WTF Just Happened At The Supreme Court This Week? | EXPLAINER
Sources
Amy Howe, Supreme Court allows Trump to fire FTC commissioner and overturns major restraint on presidential power, SCOTUSblog (Jun. 29, 2026, 10:42 AM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/court-allows-trump-to-fire-ftc-commissioner-and-overturns-major-restraint-on-presidential-power/
Trump v. Slaughter opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25-332_qn12.pdf
Amy Howe, Court prevents Trump from firing Fed governor, SCOTUSblog (Jun. 29, 2026, 10:53 AM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/court-prevents-trump-from-firing-fed-governor/
Trump v. Cook opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25a312_5468.pdf
Amy Howe, Justices uphold state law allowing for late-arriving mail-in ballots, SCOTUSblog (Jun. 29, 2026, 11:12 AM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/justices-uphold-state-law-allowing-for-late-arriving-mail-in-ballots/
Watson v. RNC opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-1260_g3cn.pdf
Amy Howe, Court rules that law enforcement’s use of “geofence warrant” was a “search”, SCOTUSblog (Jun. 29, 2026, 11:26 AM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/court-rules-that-law-enforcements-use-of-geofence-warrant-was-a-search/
Chatrie v. United States opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25-112_0am4.pdf
Amy Howe, Court rules that states can exclude transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports teams, SCOTUSblog (Jun. 30, 2026, 11:28 AM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/court-rules-that-states-can-exclude-transgender-athletes-from-girls-and-womens-sports-teams/
Trans Athletes opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-43_2b35.pdf
Amy Howe, Justices strike down campaign finance law, SCOTUSblog (Jun. 30, 2026, 11:37 AM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/justices-strike-down-campaign-finance-law/
Campaign Finance opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-621_h315.pdf
Amy Howe, Supreme Court strikes down Trump’s order ending birthright citizenship, SCOTUSblog (Jun. 30, 2026, 11:06 AM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/supreme-court-strikes-down-trumps-order-ending-birthright-citizenship/
Trump v. Barbara opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25-365_4hdj.pdf
Amy Howe, Justices’ financial disclosures reveal Bad Bunny concert tickets, plenty of travel in 2025, SCOTUSblog (Jun. 29, 2026, 7:47 PM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/justices-financial-disclosures-reveal-bad-bunny-concert-tickets-plenty-of-travel-in-2025/
Amy Howe, Court grants several new cases, including on whether the Second Amendment protects possession of semiautomatic rifles , SCOTUSblog (Jun. 30, 2026, 1:22 PM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/court-grants-several-new-cases-including-on-whether-the-second-amendment-protects-possession-of-/
Amy Howe, Court agrees to hear six new cases, including dispute over proof of citizenship to vote, SCOTUSblog (Jun. 29, 2026, 9:52 PM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/court-agrees-to-hear-six-new-cases-including-dispute-over-proof-of-citizenship-to-vote/
Rosenbaum, Miriam, Six Solutions to Fix the Supreme Court, The Brennan Center, April 28, 2026, https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/policy-solutions/six-solutions-fix-supreme-court
SCOTUS Just Barely Preserves Birthright Citizenship, Strict Scrutiny, June 30, 2026, https://www.crooked.com/podcast/scotus-just-barely-preserves-birthright-citizenship/
Transcript
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court issued its final set of rulings for the term, including gutting title 9 protections for trans athletes, siding with JD Vance that campaign finance laws should be even MORE lax for the rich and powerful to influence our elections, and deciding that the constitution says what it says and birthright citizenship can stand, for now. The day before that, the court delivered a major victory for the batshit crazy unitary executive theory, overturning a century of its own precedent in the process and increasing the president’s power. They blocked Trump from firing a member of the federal reserve, they upheld a law allowing for late mail in ballots, and they restrained law enforcement’s use of cellphone location data. Overall it could appear that the end of this term was a bit of a mixed bag–some orders in favor of Trump’s policies and others against his wishes. The problem is that all of these decisions seem specifically calculated not based on individual questions of law and their logical outcomes but on an attempt by the court to look as non-partisan as possible–see, we don’t always side with Trump–while leaving the door open on a lot of his worst policies to move forward. We’re going to get into an overview of all these rulings so you have a general lay of the land, including this birthright citizenship case, because it is the one that proves most of all that any semblance of legitimacy that this court once had is hanging on by a thread. It’s Thursday, July 2nd, 2026, you’re tuned in to Why, America? I’m your lawyer friend Leeja Miller.
