The Supreme Court handed down its final decisions and broke for summer recess this morning, wrapping what has been one of the most consequential terms for the high court. This was the court’s first full term of Donald Trump’s second presidency, and many of the legal issues that arose when he resumed office in 2025 made their way to the court this term. 

Here are five takeaways from what we reported this term: 

1. Expansion of presidential power

It’s no surprise that this court, under the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts, has significantly expanded executive authority. This is of course the same court that granted then-candidate Trump presidential immunity two years ago. That trend has continued this year. 

In Trump v. Slaughter, the Supreme Court fundamentally reshaped executive power, allowing the president to fire independent agency heads at will in a 6-3 ruling that aligned with the justices’ ideological leanings. Before this decision, the president could only fire these leaders “for cause,” meaning there had to have been inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office. The court declared these statutory protections “contrary to the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.” In deciding this case, the justices overturned the court’s own 91-year-old precedent, something it does not do lightly. Now Trump — and all future presidents — will have significant power to shape independent agencies in their own image. 

The court also expanded executive authority to the president last week, when a 6-3 majority ruled that the court does not have the authority to override the administration’s termination of Temporary Protected Status for non-constitutional claims. This ruling will give the president the discretion to end TPS for more than 1 million people who have come to the U.S. for safety reasons due to armed conflict or natural disaster and received special immigration status. 

2. But still, some checks and balances

While the court has granted the president many powers, the justices continue to signal that they are a coequal branch of government and that there are checks to that power. The Roberts Court has checked Trump on some of his most aggressive policy moves. 

In a 6-3 ruling, the court upheld birthright citizenship, the long-standing principle that almost anyone born on American soil is an American citizen. On his first day back in office, Trump sought to deny automatic citizenship to individuals born to parents who are in the country illegally or temporarily. The court ruled that the executive order violates the 14th Amendment, which established birthright citizenship.

The court took the same tack in February with tariffs — Trump’s signature economic policy. In a 6-3 ruling in Learning Resources v. Trump, the court, including two of Trump’s appointees and the chief justice, struck down the president’s emergency tariffs. The court once again declared a separation-of-powers violation, but this time the fault was of the executive branch. The justices held that Trump’s emergency tariffs were a tax and that only Congress could impose taxes. The tariffs decision was the first major loss for Trump this term and remains one of the most significant. 

3. Purcell in peril

Since 2006 the court has relied on a legal doctrine called the Purcell principle to avoid changing voting or election rules shortly before an election. The court had reasoned that changing these rules too close to an election could create chaos, including unnecessary burdens on election officials and confusion for voters. The justices relied on this principle in December, when they allowed Texas to use its newly drawn congressional map. The court had reasoned that it was too close to the election for a challenge. 

That principle may be fading away following the court’s April ruling in Louisiana v. Callais. In another 6-3 decision, the court significantly narrowed the Voting Rights Act and struck down Louisiana’s congressional map just three weeks before the state’s scheduled primary. Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion does not even mention Purcell. This ruling sparked a flurry of redistricting activity and subsequent lawsuits across the South in the middle of congressional primary season. At this point, many of these new maps, which greatly dilute the power of minorities, will remain in effect for this year’s midterm primaries and general elections. 

4. Some wins for federalism

The court has deferred authority to the states on some of the most contentious topics. 

In another 6-3 ruling today, the court’s majority upheld a pair of state laws that block transgender athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports. The court did not issue a nationwide ban, but the ruling will affect more than two dozen states that have laws like this on the books. 

In a 5-4 ruling on Monday, the court upheld state laws that allow grace periods for the receipt of mail-in ballots as long as they’re postmarked by Election Day. Much to Trump’s chagrin, the court found that these laws — which are in effect in 18 states and territories — do not violate federal election law. This ruling marked a loss for Trump, who has consistently railed against voting by mail and pushed false claims of election fraud. 

There are limits to these state victories, though. The court ruled against a Colorado law that blocked conversion therapy for minors, finding that it violated the First Amendment. 

5. Fiery dissents

Dissents by the justices have grown much louder: on paper, in the courtroom and in public spaces. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has penned a number of sharp dissents this term on both the emergency docket and the court’s regular caseload. In one, she accused the court of playing “Calvinball” — a fictional game in which the only fixed rule is that you can’t play it the same way twice. In the court’s version of Calvinball, she writes, “this Administration always wins.”

Monday morning, after Chief Justice John Roberts read the majority opinion in the Slaughter case, Justice Sonia Sotomayor spent almost 20 minutes reading her dissent — with visible anger. While the justices always read their majority opinion from the bench, they don’t always read their dissent, and never for very long. Sotomayor called the court’s ruling “grievously wrong” and said it gave the president “a power unknown even to the English Crown against which the Founders revolted, elevating him above his once-coequal branches.”

The dissents reached a fever pitch last week when Sotomayor read her dissent to a decision that allowed the Trump administration to resume the “turnback” policy for asylum seekers at the southern border. She read her dissent for nearly 10 minutes. When she finished, Alito, who had written the court’s majority opinion, broke from protocol and offered an unexpected rebuttal, saying he would have said more if he had known there would be a dissent read. 

The tension even spilled into the public arena in April, when Sotomayor sharply criticized an opinion written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh on an immigration case on the court’s emergency docket. At a public speaking engagement, she took a jab at Kavanaugh for downplaying immigration-related traffic stops. Following the incident, she issued a rare formal apology, saying her remarks were “inappropriate.” This increase in temperature, especially in public spaces, has marked a shift for the court, which has always valued decorum. 

The court is set to return in October, and it already has some significant cases on the docket, addressing bans on assault weapons, proof of citizenship requirements and a religious discrimination case brought by an Orthodox Jewish man in Ohio. 

In many ways, the term that closes today has been unprecedented — in the questions the justices have weighed, in their process and in their rulings. The next term will almost certainly shape up to be as consequential as the one it follows.

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