1 hour ago
1
ARTICLE AD BOX
The Supreme Court’s rush of decisions last week belies several myths concocted by its leftist critics. Listen to Democratic politicians or read liberal legal commentators, and you would believe that a conservative Supreme Court is marching in lockstep with Donald Trump to impose an extremist agenda on an unwilling American people.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, for example, often criticizes what he dubs "the MAGA Supreme Court" for transforming government agencies into "members-only clubs for his golf buddies and cronies." House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries decries "the corrupt conservative majority on the Supreme Court appointed by Donald Trump" for taking "a blowtorch" to civil rights laws. Almost every Democratic leader, especially those jockeying for position in the 2028 presidential race, demands that Congress pack the Court in order to correct this alleged bias of the conservative justices. "We [should] talk about the idea of Supreme Court reform, which includes expanding the Supreme Court," 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris said last week.
The Supreme Court term that just ended, however, proves the exact opposite. It shows a Court that takes its bearings more from the original understanding of the Constitution, and from an interest in maintaining economic and political stability, than from Donald Trump.
GORSUCH SAYS IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDES ON SUPREME COURT COME DOWN TO ‘HOW YOU READ LAW,’ NOT POLITICS
In one of the most significant Supreme Court terms this century, Trump may have gained more than he lost. But he has won only when his constitutional positions coincided with the longer-term agenda of the Roberts Court: restoring the separation of powers and federalism, containing the administrative state, ending the use of race by government, and expanding neglected First and Second Amendment rights. But when Trump has sought approval for his more aggressive political policies, he has lost to shifting majorities of conservative and liberal justices.
Three of last week’s biggest conservative wins for the Trump administration came because they sailed along the course already set by the Roberts Court. In Trump v. Slaughter, Chief Justice John Roberts declared for a 6-3 majority that the president had the constitutional right to fire, at will, any officer who executes federal law. Quoting the Federalist Papers, the chief justice wrote that the Framers sought "to establish a hierarchy — a ‘Chief Magistrate’ with whom the buck stops, and below him various ‘assistants or deputies’ who ‘derive their offices from his appointment’ and remain ‘subject to his superintendence.’" The power to fire implies the power to command, because the former allows the president to remove any subordinate who refuses to obey instructions.
Slaughter ended the independence of administrative agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission at issue, that have wielded vast, virtually unchecked powers for a century. But the justices did not end independent agencies and overrule the 90-year-old precedent of Humphrey’s Executor v. United States to help President Trump.
SUPREME COURT STRIKES DOWN LIMIT ON PARTY CAMPAIGN SPENDING IN COORDINATION WITH CANDIDATES
The Roberts Court had started striking down newer, smaller independent agencies more than 15 years ago. Only in 2026 were the justices finally confident enough to eliminate all of them (except for the Federal Reserve Board — more on that later). President Trump was the immediate beneficiary of Slaughter, but the Roberts Court would have decided the case the same way if Kamala Harris had won in 2024.
The same dynamic explains another major conservative victory, this one on transgender sports. Trump made a campaign issue out of limiting transgender participation and issued an executive order on "Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports" upon taking office.
In West Virginia v. B.P.J., the Court agreed that transgender athletes did not have a constitutional right to play in sports other than those based on their biological sex at birth.
DEMOCRATS STAY QUIET ON NEXT STEPS AFTER SUPREME COURT TRANSGENDER SPORTS RULING
Trump may have been on the winning side, but the Court’s attitude toward transgender rights followed its approach to abortion. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), the Court overruled Roe v. Wade and returned abortion policy to the states. The conservative justices realized that premature entry into the abortion wars had politicized the judiciary and the Constitution. With the new issue of transgender rights, the majority led by Justice Brett Kavanaugh decided to respect the Constitution’s reservation of most domestic policy to the states.
Another issue where Trump benefited from the existing direction of the Roberts Court was race. In Louisiana v. Callais, the Court struck down the use of race in congressional redistricting (except in some very limited circumstances). Even though it was outside the normal decennial redistricting period following the census, President Trump pressured friendly states to redraw congressional maps to maximize the number of Republican seats.
Lifting the states from the obligation to create districts for minority groups would help Republicans meet that goal. But the Court did not decide Callais to help Republicans or Democrats. Instead, it continued to withdraw the judiciary from the redistricting game — it had forbidden the lower courts from reviewing maps for partisan bias in 2019’s Rucho v. Common Cause. And the Court had barred states from considering race in university admissions in 2023’s Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard. Ordering the judiciary to allow states to draw districts as they wished, without regard to race, naturally followed these earlier trends in the Roberts Court’s thinking.
This dynamic has repeated itself on other issues as well, ranging from campaign finance to gun rights. But when Trump has advanced weak positions for political advantage, he has lost. In Learning Resources, the Court struck down the administration’s worldwide tariffs because they exceeded the power delegated by Congress during international emergencies.
Trump failed to respect the Roberts Court’s larger campaign to limit the delegated power exercised by the administrative state. In Trump v. Barbara, a majority of the justices reaffirmed the birthright citizenship rule that has governed in the United States from colonial times to the present — marred only by the Supreme Court’s own disastrous decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, denying citizenship to freed and enslaved African Americans.
Here, Trump’s radical effort ran headfirst into Chief Justice Roberts’ effort to respect two centuries of constitutional practice and understanding. The same can be said about Trump v. Cook, which rejected Trump’s exercise of the removal power over the Federal Reserve Board. While inconsistent with the logic of Slaughter, the Court announced that it would still preserve the independence of the single agency that needed political independence more than any other and that could trace its historical roots back to the first Bank of the United States, established in 1791.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION
Trump attacked the Court as harshly as the Democrats did for these decisions. Remarkably, he attacked conservative justices by name after they struck down his worldwide tariffs. Trump called them a "disgrace to our nation" and "disloyal." But the better lesson for Trump is that the Court is neither a partisan ally nor a partisan enemy.
Rather, it is pursuing its own ideological course to restore the structural guardrails on federal power, end the government’s use of race, and expand core political liberties. Instead of expecting more partisanship from the Court, Trump would do better to accept more conservative ideas from the Court.
English (US) ·