Last Thursday ought to have been the end of the October 2025 SCOTUS term, but as has often been true in recent years there were several decisions not yet issued by the date. Four were released this morning, and perhaps the remaining four outstanding will come tomorrow. This morning’s batch included three cases I’ve been following.

First, the Court ruled 6-3 in Trump v. Slaughter to overrule its 1935 precedent in Humphrey’s Executor. The existing law governing the Federal Trade Commission calls for the President to nominate the FTC’s members but then specifies that, once an FTC Commissioner has been appointed, they can only be removed before the end of their 7-year term “for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” Notwithstanding that statute, Trump had removed Commissioners Slaughter and Bedoya without alleging those preconditions has been met, instead asserting general Presidential authority to remove executive officers. Today’s ruling, in overturning Humphrey’s Executor, asserts that Congressional restrictions on the President’s ability to remove a Commissioner are unconstitutional, violating the separation of powers.

This result is far from unexpected, but it saddens me. At my core, I am a technocrat: I think the best form of government involves heavy reliance on experts insulated from both political winds and pecuniary motivations. To the extent we ever had anything even close to that model in this country, it has been degrading throughout my lifetime, with an acceleration in recent years and a rapid acceleration during the second Trump term. Slaughter is yet another example of the movement away from what in my view constitutes the ideal of “good government”.

It was likely not coincidental that Slaughter was released on the same day as the SCOTUS opinion in Trump v. Cook, a rare occurrence where the Court decided to hold oral arguments on a case from its shadow docket. Recall that Cook arose from Trump’s effort to use unproven allegations of mortgage fraud, predating Lisa Cook’s appointment to the Federal Reserve, as grounds for firing Governor Cook “for cause,” which is what the relevant statute indicates is the only reason why a President can remove a Governor before the end of their 14-year term. While the issues in Cook are similar to those in Slaughter, the difference is that the Federal Reserve Board is traditionally viewed as possessing a level of independence from the President that the FTC and other multi-member commissions do not.

In a 5-4 opinion, Roberts (joined by Kavanaugh and the liberals) ruled today that the stay granted by a lower court to prevent Cook’s firing should remain in place while litigation continues. The Court majority asserts that the meaning of “for cause” is neither as broad as Trump asserted, nor as narrow as Cook argued. They also ruled that Cook was required to be given a meaningful opportunity to respond to the allegations before being fired over them, which did not occur. As such, the ultimate fate of Governor Cook remains up in the air, but at least she will remain in place on the FRB while further activity continues.

Roberts’ majority opinion in Cook does not mention his majority opinion in Slaughter at all, but that case is addressed in both a solo concurrence by Kavanaugh and a solo dissent by Thomas. Thomas argues that Slaughter should govern here, and that placing a restriction on the President’s ability to remove an FRB Governor is a violation of the separation of powers. Kavanaugh, by contrast, writes: “In my view, in light of…historical practice and precedent, the Federal Reserve may continue as an independent agency after Slaughter. If the Federal Reserve’s for-cause removal protections are to be eliminated, that change must occur through the legislative process.”

The day’s third SCOTUS decision of interest came from Justice Barrett. In a 5-4 opinion in Watson v. RNC, joined by Roberts and the 3 liberals, she held that a Mississippi statute allowing mail-in ballots postmarked by election day to be counted if they arrive within 5 days of election day does not violate federal law. The legal question at hand boils down to whether a federal statute prescribing “election day” refers to when ballots must be cast or also when they must be received; per the majority, it refers only to when they must be cast. If the other view had prevailed, that could have injected further operational uncertainty into this fall’s elections.

That leaves the birthright citizenship case Barbara as the main piece of news on tap for tomorrow. However I should also mention that, last week, the usual 6-3 majority ruled in favor of the government in the case now styled Mullin v. Doe about the revocation of Temporary Protected Status for Syrians and Haitians. I’m not convinced Alito’s ruling is wrong, actually; as heinous as the administration’s actions to unwind TPS programs are, they probably have the legal right to do them. Finally, in other SCOTUS news, today they declined to grant certiorari in Trump’s appeal of the Carroll II defamation case.

Turning to Iran: Despite the touted Memorandum of Understanding, and a resulting decline in oil prices (now back down to pre-war levels) and U.S. gas prices (today at $3.86, down from a high around $4.50 but above pre-war levels of around $3.00), there have been military skirmishes by both sides in recent days. Bill Kristol, writing this morning for The Bulwark:

“This military tit-for-tatting happened amidst a cacophony of competing understandings of the much-heralded memorandum of understanding signed two weeks ago. It turns out that an agreement that Iran would “make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels” is subject to very different interpretations of “arrangements” and “best efforts.” The United States thinks “safe passage” should mean free passage. Iran thinks that if Iran can “make arrangements” it’s allowed to . . . make arrangements. Who could have known there would be disagreement on this point?

