Supreme Court

4 Takeaways From the Supreme Court's 2025–2026 Term

From executive power to civil liberties, what to make of a momentous year at SCOTUS?

Damon Root | 7.14.2026 7:00 AM

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The U.S. Supreme Court's recently concluded 2025–2026 term will go down in the books as a banner one for executive power. Not only did the Court abolish a New Deal-era precedent that blocked the president from firing "independent" federal agency heads at will, but the Court also recognized broad executive discretion over immigration policy and border control. At the same time, however, President Donald Trump lost big in the two blockbuster cases that clearly meant the most to him: tariffs and birthright citizenship.

What should we make of this momentous SCOTUS term? And what should we expect going forward? Here are four key takeaways.

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1. Executive Power Will Grow

The Supreme Court's decision to let Trump fire Rebecca Slaughter from her position as a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission for purely political reasons is an immediate win for Trump and an even bigger long-term victory for the executive branch. That's because every president who follows will now do what Trump has just been permitted to do under Trump v. Slaughter: namely, remove the current heads of "independent" federal agencies at will and replace them with his own preferred picks.

We had a preview of this dynamic back in 2021. One of the first things that President Joe Biden did after assuming office was to oust the Trump-appointed head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Biden was able to do this because of the Supreme Court's 2020 decision in Seila Law v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which said that it was unconstitutional to stop the president from firing the CFPB director at will. Seila Law was widely described as a conservative legal victory when it was decided during Trump's first term. But even with the case's conservative pedigree, Biden still had no hesitation about reaping its benefits to advance his own presidential agenda.

Expect to see much more of that in the years ahead as presidents from both parties take advantage of the Slaughter ruling to remake the federal bureaucracy in their own respective images.

2. A Conservative Court but Not a MAGA Court

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