Despite marquee losses, Supreme Court term grows Trump’s presidential power
The United States Supreme Court has completed its nine-month term, handing US President Donald Trump a handful of losses on marquee issues, including scuttling his
The United States Supreme Court has completed its nine-month term, handing US President Donald Trump a handful of losses on marquee issues, including scuttling his reciprocal tariffs policy and effort to end birthright citizenship. But despite the mixed bag of rulings, which included several notable victories on issues championed by the president, experts told Al Jazeera the 6-3 conservative-dominated court has continued its trend towards granting broad executive power. Trump and his allies have long argued for the president’s expanded authorities over the judicial and legislative branches of government. “I would not venture to psychoanalyse Trump or anyone working for him,” Frank Bowman, professor emeritus of law at the University of Missouri, told Al Jazeera. “But if I were in their shoes … I would think that by and large they’re going to be thinking that they’re doing great.” The losses To be sure, the US’s top court checked Trump on several of his most ambitious efforts, notably related to the economy. The court upheld the Federal Reserve’s independence, ruling that Trump must clear the congressionally mandated procedural hurdles before firing Federal Reserve member Lisa Cook. The panel also dealt a crippling blow to Trump’s signature reciprocal tariffs, ruling he had misused presidential emergency powers to override authority reserved for Congress. Late last year, the court also blocked the Trump administration from deploying federalised Guard to states across the country, rejecting the White House’s position that conditions permitted Trump to override legal restrictions on deploying US troops for domestic law enforcement.
The court rebuffed an effort by the Republican Committee championed by the president to block states from accepting mail-in ballots during federal elections after polls close. On immigration, too, the court struck down Trump’s effort to use his presidential power to end birthright citizenship, with five out of nine justices arguing the effort violated the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. However, the four others embraced, in whole or in part, the administration’s argument that the Constitution had been misinterpreted for 150 years. The Trump administration has already hailed their arguments as evidence of their effort’s cogency, giving traction as Republicans elevate the issue as a political wedge, Bowman said. “[Trump’s effort to restrict] birthright citizenship was always a moonshot,” Bowman said. “The fact that it came as close to this is absolutely shocking.” “It’s now become a major issue on the right, and I think unless significant court reform occurs, you’re going to see a years-long, maybe decades-long fight over birthright citizenship of a similar kind,” he said. Victories Chris Edelson, a lecturer in the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s political science department, agreed that the Supreme Court’s checks overlay a continued lurch towards granting the US president broad executive powers. The court’s first major shift came in the 2024 ruling in Trump v United States, which held that US presidents have “absolute immunity” for conducting official acts, effectively shielding them from criminal prosecution for actions taken while in office, he said. This term, in a case known as Trump v Slaughter, the court ruled that the Trump administration could fire the heads of executive branch agencies, even if those agencies were deemed independent by congressional legislation.
The BriefWire