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This headline from SCOTUSblog helped inform my reporting on this issue, it’s written by Amy Howe who’s really doing the lord’s work over there churning out opinion analyses, “Supreme Court strikes down Trump’s order ending birthright citizenship.” Using the Ground News browser extension, I can get helpful background information on this publication in one quick glance. To get the big picture, I can click on Full Coverage, which will show me coverage of the same story from publications across the political spectrum.
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Let’s start with Trump v. Slaughter, decided on Monday. This lawsuit stemmed from Trump’s firing of Rebecca Slaughter, a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission or FTC. Trump appointed Slaughter during his first term, Biden extended her appointment, and then when Trump took office a second time, having learned his lesson to only have yes men in every single agency in the federal government, he sent Slaughter a letter saying she was fired because her continued role at the FTC didn’t align with Trump’s policy goals. The problem is that Congress explicitly wrote a law, about a hundred years ago at this point, saying that commissioners like Rebecca Slaughter can only be fired by the President quote “for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” Trump didn’t say Slaughter did any of those things–he said she was fired because she didn’t align with his policy goals, which is decidedly against the will of Congress and against Supreme Court precedent. Trump’s goons knew this, of course, when they were firing Slaughter and others, but it provided a great opportunity for this exact type of test case to make its way to the Supreme Court so that the court could deliver a win for the creeps running our government right now who strongly believe in the fringe unitary executive theory. As a refresher, the unitary executive theory holds that the president is supposed to have sole and complete control over the executive branch and, therefore, all of the agencies within the executive branch. This notwithstanding the fact that Congress has written numerous laws throughout the last couple centuries creating independent governmental agencies. Agencies that yes technically fell under the executive branch but that were explicitly written to maintain a level of independence specifically for this very reason–so we don’t have a president coming in and installing stalwart partisans to do his bidding. For example, Congress explicitly set the FTC up so that it had 5 commissioners, an odd number, and no more than 3 could be from the same party, bipartisan, and each commissioner served a term of 7 years, ensuring that they would last longer than a single presidential term.
Now under the generally accepted interpretation of the constitution, we generally understand the line that the President must take care that the laws be faithfully executed, that’s the take care clause, we understand that to mean that the President is bound by the laws that Congress writes and that he needs to make sure they are faithfully executed, remaining faithful to the laws as written by Congress. Congress legislates that is writes the laws, the executive branch, headed by the President, executes the laws. Under the unitary executive theory, anything that falls under the purview of the executive branch, including all these independent government agencies, should have to answer to the President, full stop. Congress didn’t have the right to write these laws this way because in order to faithfully execute the laws the president needs to have complete control, including to hire and fire people at will and at random. It is a completely fringe legal theory that up until a decade ago no one took seriously, until the far right weirdos who espouse it because it means that federal agencies will be greatly limited at the will of the president, they got power and put in place weirdos on the Supreme Court who will go along with their poor legal theorizing. You’ll hear these buzzwords again and again especially from the likes of JD Vance and Stephen Miller–the President represents the will of the people and these evil laws and these evil bureaucrats are getting in the way of the will of the people by stopping Trump from doing whatever he wants. The problem is that the President doesn’t actually represent the will of the people as well as Congress is supposed to represent the will of the people. Of course in practice none of them represent the will of the people outside of the top .1% of the population, but in THEORY Congress, especially the house of representatives best represents the actual will of the people. And Congress is meant to check the power of the president because duh. Why would a group of guys who just got done fighting off an all powerful king want to put in place a single guy who could claim he has all the power and defy the will of the people by ignoring the laws as Congress has written them? It doesn’t make any sense.