But the bottom line is that this is what a messy but unacknowledged surrender by the United States of America to the Islamic Republic of Iran looks like. And this is probably what the New Normal will look like. It will consist of on-and-off military tit-for-tats; endless diplomatic squabbling and propagandizing; a Strait of Hormuz that is quasi-open but not reliably so, and is mostly so at Iranian sufferance; no resolution with regard to Iran’s nuclear program; and at the end of the day an Iranian regime that is emboldened, American allies that are uncertain and dispirited, and a United States that is unable to exert its power or will decisively.”

In political news, last Tuesday was the New York primaries. The race of greatest interest to me was the Democratic primary in Manhattan, the 12th district, where Nadler’s retirement after 17 terms created an open seat. National attention early in the race had been focused on two candidates: 33-year-old Jack Schlossberg. a grandson of JFK who’d received an early endorsement from Pelosi; and ex-Republican George Conway, who focused singularly on his desire to see Trump impeached and vowed to serve only one term. In the end those two combined to receive only 17% of the vote, with Conway finishing 5th in what was supposedly a four-man race. The winner, Assemblyman Micah Lasher, was Nadler’s preferred successor. But the real news out of these primaries came from 3 other NYC-area seats, where candidates backed by Mayor Mamdani won, in two cases unseating more moderate incumbents, and in all cases reflecting an ascendancy in New York Democratic politics of pro-Palestinian over pro-Israeli views.

There have been a number of recent actions of interest in lower Federal courts:

• In a case called League of Women Voters vs. DHS, last week a federal judge in D.C. (Sooknanan) issued summary judgment to prevent the administration from taking various actions related to Executive Order 14248 from March 2025, “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.” The main thrust of the ruling is that it will prevent the administration from letting states use a federal citizenship database to screen their voter rolls. On the one hand, I happen to believe that the federal government should possess a comprehensive (and accurate!) citizenship database, and that such a database should be used for various purposes; so as a policy matter, I tend to agree with what the administration was seeking to accomplish. On the other hand, I think the ruling amply establishes that what the administration actually did was contrary to three different laws, and my foremost interest is in the rule of law.
• A couple of days later, a federal judge in Massachusetts (Casper) ruled that various other aspects of Executive Order 14248 were unconstitutional, in a case called California v. Trump.
• A year after EO 14248, Trump issued Executive Order 14399, “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections”, which purported to create a host of new requirements relating to the use of the U.S. Postal Service to transmit ballots. This week a different federal judge in Masschusetts (Tawlani), in a different case also called California v. Trump, struck down various aspects of EO 14399. (So to recap: We have already had two different Oregon v. Trump cases on tariffs, and now we have two different California v. Trump cases on election ‘integrity’. Maybe the blue states could more comprehensively rotate who takes the lead plaintiff role on which cases, to avoid confusion?)
• Starting in March 2025 there have been ongoing controversies, under the adjudication of a federal judge named Boasberg, about deportation actions taken by the administration. This had led to a SCOTUS shadow docket case in May 2025, J.G.G. v. Trump. It also led to Boasberg finding probable cause to pursue contempt of court cases against administration officials. The judge’s ability to move forward with that was forestalled for several months by the D.C. Circuit Court, and thereafter was administratively stayed in light of the administration’s request for a writ of mandamus to stop the proceeding. In the case now known as In re Trump, earlier this year a 2-1 panel of the D.C. Circuit granted the writ of mandamus. However, last week the full D.C. Circuit en banc agreed to hear the case in late September, resuscitating the possibility that the contempt case will go forward.

Finally, turning back to the legislative arena: Last week veto-proof majorities in both houses had passed a housing bill, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. It was supposed to have been signed last Wednesday. Two hours before the scheduled signing ceremony, Trump pulled the rug out, saying he would not sign it until Congress passed his voting ‘reform’ bill, the SAVE America Act, consistent with his earlier threat that he would not sign any domestic legislation until the voting bill (for which there still do not appear to be 50 Republican Senate votes, let alone 60) passes. Trump also downplayed the significance of the housing bill, whose provisions seem unlikely to have an immediate effect on housing costs. Today Speaker Johnson formally sent the housing bill to Trump anyways, starting the clock on Trump’s window to sign or veto it. If Trump does nothing, the bill will become law without his signature, around July 10th.