Supreme Court heads into new term with one eye on President Trump

Tom Brenner/Getty Images

When the Supreme Court kicks off a new, nine-month term on Monday, one key player will be noticeably absent: President Donald Trump.

After months of near-constant confrontation with the White House, the nine justices will retake their seats behind the court’s mahogany bench without a docket full of Trump-driven, separation-of-powers blockbusters that defined the last term — from tariffs to birthright citizenship to the firing of once- independent government officials .

The respite is unlikely to last.

In the coming weeks, the justices will decide whether to wade into Trump’s messy defamation brawl with magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll , his mass cancellation of federal research grants , whether the Department of Government Efficiency must provide records detailing its slashing of federal agencies last year, and the administration’s ban on transgender Americans serving in the military.

Those and other cases could be added to a term that already includes an important Second Amendment challenge to bans on AR-15 rifles , the most significant case dealing with climate change to reach the justices in nearly two decades, and a fight over whether religious preschools receiving taxpayer money may decline to enroll the children of same-sex couples.

So far this next term, the court has granted 28 cases, less than half of what the justices will likely decide by June.

“There’s a very good chance that the 35 or so that the court is likely to grant in the remainder of the year will be the ones that are really the highlights,” Masha Hansford, an attorney at Davis Polk & Wardwell and a former assistant to the solicitor general, said at a recent event organized by the National Constitution Center.

One area where the court is already delving into Trump’s policies this term is immigration. The court has announced in recent days that it will hear arguments over the president’s mandatory detention policy and his push to deport migrants to countries other than their homeland. While important, neither of those cases has drawn the same level of attention as last year’s birthright citizenship case.

After Trump and his allies launched a rhetorical war against lower courts in early 2025, the president and the Supreme Court seemed to slide into a détente by the middle of the year — a delicate dance in which Trump has abided by the losses handed to him by the high court even as he has occasionally lashed out against the justices who supported them.

The court overwhelmingly sided with Trump on its emergency docket — the fast-track cases that are usually decided without argument. And it also backed the president in major regular cases that were argued during the last term and resulted in full opinions. One of those included the blockbuster decision allowing him to fire the leaders of agencies like the Federal Trade Commission . But the court was also willing to push back against Trump in some of those cases, such as by rejecting his emergency global tariffs and his push to undo birthright citizenship as it had been understood for more than a century.

Still, Trump has not shied away from railing against the 6-3 conservative court this past summer, including the three justices — Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — whom he named to the bench during his first term. Trump told Time Magazine last week that he regretted nominated them.

“I gave them ​the position of a lifetime,” the president lamented, “and they vote against me often.”

The justices themselves have largely demurred when asked about Trump’s unusually personal attacks on the court. Justice Samuel Alito, a conservative who spoke to CBS as he prepares to publish a new book this week, said there has been a “great change in what presidents have said about the court when they are unhappy about our decisions.”

But, Alito said, that “very harsh” criticism has been “bipartisan.”

Pressed on Trump’s harsher statements, Alito said, “he has his own way of saying things.”

Before the court decides any of the regular — or merits — cases it has granted, there’s a chance it will have to deal with a flood of litigation tied to next month’s midterm election. Whether that is a deluge or a trickle may be in voters’ hands.

Derek Muller, a law professor and election law expert at Notre Dame, said he believes the likelihood of post-election litigation will be low “because there probably won’t be enough decisively close cases where litigation would really matter.” But, he said, “if it does happen, it could significantly transform the upcoming Supreme Court term.”

The court has already juggled a series of redistricting disputes spun off from the president’s push for a mid-decade redrawing of House district boundaries . And last month it shut down Trump’s controversial proposal to give the US Postal Service a role in screening — and potentially rejecting — mail ballots sent to voters across the country.

Also waiting in the wings are several important non-Trump merits cases that could define the 2026-2027 term. It seems almost inevitable that the court will review state laws requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in public school classrooms. Moreover, a legal battle raging between prediction sites like Kalshi and Polymarket and state governments has already reached the high court and could make its way to an oral argument sometime next year.

The court’s conservative majority has been steadily expanding gun rights under the Second Amendment for years. It have a huge opportunity to do so again this term.

