It’s been a somewhat dour weekend for me, as my Blue Jays lost the 2025 World Series in excruciating fashion a few minutes into November, losing Game 7 5-4 to the Dodgers in the 11th inning after being ahead 4-3 with 1 out and the bases empty in the 9th inning. The Jays squandered bases loaded with 1 out in the bottom of the 9th tied 4-4, and runners on the corners with 1 out in the bottom of 11th down 5-4. This one hurts.

There are election in some states the day after tomorrow. Here in Minnesota, there is a by-election in my state Senate district, and it is known that the result will determine overall control of the Minnesota Senate. On a more national level, the main races of interest are the New York mayoral race, the Virginia governor race, and the California referendum to approve Governor Newsom’s gerrymandering proposal (to counterbalance the actions recently taken in Texas). More on those races later this week.

A week ago, Trump announced the cessation of all trade talks with Canada, and imposed an additional 10% tariff. This was in response to a television ad that the Conservative government of Ontario aired during Game 1 of the World Series, an ad that consisted entirely of things President Reagan said about tariffs in a 1987 radio speech.

The Senate did this week vote to terminate Trump’s tariffs on first Brazil and Canada, and then more globally. Republican Senators Paul, McConnell, Collins, and Murkowski voted to remove all three sets of tariffs, while Senator Tillis joined in for Brazil only. Unfortunately these votes are essentially symbolic, as the House is unlikely to vote on these matters.

Somewhat more importantly, this week is when SCOTUS will hold consolidated oral arguments on the two IEEPA tariffs cases, V.O.S. Selections and Learning Resources. The latter case presents the question of whether IEEPA authorizes the President to impose tariffs, period; the former case presents the question of whether IEEPA authorizes the President to impose these particular tariffs and, if so, whether that represents an unconstitutional delegation of Congressional authority. There will lots to unpack from the oral argument, I’m sure.

In other SCOTUS activity, this week Justice Barrett called for supplemental briefing in Trump v. Illinois on a question inspired by the amicus brief of Georgetown law professor Marty Lederman. Recall from my last post that one of the three statutory pre-conditions to the President’s ability to federalize the National Guard is that the President is “unable with regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.” The administration has argued that “regular forces” refers to civilian law enforcement personnel, such as DHS and ICE employees. However Lederman argues convincingly that “regular forces” instead means the Regular Army, which is to say the military. And that would imply that this third federalization prong could only apply in situations where the President had already tried and failed to use military personnel to execute domestic laws, which in term would require invocation of the Insurrection Act.

In other news, the government shutdown continues, and the administration now claims that as of November 1st it is no longer possible to administer SNAP benefits (fka “food stamps“) to tens of millions of Americans. Judges overseeing two separate lawsuits have ordered the administration to continue funding the program. There’s an interesting juxtaposition between the administration’s claim that it can’t find a legal way to keep SNAP benefits flowing during the shutdown despite the existence of billions of dollars of contingency funds specifically earmarked for that purpose, versus its simultaneous claim that its military activities against purported drug-carrying boats in the Caribbean (and more recently the Pacific) are perfectly legal despite its lack of articulation as to why that would be the case.