And yet. Six members of our current Supreme Court decided it does. And they overruled their 91 year old precedent in a case called Humphreys Executor. As Justice Sotomayor concluded in her dissent, quote “Today, the Court discards that democratic regime in favor of one that distorts the structure of Government to fit the majority’s theory of unitary, total executive control. The result is a President who emerges with far greater power than ever before. It is a power, however, that neither the People, nor Congress, nor the Constitution bestowed upon him. In granting the President this unbridled authority, the Court upends its precedent, misconstrues our history, and sheds any pretense of judicial modesty.” The majority opinion did make clear that there are still a handful of government agencies that perform duties outside of the solely executive realm, like the Federal Reserve which influences monetary policy, that are not subject to plenary Presidential control. So the federal reserve is safe from Trump for now, but the cases the court has been taking over the last year have been skating really close to allowing Trump to take over the federal reserve. And Justice Gorsuch in his concurrence wrote that frankly the decision didn’t go far enough. Okay so the overall holding of Trump v. Slaughter–save for a few special cases like the Federal Reserve, the President is allowed to fire commissioners of independent agencies at will for whatever reason he wants. This will profoundly impact the independent decisionmaking ability of the federal agencies that still have enough funding to function.
Relatedly, on Monday, the court issued a ruling in Trump v. Cook related to Trump’s attempt to fire Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors. Trump can only fire a member of the Fed “for cause” and Trump’s reasoning for firing her was that she committed mortgage fraud, something she has denied, something that is not held up by the financial documents so far uncovered, something Trump has tried to use against other of his enemies in the past, making it even more suspicious, and something that Trump himself may actually be guilty of. Yes that’s right there is evidence that Trump has filed for loans on property and claimed the property would be his primary residence when it in fact was not. That’s mortgage fraud. There’s a reason he’s using this as an accusation–cuz he knows it exists because he’s done it himself (ALLEGEDLY). So Lisa Cook sued saying that this was a pretext to fire her and also saying her due process rights were violated because she wasn’t given sufficient notice. Now this ruling from the Supreme Court was not a final ruling on her case, it was actually the product of the lower court ruling to reinstate Lisa Cook while the litigation played out, which the government appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court and which the court decided to hear oral argument on, leaving Lisa Cook in place the entire time. But the ruling is still important, because the lower courts found reason to keep Lisa Cook in place while the litigation played out because they thought the government was unlikely to prevail on the merits of their argument. So even though it isn’t a final ruling, it’s the Supreme Court upholding lower courts that found that yeah the government is probably going to lose this one. And the reason why the court takes issue with the federal reserve and Trump’s control over it more than it takes issue with other bodies that Congress has created to be independent is because of its financial power, because it functions like a bank, which doesn’t historically fall under the “executive” function of the government, and because in the court’s view monetary policy should not be subject to political interference. So TLDR they are totally cool with Trump getting his grody little fingies into all other aspects of government and fucking shit up especially for like poor people and immigrants or like protections for workers or the environment, that’s totally fine. But they know if they let him fuck around with the Federal Reserve he could tank the fucking economy, something he’s already trying his darndest to do and succeeding, and that would make the court’s billionaire benefactors vewy vewy angwy. So that’s where they draw the line. You can fuck around and find out with the poor people, but don’t touch my stock options.
Okay also on Monday, in a case called Watson v. Republican National Committee, the Court found that a Mississippi law allowing for the collection of mail-in ballots for five days after election day, so long as the ballots were postmarked by election day, was legal, meaning states are allowed to continue to collect mail-in ballots after election day so long as the ballot is postmarked by election day. A central argument of the Republican National Committee in this case, which of course wanted to outlaw all late mail-in ballots and disenfranchise as many people as possible in the process, was that the federal laws in question, which establish when election day is to occur, were written in the 19th century and so they defined election days back then as the day everyone showed up and submitted their ballot. It was the act of submitting the ballot that constituted election day. Whereas Watson, the opposition, argued that it is the act of voting, of marking your choice on the ballot, that constitutes an election and therefore so long as you have marked a choice on your ballot by election day, as evidenced by the postmark date, then you have successfully completed the election at the required time. And this case is a great example of how this conservative court employs selective originalism only when it suits them. Amy Coney Barrett, writing for the majority, said quote “At bottom, plaintiffs’ theory is that because we are governed by 19th-century election-day laws, we are also governed by 19th-century voting practices. Carried to its logical conclusion, this theory would call into question the way modern elections work.” YEAH ISN’T THAT INTERESTING, AMY??? ISN’T IT INTERESTING HOW MODERN DEVELOPMENTS DON’T SQUARE WITH LAWS FROM THE 1800S AND MAYBE NEED TO BE REINTERPRETED FOR MODERN TIMES???? Hello???? Can I file a lawsuit for redress from being fucking gaslit by the Supreme Court of the United States? Alito will also cherry pick originalism when it suits him, and because his benefactor and One Supreme Leader Donald J Trump wanted this case to go the other way, Alito wrote his dissent to confirm that actually voting practices should still be the same as they were in the 1800s and this Mississippi law allowing for late counting of mail-in ballots should be illegal. This was a 5-4 decision, as was the federal reserve decision we talked about before this one, which should NOT GIVE YOU HOPE that this is the end of the line for these bat shit arguments. Those Trump initiatives to tear apart the United States limb from limb that DON’T make it through the Supreme Court are only doing so by the barest of margins, which is something we should not take solace in.