In December, the court will hear arguments in cases challenging bans on AR-15 rifles enacted in Connecticut and Cook County, Illinois. Gun rights groups say the semi-automatic rifles are widely owned by Americans and are permitted in the vast majority of states. Gun control advocates counter that the weapons have been frequently used in mass shootings and should not receive Second Amendment protection because they are more “dangerous” and “unusual” than other types of guns.

The case draws heavily on a landmark 2008 decision from the Supreme Court, District of Columbia v. Heller , which stood for the prospect that arms “in common use” are protected under the Second Amendment.

“I think we know how this case is going to come out,” Deepak Gupta, a veteran appellate attorney, said at a recent event hosted by the Georgetown Law Center, suggesting that the court would likely strike down the AR-15 bans. “We know the outcome, but we don’t know how it’s going to be decided.”

On the very first day of the term, the justices will confront a long-running dispute about whether cities and states may sue fossil fuel companies for billions of dollars in damages caused by climate change. The appeal before the court deals with one such suit from Boulder, Colorado, but the decision will almost certainly play into dozens of other pending cases filed by cities and states attempting to hold oil companies accountable.

ExxonMobil and Suncor, the two companies that brought the case to the high court, argue that climate pollution is inherently a federal issue, in part because emissions waft across state lines. That understanding of federal control, they say, should effectively supersede state law. But Boulder says that there’s nothing in the Constitution or in federal law that backs up ExxonMobil’s position, and that the Supreme Court should let the lawsuit proceed.

Particularly notable is Alito’s decision to recuse himself from the case because of stock he owns in fossil fuel companies such as ConocoPhillips and Phillips 66. That opens the possibility of a 4-4 split, a rare outcome that would uphold the decision by Colorado’s Supreme Court that allowed Boulder’s lawsuit to proceed without setting a precedent.

One important Trump-related case that has reached the docket deals with the administration’s policy of imposing mandatory detention without bond hearings for people who entered the country illegally and who are targeted for deportation. Though the cases are lower profile than birthright citizenship, the court’s decision in the detention case could have enormous consequences for the president’s push to round up migrants living in the United States.

Trump broke with decades of past practice – including that of his first administration – and reinterpreted an immigration law Congress enacted in the 1990s to find that people in the country illegally should be subject to mandatory detention without bond hearings. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has recorded a massive increase in the number of migrants held in detention, from just under 38,000 at the end of the Biden administration to more than 65,000 this past summer.

The detention case is one of several dealing with immigration this term. Late last month, the court granted another important immigration case dealing with the Trump administration’s policy of removing certain people to countries other than their homeland – despite human rights concerns raised about some of those countries.

The Supreme Court in recent years has repeatedly sided with religious schools seeking public funding. Now it will answer a question it has largely avoided in those earlier cases: How to handle a religious school that declines to work with LGBTQ families.

The case comes out of Colorado , which enacted a ballot provision in 2020 that provides state funding for a universal preschool program. While the program allows religious preschools to take part, it also includes a nondiscrimination provision that requires each school receiving public money to provide eligible children an equal opportunity to enroll, regardless of race, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity and other factors.

Two Catholic parishes in Colorado that operate preschools sued over the policy and brought the case to the Supreme Court in November. They argue that honoring that anti-discrimination provision in the program would require them to violate their faith.

“The tea leaves are pretty good for the challengers generally,” Roman Martinez, a Latham & Watkins partner who regularly appears before the Supreme Court, said at the Georgetown event.

“What’s driving the court is a commitment to a type of pluralism,” he said. “The court, I think, is very concerned about religious groups sort of having equal access and being treated equally as a matter of practice, not just as a matter of formalism.”

