was talking about the idea that babies born on American soil, not being Americans. And then came a bunch of lawyers allied with the Trump administration and the MAGA movement kind of chipping away at the text of the fourourteenth Amendment getting a case all the way up to the Supreme Court And Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority decision here saying, no, the fourteenth Amendment says what it means There are only a few exceptions, tiny exceptions for things like the children of foreign diplomats on American soil. But otherwise, babies born here are Americans That said, the holding on the Constitution was five to four, five to four for an idea that's been basically universally accepted for over a hundred years. That is what struck Irwin Chemarinsky, the dean of the UC Berkeley Law School. He was speaking at an event last week here in Washington Given the United States history text of the fourteenth Amendment Given the precedent from eighteen ninety eight Given tradition, it should have been unanimous On the other hand, keep in mind here, Justices Thomas and Alito have not once voted against the Trump administration in any of the cases know there's been a lot of back and forth among legal analysts and experts about how conservative this court is, how ideological it is. And we have a little bit of more evidence based on the numbers from this term. There' something like thirteen cases in all, where the court ruled six to three along ideological lines, including some very important ones, not birthright, but many others that were important to the administration people write large. Yeah, the court looking more like Congress Which if you go way back, is surprising. But in the modern time, I think that the expectation that the court is somehow floating above partisan politics that has really gone away. And we now know the center of the court based on the people who were in the majority, most often this term John Roberts Bret Kavanaugh Amy Cononey Barret Well, I do want to talk about I places where Trump may might not have fared well before the court, but some conservative principles might have. The vast majority of Trump's tariffs were ruled illegal. and the court said at least for the moment that Trump can't fire Federal Reserve board member, Lisa Cook. I mean, what do you guys make of these exceptions to the expansion of presidential power I think they're significant in part because they mattered so much to the president. The president has been verbally beating up his own nominees on the court for ruling against him on tariffs and other issues. and he took it very personally. That being said, as the president knows, the court may have invalidated his use of a specific law to impose these sweeping tariffs, but there are other laws on the books he could use and is using to issue tariffs. The second case involves Lisa Cook, the firing of Federal Reserve board member, Lisa Cook Well That's on pause for now really to be determined because the court has left the president some room to come up with a theory undernder which he could fire Lisa Cook. He's been arguing she engaged in some kind of mortgage malfeasance. She says that's just flat wrong and she didn't get an opportunity to defend herself or contest those claims. Well. She's going to get an opportunity to contest those claims moving forward. But the president may well try again.. Yeah. I mean, the court certainly gave him a potential roadmap in both of these cases to make another run at it. p likes to win, he does not like to lose. and when he loses, he doesn't like to admit that he's losing. And so in this case as well as the mail in ballot case, he immediately was talking about workarounds, which isn't surprising. The other thing I would just note about These two cases, the tariff case and as well the Federal Reserve Board case Both of those sort of lean on the side of the business community and lean on the side of the stability of financial markets, lean on the side of essentially The bond market would be happy with these decisions. And you also had another case involving Monsanto, that is the company behind the pesticide roundup and in that case Monsanto came out ahead. Yeah