Okay and then finally on Monday in a case called Chatrie v United States, the Supreme Court limited the power of law enforcement to use what’s called a “geofence warrant” to gather cellular data on people. So the 4th Amendment protects you from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. Meaning any search conducted by the government must be “reasonable.” And so a lot of cases dealing with the 4th Amendment are around the question of what’s “reasonable” but also what constitutes a “search.” If something isn’t a search, then the 4th Amendment isn’t applicable. So the question in this case was whether obtaining a geofence warrant counts as a search under the 4th Amendment. A geofence warrant is a judicial warrant ordering a tech company to provide location data from a cellphone based on a geographic location. So we think the suspect was in this area at this time can you give us the cellphone data from this specific location. In this case they were trying to find a guy who robbed a credit union, so they requested location data for all cellphone users near the bank at the time of the robbery. And so the question is is that a “search” under the 4th Amendment and, if it is, was it reasonable? A lot of these questions of what constitutes a search have arisen in the last couple decades with the advent of internet technology and cellphones. We know it’s a search when a cop enters your house and looks around. Things get more murky when it’s a cop asking a tech company for data. The Supreme Court ultimately decided that yes, this constitutes a search, and therefore the search must be reasonable. They sent the case back down to the lower courts to decide whether, in this specific case, the search was reasonable. But the reasoning of the court is important for all of our rights. The court, in an opinion written by Justice Kagan and joined by Roberts, Sotomayor, Kavanaugh, and Jackson, reasoned that giving up your data to the likes of Google, for example, is a necessary prerequisite for phone ownership today. And even though you have to agree to give up your data in order to use your phone, you still have a reasonable expectation of privacy in your personal movements. You have a reasonable expectation that your movement and your cellphone data won’t be freely handed over to the government. So when it is, that is considered a “search” and is protected under the 4th Amendment. Alito, ever the fucking gremlin, dissented, saying that the lower courts found the officers were “acting in good faith” and therefore the Supreme Court shouldn’t have heard the case to begin with. The officers were trying really really hard not to violate the 4th Amendment, shouldn’t that count for something?? Come onnnnnn cut them some slacckkkkk.
Okay that was Monday, on Tuesday this week came the final four decisions of the term. Two of them were combined into one decision so there are 3 total written opinions that dropped on Tuesday. We’ll start with West Virginia v BPJ which was combined with Little v. Hecox. The question before the court in this case is whether laws out of West Virginia and Idaho barring trans girls from playing on girls sports teams violate Title 9 or the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment. Title 9 bars sex discrimination in sports by any educational program or activity that receives federal funding. And the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment guarantees everyone the equal protection of the laws and if a law is written that discriminates based on sex, then that law receives heightened judicial scrutiny, also called intermediate scrutiny, wherein the state has to prove this discrimination was substantially related to an important government objective. BPJ, one of the claimants in these cases, is underage so she’s just identified by her initials. She is a high schooler in West Virginia who is a trans girl. I can’t imagine it’s easy being a trans girl in West Virginia. She socially transitioned in third grade and began taking puberty blockers in middle school. So she never went through male puberty. In the 6th grade her school told her she wouldn’t be allowed to participate in girls cross country or track and field because of a West Virginia state law. So she, through her mother, sued. The 4th circuit court of appeals found in her favor, ruling that the law violated title 9 because it clearly discriminated against BPJ based on her sex.
