Oct. 2, 2025, 7:19 p.m.
The Supreme Court begins its new term Monday confronted with the small matter of determining the limits of executive power.
In cases involving President Trump’s ability to remove the board members of independent agencies and his authority to impose tariffs on a wide array of countries and products, the justices will have a large say about the constitutionality of Trump’s attempts to remake the federal government. And that doesn’t include cases that are likely to come before the Court on spending authority, deportation crackdowns, and birthright citizenship.
It all adds up to be what Gregg Nunziata, executive director of the Society for the Rule of Law, calls “an incredibly consequential term.”
“We’ve never seen anything like this, because we've never seen a president that does not view himself as meaningfully bound by the law,” Nunziata, a former general counsel for then-Sen. Marco Rubio, told National Journal. “Every president has had some aggressive readings of executive authority, but they've all recognized some limits. Their claims were not boundless, and it seems that there is no power that [Trump] wants to exercise that he thinks might be beyond his constitutional authority. This administration is testing everything, picking fights that a more prudent administration would just avoid. I think it's just a massive test for the Court.”
Independent boards
Among the Court’s toughest—and most consequential—tasks is calibrating the president’s ability to reshape the boards and commissions of independent agencies, such as the Federal Communications Commission, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the Federal Reserve.
By law, many such boards must be bipartisan, usually with the party controlling the White House having a one-seat majority. Members are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate to serve fixed terms, often staggered, to foster institutional continuity and avoid the upheaval that wholesale departures would trigger.
At the center of the fight is the nearly century-old Supreme Court decision in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States. In that 1935 case, the Court unanimously ruled presidents could fire independent board members only for cause.
Trump, in effect, has upended that political ecosphere by firing—or attempting to fire—members of those boards. One of those he dismissed was Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, whose appeal the Court has agreed to hear this term.
When the Supreme Court majority on Sept. 22 overturned lower-court rulings and agreed with Trump that Slaughter should not be reinstated while her case is pending, Attorney General Pam Bondi called it an important win for executive authority.
“This helps affirm our argument that the President, not a lower court judge, has hiring and firing power over executive officials,” Bondi wrote on X.
In her dissent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the Supreme Court has “handed full control” to the executive branch of a power that previous Courts had recognized as the purview of the legislative branch as well.
“He may now remove—so says the majority, though Congress said differently—any member he wishes, for any reason or no reason at all,” Kagan wrote, citing Trump’s removal of Democratic members from other boards as well. “And he may thereby extinguish the agencies’ bipartisanship and independence.”
The Slaughter case, which has to receive a date for oral arguments, also comes as Trump tries to oust Lisa Cook as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Cook, too, has been fighting to keep her seat amid allegations by the White House that she committed mortgage fraud and should be removed.
On Wednesday, the Court dealt Trump a setback by ruling—unlike with Slaughter—that the president did not have the authority to remove her while she awaits a decision on her fate. The Court has scheduled oral arguments in her case for January.
Tariffs
The high court also will be asked to review Trump’s aggressive use of tariffs in another case that could help determine the parameters of presidential power.
In Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, educational companies sued the administration over the imposition of tariffs they say are harming their businesses. It’s a claim voiced by many other industries as well, as their sectors are beset by higher prices on raw materials and finished goods.
The International Emergency Economic Powers Act is a nearly 50-year-old law that allows presidents to declare a national emergency and impose economic controls. In April, Trump issued an executive order declaring such an emergency “to increase our competitive edge, protect our sovereignty, and strengthen our national and economic security.”
The plaintiffs, two companies that make educational toys and products, argue Trump has overreached by not securing the approval of Congress first.
“IEEPA does not give the President such unilateral power,” lawyers for the companies argued in June in a filing with the Court. “Indeed, it does not give the President any tariffing power whatsoever, as every presidential administration until this one has understood.”
Lower courts have largely backed that argument in this and other cases, but it’s no guarantee a majority of justices who previously have sided with Trump on matters of expanded presidential authority will do so as well.
Birthright citizenship
At the heart of Trump’s efforts to reshape legal immigration is the order he issued in January to end birthright citizenship, the precedent that anyone born on U.S. soil is automatically a U.S. citizen regardless of the legal status of their parents—a right enshrined in the 14th Amendment.
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,” the amendment states.
Trump’s order says that legal status no longer applies to those whose mother “was unlawfully present in the United States and the person’s father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time,” or “when that person’s mother’s presence in the United States was lawful but temporary, and the person’s father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.”
Lower federal courts rejected the administration’s argument, prompting the White House recently to petition the high court for a permanent ruling. No date has been set for oral arguments.
“That is one where I expect the administration to lose," Nunziata said. "And I would be shocked and alarmed if the Court—an originalist Court—did not have the courage of ruling against a really flimsy interpretation of the 14th Amendment. If it didn’t, it would be a very grim signal about the Court's willingness to draw lines.”
Spending
Federal worker unions and congressional Democrats have adamantly argued that the administration’s pervasive efforts to shrink the federal government through deep cuts and spending freezes unconstitutionally infringes on Congress’s Article I authority to control appropriations.
But the Supreme Court has demonstrated a willingness to side with Trump when it comes to the power of the purse.
In July, the justices gave the green light for Trump’s efforts to move ahead with a massive restructuring of the federal workforce without congressional approval. Last week, the Court upheld the administration’s freeze on billions in foreign aid in what is known as a “pocket rescission.” Other cases involving congressional spending are likely to come before the Court as the administration explores how far the courts are willing to bend on the separation of powers.
The Government Accountability Office has concluded that the administration on several occasions violated the Impoundment Control Act—which prevents the executive branch from delaying or eliminating funds approved by Congress—including the improper withholding of appropriated funds for electric-vehicle infrastructure, Head Start, and Federal Emergency Management Agency aid.
In some ways, Nunziata said, the White House seems to be spoiling for a fight in order to see how far the Court will allow the president to go.
“I think this White House is daring them to to draw a line and define the limits,” he said. “I think it’s a very significant test for the Court, its credibility, and broadly, the credibility of conservative jurisprudence that purports to care about the balance of power, and checks and balances.”