汤姆·布伦纳/盖蒂图片社

最高法院将于周一开始为期九个月的新任期，但一位关键人物将明显缺席：唐纳德·特朗普总统。

在与白宫进行了数月几乎不间断的对抗之后，九位大法官将重新回到法院的红木长椅后就座，但他们没有面临上一届任期内由特朗普推动的、关于权力分立的重大案件——从关税到出生公民权，再到解雇曾经独立的政府官员。

这种喘息之机不太可能持续下去。

在接下来的几周里，大法官们将决定是否介入特朗普与杂志专栏作家 E. Jean Carroll 之间混乱的诽谤之争、他大规模取消联邦研究拨款、政府效率部是否必须提供去年大幅削减联邦机构预算的详细记录，以及政府禁止跨性别美国人在军队服役的禁令。

这些案件以及其他案件可能会被添加到本届大法官的审理期限中，本届大法官的审理期限已经包括：一项重要的第二修正案挑战，挑战对 AR-15 步枪的禁令；近二十年来提交给大法官的最重要的气候变化案件；以及一场关于接受纳税人资金的宗教幼儿园是否可以拒绝招收同性伴侣子女的斗争。

到目前为止，本届最高法院已受理 28 起案件，还不到大法官们到 6 月份可能裁决案件总数的一半。

“法院今年剩余时间里可能会批准的 35 项左右的申请，很有可能是真正的亮点，”戴维斯·波尔克·沃德威尔律师事务所的律师、前司法部长助理玛莎·汉斯福德在最近由国家宪法中心组织的一次活动上说。

本届最高法院已开始深入审理特朗普的移民政策。近日，最高法院宣布将就总统的强制拘留政策以及他推动将移民遣返至其原籍国以外的国家进行辩论。虽然这两起案件都很重要，但它们并未像去年的出生公民权案那样引起广泛关注。

2025年初，特朗普及其盟友对下级法院发动了一场言辞之战。到年中，总统和最高法院似乎达成了一种缓和关系——这是一种微妙的平衡，特朗普一方面接受最高法院判给他的败诉，另一方面又偶尔抨击支持他的大法官。

在紧急案件审理程序中，最高法院以压倒性多数支持特朗普——这些案件通常无需辩论即可快速裁决。在上个任期内审理并作出完整判决的重大常规案件中，最高法院也支持总统。其中一项重磅裁决允许他解雇联邦贸易委员会等机构的负责人。但最高法院也愿意在某些案件中对特朗普提出异议，例如驳回他提出的紧急全球关税以及他试图废除一个多世纪以来人们所理解的出生公民权的努力。

尽管如此，特朗普在今年夏天仍然毫不掩饰地抨击保守派占优的最高法院，包括他第一任期内提名的三位大法官——尼尔·戈萨奇、布雷特·卡瓦诺和艾米·科尼·巴雷特。特朗普上周告诉《时代》杂志，他后悔提名了他们。

“我给了他们一个千载难逢的职位，”总统感叹道，“但他们却经常投票反对我。”

当被问及特朗普对最高法院异常激烈的个人攻击时，大法官们大多保持沉默。保守派大法官塞缪尔·阿利托本周即将出版新书，他在接受哥伦比亚广播公司采访时表示，“当总统们对我们的裁决不满时，他们对最高法院的言论发生了巨大变化。”

但阿利托表示，这种“非常严厉的”批评是“两党共同提出的”。

当被问及特朗普更为严厉的言论时，阿利托说：“他有他自己表达方式的方式。”

在法院对已受理的常规案件（即实质性案件）作出裁决之前，它很可能需要处理大量与下个月中期选举相关的诉讼。至于诉讼数量是如洪水般汹涌还是涓涓细流般稀少，或许将取决于选民的投票结果。

圣母大学法学教授兼选举法专家德里克·穆勒表示，他认为选举后诉讼的可能性很低，“因为可能不会出现足够多的势均力敌、足以引发诉讼的案件。”但他同时指出，“如果真的发生诉讼，可能会对即将到来的最高法院任期产生重大影响。”

法院此前已处理了一系列因总统推动在本世纪中期重新划分众议院选区边界而引发的选区重划争议。上个月，法院驳回了特朗普颇具争议的提案，该提案旨在赋予美国邮政服务部门审查（并可能拒绝）寄往全国各地选民的邮寄选票的权力。

此外，还有几起重要的非特朗普案件正在酝酿之中，这些案件可能会决定2026-2027年大选的走向。最高法院审查各州要求在公立学校教室张贴十诫的法律几乎是不可避免的。此外，Kalshi和Polymarket等预测网站与各州政府之间的法律纠纷已经闹到最高法院，并可能在明年某个时候进行口头辩论。