Lindsay Hecox is the other claimant here, she is a trans woman and a college student in Idaho who began taking hormones in college. She plays on her university’s women's soccer club team and was barred from competing on its track and field team under an Idaho state law, so she sued. The 9th circuit court of appeals found in Lindsay’s favor, saying that the Idaho law violates the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment because it discriminates based on sex, banning trans women and girls from public school sports and subjecting women and girls sports players to invasive sex verification procedures that athletes on boys and men's teams are not subject to.
The Supreme Court, in an opinion written by Brett Kavanaugh, found that title 9 protects against discrimination in sports based on sex, and the term sex can only refer to biological sex, and that inherent biological differences between the sexes make it obvious that title 9 was meant to protect biological women and girls and their participation in sports separately from biological boys and men. Whether or not BPJ has taken hormone blockers doesn’t matter, because the statute doesn’t contemplate that issue or require schools or programs to make special exceptions for trans girls who have taken puberty blockers. Kavanaugh is very concerned with the children, think of the children!! Allowing boys to play on girls sports puts girls in danger!! They could get hurt by the big aggressive BOYS. He says, ultimately, if Congress wants to rewrite Title 9 to include trans kids they can, but as a matter of legal interpretation, title 9 as it stands doesn’t include protections for trans girls. Kavanaugh hardly even engages with BPJ’s contention that she does not have equal athletic opportunity as required under Title 9 because she cannot and does not want to try out for the boys teams. Kavanaugh says tough shit, son, title 9 doesn’t guarantee you a spot on a team’s roster. Not even addressing the very real fact that being barred from the girls team means BPJ has no equal athletic opportunities, she has been taking puberty blockers, she hasn’t undergone a male puberty, she does not have the biological advantages that they are claiming she has.
As for the equal protection clause, because the states are passing laws that discriminate based on sex, that triggers judicial review known as “intermediate scrutiny.” That bar requires the state show that the discrimination is substantially related to achieving an important government objective. In this case, the court says the state’s objectives are to (1) protect female athletes from injury and (2) give female athletes opportunity to fairly compete and succeed. According to the court, every biological male who makes it onto a female sports team is taking a spot from a biological female, inherently limiting equality in girls’ sports. And if we were to let trans girls play on girls sports teams, that would deter biological girls from even trying out because they’d see those big scary trans girls on the team and be afraid of getting hurt or that they’d be at a disadvantage. Of course, the claimants say that they’re not arguing that just all biological males should be given free reign to compete on girls teams. They’re arguing that a narrow subset of the population, trans girls who have taken hormones or puberty blockers, should be allowed to play and that the state’s arguments as to the fairness or safety fall apart when you control for trans girls, not just any random cis man.
Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson concurred in the judgment as to the Title 9 decision, that sex means biological sex and therefore the states weren’t in violation of Title 9 as it is currently written, but they dissented on the equal protection question. The dissent, written by Sotomayor, says there are additional fact specific questions that the state of West Virginia needs to answer in order to prove that its interest in protecting girls from trans girls passes the heightened scrutiny, and instead of sending the case back down to lower courts to answer those questions, the majority cuts off the inquiry and gives BPJ no redress. Sotomayor wrote “These circumstances demand exercising judicial restraint, not rushing to answer conclusively difficult questions without sufficient evidentiary development. In opting otherwise, the majority extends great sympathy to those it favors: the young cisgender girls and women who play sports. I share that sympathy. Playing sports can lead to benefits that are immeasurable, and many are understandably invested in ensuring that competition stays fair and safe. Because the majority, however, inflicts a hardship on those it disfavors without giving them the fair and full opportunity the Constitution requires to litigate their contentions, I respectfully dissent.” Basically, Kavanaugh says there is no reason why there should be a separate protection for a specific subclass of people, trans girls and women who took hormones and puberty blockers and therefore never underwent male puberty that would provide them with the inherent athletic advantages that some men have in sports. A boy is a boy and that’s that. And Sotomayor points out that all of the citations he uses to back up his argument come from cases that use rational review, that he didn’t actually hold the case up to the intermediate scrutiny that it deserves and ignored critical context in the process. Sotomayor doesn’t say what the answer should be decisively in this case, she just says that BPJ’s case has not been given the heightened scrutiny it deserves given the sensitive nature of the situation. She concludes quote “Because of the Court’s decision today, West Virginia, and any other state actor, can deny B. P. J. and others like her these experiences simply because it thinks they have an inherent athletic advantage, even if the facts show that they do not. In the end, to the Court, the facts do not matter, even though the consequences are serious.” What this means in effect is that states can continue to ban trans girls from playing on girls sports teams and anyone who wants to challenge those laws is going to have a really hard time doing so.
Separately on Tuesday, the Court handed JD Vance a major victory in a case called National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission, which stems from a lawsuit brought by JD Vance when he was a Senator. This lawsuit challenged a previous Supreme Court case from 2001 that held that political parties cannot coordinate with political candidates for office when spending money on ads and other campaign expenditures. This stems from the Federal Election Campaign Act, and JD Vance along with other parties in the case argued that limits on coordination between political parties, especially the wings of the Republican party that work to get Republican candidates elected to Congress, and the candidates they’re trying to get elected were a severe infringement on their first amendment right to free speech. And frankly this finding is a logical next step in the court’s past decisions related to campaign finance–if corporations and entities are people and money is speech, then those with more of it get more free speech than the rest of us. And Kavanaugh, who wrote the majority opinion, found no reason to question that. He also claimed that campaign finance laws really are meant to protect against obvious quid pro quo–I give money to this candidate, and he does something for me once he gets into office. Here, it’s just political parties trying to do what they need to do, what they exist to do–get candidates elected. There’s no possible way that could lead to any corruption and there’s no evidence that any corruption exists. The court here is willfully feigning ignorance as to the current functioning of our elections, as to the fact that democracy does not function equally when money equals speech, as to the fact that our government is increasingly unanswerable to the masses as money dictates every aspect of politics. Because, according to Kavanaugh, there are absolutely no instances of clear quid pro quo happening then there’s nothing to see here, everything is fine. And plus, financial disclosure requirements are all the protection against corruption that we need.
So what this means effectively is that limits as to how closely a party can coordinate with a campaign for an individual running for office are no longer in place. So an individual donor, barred by donor limits from giving over a certain small amount, $7000, directly to a candidate, can give up to HALF A MILLION DOLLARS to a party, like the Republican Senatorial Committee, which can then give that money to the candidate to pay the candidate’s bills. And the candidate will know where that money came from, and could even ask the donor hey can you give it to this party so they can pass it on to me? And so the quid pro quo is just one degree separated, which is all the court needs to turn a blind eye to the overt corruption happening every day in the United States. It is an easy circumvention of contribution limits, limits which are in place to prevent against blatant quid pro quo, and which the Supreme Court has before found to be valid. Congress’ passage of restrictions against quid pro quo campaign contributions are not a violation of the First Amendment because they are narrowly tailored to an important government interest–protecting against corruption. In this case, the single degree of separation has Brett Kavanaugh saying woah I don’t know what you’re talking about that’s CRAAAZY there is NO quid pro quo here. So with this decision the court has dismantled one of the few remaining safe guards attempting to prevent open corruption in our politics–here is money in exchange for you using your position of power to give me what I want. Because at this point we’re not even pretending that that’s not what’s happening. It is COMMON KNOWLEDGE that you only get your way in DC if you have the money to pay for it. Whether the people want a law to pass or don’t want it to pass has literally zero impact on whether the law passes or not. Unless you have money, then you have a nearly 100% success rate with squashing bills you don’t want. It is like a core tenet of democracy that Congress and the President should be answerable to the will of the people, and at a very basic and fundamental level that is not happening in the US and hasn’t been happening for a long time. This case just opens up another door for corruption and, once again, tries to gaslight us into thinking that’s not what’s happening.
And then finally we arrive at the birthright citizenship case, released on Tuesday, Trump v. Barbara. As a reminder this lawsuit stems from an executive order Trump issued on day one of his second term that said that the 14th Amendment, when it says “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” that that’s not actually what it means. In the EO, Trump attempts to rewrite the constitution and 150 years of judicial interpretation to say that actually undocumented mothers aren’t technically under the jurisdiction of the United States and mothers who are only present temporarily yeah they also aren’t technically subject to the jurisdiction of the US, so their babies aren’t citizens. In the lower court when this order was first litigated, one judge asked hey where were the lawyers the day this executive order was written and signed, because this is so beyond the pale it wouldn’t pass muster in a first year law class. Where were the lawyers, he asked. And despite that, despite the fact that this is a legal argument so devoid of fact, logic, or reason, 4 out of the 5 Supreme Court justices dissented in this case and would have found that Trump’s reinterpretation of the Amendment was correct. That’s fucking bone chilling. And of course, fucking Alito bought into the government’s argument hook line and sinker this man is fucking foul. But to understand the case, you gotta understand a little back story.