多年来，最高法院的保守派多数一直在稳步扩大宪法第二修正案赋予的枪支权利。本届任期内，他们又迎来了一个再次这样做的绝佳机会。

12月，法院将审理挑战康涅狄格州和伊利诺伊州库克县AR-15步枪禁令的案件。拥枪权组织称，这种半自动步枪在美国拥有者中很普遍，并且在绝大多数州都是合法的。而枪支管制倡导者则反驳说，这种武器经常被用于大规模枪击事件，不应受到宪法第二修正案的保护，因为它们比其他类型的枪支更“危险”和“不寻常”。

该案很大程度上借鉴了最高法院 2008 年的一项里程碑式判决——哥伦比亚特区诉赫勒案，该判决确立了“常用”武器受第二修正案保护的前景。

“我认为我们知道这个案子最终会如何发展，”资深上诉律师迪帕克·古普塔在乔治城大学法律中心最近举办的一次活动上表示，他暗示法院很可能会推翻AR-15禁令。“我们知道结果，但我们不知道判决过程会是怎样的。”

在新一届任期的第一天，大法官们将面临一个由来已久的争议：各州和城市是否有权就气候变化造成的数十亿美元损失起诉化石燃料公司。此次上诉案件涉及科罗拉多州博尔德市的一起此类诉讼，但其裁决几乎肯定会对其他数十起由各州和城市提起的、旨在追究石油公司责任的待决案件产生影响。

将此案提交至最高法院的两家公司——埃克森美孚和森科能源——辩称，气候污染本质上是一个联邦问题，部分原因是污染物会跨越州界扩散。他们认为，这种对联邦管辖权的理解应该凌驾于州法律之上。但博尔德表示，宪法或联邦法律中没有任何条款支持埃克森美孚的立场，最高法院应该允许此案继续审理。

尤其值得注意的是，阿利托大法官决定回避此案，因为他持有康菲石油公司和菲利普斯66公司等化石燃料公司的股票。这使得4比4的平局成为可能，这种罕见的结果将维持科罗拉多州最高法院的裁决，即允许博尔德的诉讼继续进行而不开创先例。

一起与特朗普相关的重大案件已提交法院审理，该案涉及特朗普政府对非法入境且面临遣返的人员实施强制拘留且不举行保释听证会的政策。尽管此类案件不如出生公民权案件那样引人注目，但法院对拘留案的裁决可能会对总统抓捕居住在美国的移民的举措产生巨大影响。

特朗普打破了数十年来的惯例——包括他第一届政府的惯例——并重新解释了国会在20世纪90年代通过的一项移民法，认定非法入境者应被强制拘留，不得保释。移民和海关执法局记录显示，被拘留的移民人数大幅增加，从拜登政府末期的不足3.8万人增加到今年夏天的超过6.5万人。

这起拘留案是本期几起移民案件之一。上月底，法院受理了另一起重要的移民案件，该案涉及特朗普政府将某些人遣返回其祖国以外的国家的政策——尽管其中一些国家的人权状况令人担忧。

近年来，最高法院屡次支持寻求公共资金的宗教学校。如今，它将回答一个在以往案件中大多避而不谈的问题：如何处理拒绝与LGBTQ家庭合作的宗教学校。

此案源于科罗拉多州。该州于2020年通过了一项投票条款，为普及学前教育项目提供州政府资金。该项目允许宗教幼儿园参与，但同时也包含一项反歧视条款，要求所有接受公共资金的幼儿园必须为符合条件的儿童提供平等的入学机会，无论其种族、宗教信仰、性取向、性别认同或其他因素如何。

科罗拉多州两家开办幼儿园的天主教教区就这项政策提起诉讼，并于11月将此案提交至最高法院。他们认为，遵守该计划中的反歧视条款将迫使他们违背自己的信仰。

“总的来说，形势对挑战者相当有利，”经常出庭最高法院的 Latham & Watkins 律师事务所合伙人 Roman Martinez 在乔治城大学的活动上说道。

他说：“法院的行动源于对多元化的承诺。我认为，法院非常关注宗教团体能否在实践中享有平等的权利和待遇，而不仅仅是形式上的平等。”