The 14th Amendment was passed around the same time as the 13th amendment barring slavery except for when you’re in prison then you still get to be a slave and the 15th amendment guaranteeing the right to vote regardless of race and previous condition of servitude, those three amendments were the reconstruction amendments. The most important challenge to this provision of the 14th Amendment came in 1898 in a case called US v Wong Kim Ark. Wong Kim Ark was born in San Francisco to Chinese parents. After visiting China in 1895, he was barred from re-entering the United States on the grounds that he was not a US citizen. So he sued and it made it all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled 6 to 2 that Wong was, indeed, a US citizen. The court noted that the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship provision included no language that restricted it to specific skin color or race. The court found that there was an “ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory… including all children here born of resident aliens.” The dissent in Wong Kim Ark is key here. In it, the court reasoned that Wong could not possibly be fully subject to the jurisdiction of the United States because his parents were Chinese citizens and therefore still had a “duty to the emperor of China.” And because the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 barred his parents from becoming US citizens, then the 14th Amendment shouldn’t apply here where the child’s parents could never become citizens themselves. Instead, it should only apply in situations where children are born in the United States to parents permanently located inside the US and who might themselves become citizens. Basically these Chinese parents are too close to the emperor of China and we can’t trust them so we can’t let their kids be citizens because they’ll always be a little loyal to China. Which is a fucking reach. Also this was a DISSENT which is not binding precedent. This is why I note the absolutely fucking batshit Alito dissents in these cases from this week because even though dissents are not binding, they give people ideas. They say hey here’s how I would have argued it… maybe try again….
And what do you know, the Trump regime in its briefs to the court has relied repeatedly on that Wong Kim Arc dissent, claiming that US-born children of undocumented immigrants and even just temporary visitors to the US aren’t fully “subject to the jurisdiction of the US” because they still owe quote “a measure of allegiance to their parents’ home country.” Which again is a batshit fringe legal theory because whether or not you’re subject to the laws of a country has nothing to do with any allegiance you might have to another country. As a citizen of the United States if you travel to Norway and murder someone you are subject to the criminal laws of the country of Norway and they can do to you what they wish, no matter how much allegiance you feel to the United States of America. To argue otherwise would be fucking nutty. Sorry your honor I’m not actually bound by the criminal statute of Norway because I pledge my allegiance to the United States of America. So I’m not subject to the jurisdiction of your country. Bye!!
So Chief Justice Roberts wrote the opinion for the court, finding the government’s argument woefully lacking and quote “dramatically revisionist.” But Brett Kavanaugh wrote his own opinion. He agreed with the result–that Trump’s executive order was invalid–but he didn’t agree with the court’s argument. He said actually the executive order didn’t violate the 14th amendment at all, it actually violated a federal law that finds that the children born in the US and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens. So the federal law with the exact same verbiage is the issue here, Kavanaugh claims, not the 14th Amendment. And that’s an important distinction because if the executive order violates the 14th amendment and Trump wants to change that, he needs a constitutional amendment to do so, something that is notoriously difficult. But if instead it only violates a federal law and not the constitution, then all Trump has to do is twist a few arms in Congress, something he’s very good at in a Congress unwilling to stand up to him, and get them to rewrite the law. And that is why this should NOT give you any comfort, this was not a major repudiation of the Trump regime this was not an across the board loss this was not a win for democracy. This was a narrowly avoided catastrophe for now that is still very much on the table in a different form. Now of course if Congress were to rewrite the law, it would still have to contend with the 14th Amendment, and there would absolutely be lawsuits saying it violated the 14th Amendment. But now the court would have this separate little non-binding opinion written by Kavanaugh to point to to say actually there is precedent that this law should pass muster. And that is a habit this court loves to do–completely ignore its own precedent, rewrite the laws, and then point to its own re-writing of the laws a couple years later and say see there’s the precedent. Or look at that random dissent someone wrote once, we know it’s not binding but like it made it into a Supreme Court decision it must have some legal merit…..
And that’s kind of the larger takeaway of these decisions from the end of this term–the central institutions that hold up the United States as a country are hanging on by a fucking thread. And those pieces that Trump wasn’t able to dismantle this term will not go away quietly into the night. Any losses he experienced were just a show from a Supreme Court desperate to try to prove it is still legitimate. Don’t believe their gaslighting. And just in case you’re like Supreme Court justices, they’re just like us!!! Their financial disclosures were also released this week. Alito’s haven’t been released yet, classic, Sotomayor and Jackson were the only two to disclose gifts they received–which is INCREDIBLY SUSPICIOUS given what we know about who the conservative justices spend their time with. Sotomayor’s gifts included free concert tickets to see Bad Bunny in Puerto Rico and Jackson received a portrait painted of her and gifted to her by artist Paul Branton. 5 of the justices earned tens of thousands of dollars teaching around the world in 2025. And numerous of the justices earned six figures in 2025 from book sales alone. Jackson made nearly 1.2 million dollars from book sales. Amy Coney Barrett made 850,000. Gorsuch made 300,000. Sotomayor made $88,000. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again Supreme Court justices would voluntarily retire so much earlier if they are barred, as they should be, from making any money publishing books. Sorry you shouldn’t be able to earn MILLIONS while you still sit on the bench, that is text book privately benefitting from your public position. This is on top of the $300,000 they make for their role as Supreme Court justices. It’s insane. The amount that public officials, let alone JUSTICES ON THE SUPREME COURT, are able to profit from the fact of their role as a public servant should be completely outlawed. Supreme Court reform, of many different types, is BADLY needed in the United States. These reforms include expanding the court–many countries have much larger supreme courts. Often with a larger court the cases will be randomly assigned to a smaller group of judges, like how appellate courts work, so that we wouldn’t be stuck with the same 9 people over and over again. Term limits are completely reasonable, normal in many other similar countries, and would again allow for the justices to write their books after their term ends. 18 year staggered limits are the most commonly suggested reform. The code of ethics that the Supreme Court adheres to is self administered and self enforced and allows for things like multi-million dollar book deals. That has to be changed so it is enforceable by a neutral body and so that justices are ACTUALLY held to the high ethical standard they should be held to. There have to be greater restrictions on the use of the Shadow Docket–the court should not be able to make highly consequential decisions with no oral argument and, often, zero opinion even explaining their rulings. And finally there should be cameras in the courtroom, it makes zero sense why the public shouldn’t be able to watch what’s happening live. We can listen, and that is only a product of COVID. These reforms would ultimately increase public trust in the court, something that is badly lacking. These reforms, however, would of course have to come from Congress, which can’t get anything done let alone as large of an overhaul that would be necessary to achieve this level of court reform.
Also on Monday–this was a busy final week for the court–the justices announced a list of cases they will take on when they return from their summer recess. These cases include whether the 2nd amendment allows for a ban on AR-15 semiautomatic assault rifles, a favorite for mass shooters in America. They’ll also hear a case on whether an asylum seeker who loses their asylum status, something that Trump is doing to virtually every asylum seeker in the United States except for white South Africans, whether they are forever ineligible to become a lawful permanent resident, whether a state can require proof of citizenship when registering to vote, and whether immigrant detainees should receive attorneys fees if they win a habeas petition against the government. Those are just a few of the cases coming up next term, and lord knows Trump will continue fucking around trying to dismantle the laws, resulting in more lawsuits that will get decided in secret via the shadow docket or thrown onto the end of next term so that next July we can do all of this all over again.
To support my work, please consider joining on Patreon to get all these episodes completely ad free. Thank you to my multi-platinum patrons Christopher Cowan, Evan Friedley, Marc, Sarah Shelby, Dennis Smith, Art, David, L’etranger (Lukus), Thomas Johnson, and Tay. Your generosity makes this channel what it is, so thank you! If you liked this episode, you’ll like the one from Tuesday that answers the question: Is the US a Christian Nation??
