REPORT: Twenty decisions in two weeks — the Supreme Court under end-of-term pressure

Maxime Marquette

2026-06-26 22:25:49

An Executive Order Defying 160 Years of Case Law

The case of Trump v. Barbara is perhaps the most symbolically significant of this term. On the very first day of his second term, Donald Trump signed an executive order prohibiting the issuance of U.S. identification documents to children born on U.S. soil if their parents are undocumented or hold temporary visas. In doing so, he directly challenged the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, adopted in 1868 after the Civil War, which stipulates that any person born on U.S. soil is a U.S. citizen. One hundred and sixty years of settled case law. The prevailing interpretation—shared by constitutional scholars from both parties until the Trump era—is that the amendment applies to everyone, regardless of their parents’ origin.

The lower court judges who reviewed the executive order unanimously declared it unconstitutional. According to NPR, every court that considered this issue concluded that there was a clear violation of the 14th Amendment. However, during the oral arguments on April 1, 2026, the signals sent by the majority of the Supreme Court itself were unfavorable to Trump: both conservative and liberal justices expressed deep doubts about the legality of the executive order. In fact, the day after the hearings, SCOTUSblog ran the headline: “Supreme Court Appears Likely to Rule Against Trump on Birthright Citizenship.”

What This Decision Means in Practice

If the Court strikes down the executive order, it will be a major defeat for Trump, even if it was anticipated. If it upholds it, however, more than 250,000 babies a year would be born in the United States without automatic citizenship, according to figures cited by the Boston Globe. The demographic, social, and human impact would be colossal. Families of legal immigrants, who entered on temporary visas, would see their children born on U.S. soil deprived of a right they have taken for granted for over a century. It would be a legal revolution unlike any other in the contemporary history of the United States.

The stakes go far beyond Trump himself. This decision would set a constitutional precedent of extraordinary significance. The law professor whose analysis was reported by NPR on April 2, 2026, noted that during the hearings, both the justices and Solicitor General Sauer seemed intent on avoiding a narrow ruling—which suggests a broad decision directly addressing the constitutionality of the executive order, rather than a technical maneuver. Such a broad ruling, if it comes to pass, will be viewed as one of the most significant in decades.

What fascinates me about this case is that even judges appointed by Republicans had a hard time accepting the executive order. Birthright citizenship is one of the legal foundations of American identity—a promise made to bona fide immigrants since 1868. Tampering with it is like opening a Pandora’s box, and we don’t know if we’ll ever be able to close the lid again.

Lisa Cook at the Fed: As Trump Attempts to Undermine Monetary Independence

The Attempt to Remove a Federal Reserve Governor

The case of Trump v. Cook is of a different nature but of comparable gravity. Lisa Cook, the first Black woman to serve on the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, has been targeted by Trump, who is seeking to remove her by accusing her of mortgage fraud—a charge she categorically denies. The Supreme Court has temporarily blocked her removal while the case is under review. During oral arguments in January 2026, the judges’ signals were largely unfavorable to Trump: conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh stated that allowing this dismissal “would weaken, if not destroy, the independence of the Federal Reserve,” according to the Boston Globe.

Kavanaugh’s statement had a significant impact in financial circles. The Fed’s independence is one of the cornerstones of the U.S. economic system. The markets regard it as a given. If the Court were to open the door to presidential removal of Fed board members without a proven serious cause, the consequences for the credibility of U.S. monetary policy—and by extension for global markets—could be disastrous. According to NPR, economists and the business community have expressed significant concerns since the beginning of these proceedings.

A Separate Ruling in the Slaughter Case—and Why It Matters

The Court distinguished between the Cook and Slaughter cases because the institutional logic is different. The Federal Reserve enjoys a constitutionally enshrined independence that is particularly well-established in American tradition, far more so than the Federal Trade Commission. Some conservative justices have also noted that even if the Court were to grant the president greater latitude to remove FTC members (in the Slaughter case), the Fed might still enjoy stronger protections. This is a crucial distinction: the two cases could lead to different outcomes, with one partially upholding the president’s powers and the other limiting them.

The June 17, 2026, edition of The Newser noted that the Court seemed inclined to reject the attempt to remove Cook. A victory for Trump in this case would be all the more remarkable given that it would run counter to the signals sent during the hearings. But with a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, nothing can be definitively ruled out. The final outcome, expected in the coming days, will be scrutinized closely by central bankers around the world.

The independence of central banks is one of the most precious achievements of the postwar liberal West. It is also one of the favorite targets of demagogues who want to control economic levers for political ends. Trump is not the first to dream of taming the Fed. But he may be the first to have come close to succeeding. This matter concerns me deeply, far beyond the person of Lisa Cook.

Rebecca Slaughter and the FTC: 91 Years of Precedent at Stake

A dismissal based on a 1935 ruling

The Trump v. Slaughter case is, in some ways, even more significant from an institutional standpoint than the Cook case. Rebecca Slaughter, a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), was removed by Trump in March 2025. He had appointed her himself during his first term, which makes the situation all the more striking. She is challenging her dismissal by invoking a 1935 Supreme Court ruling—Humphrey’s Executor v. United States—which established the principle that the president may remove officials from independent agencies only “for cause,” that is, for inefficiency, negligence, or gross misconduct.

This precedent has been upheld by every successive Supreme Court for 91 years. Franklin Delano Roosevelt had attempted the same thing in 1935, and the Court stopped him in his tracks. NPR notes that the unanimous Court at the time had clearly established that Congress had the right to create independent agencies whose members would be protected from arbitrary presidential removal. If the current Court overturns this precedent, it will give presidents—Trump and all his successors—direct control over dozens of regulatory agencies that were previously supposed to operate free from direct political pressure.

Signals from the Justices and What They Portend

During oral arguments in December 2025, the conservative justices showed genuine openness to the administration’s argument that independent agencies are a constitutional anomaly. According to Axios, the Court seemed more receptive to the idea of allowing the president to remove FTC members than Fed members. This is where something crucial is at stake: if the Court upholds Slaughter’s removal, it will structurally alter the balance of power between the executive branch and independent regulators. Agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, or the National Labor Relations Board could all be affected.

Reason magazine noted on June 18, 2026, that after a quiet day at the Court, the next sessions for issuing opinions were scheduled for Tuesday, June 23, and Thursday, June 25. Several observers expect the Slaughter decision to be handed down during one of these sessions. The anticipation is palpable. Every day that passes without a decision fuels speculation. And in the hallways of Washington’s agencies, many career officials are watching the news with growing anxiety.

Here’s what I frankly think: overturning the 1935 ruling means giving the executive branch back total control over regulators who are supposed to be independent. That’s exactly the kind of thing authoritarian governments do—concentrate power in the hands of a single person. I understand the constitutional argument in favor of a strong presidency, but there’s a difference between a strong presidency and an unchecked presidency. This is the latter.

Temporary Protected Status (TPS): 1.3 million people in limbo

A 36-Year-Old Humanitarian Program in Jeopardy

Temporary Protected Status (TPS) is one of the least well-known yet most important humanitarian programs in the U.S. immigration system. Created by Congress in 1990, it allows foreign nationals to live and work legally in the United States when their home country is ravaged by a natural disaster, armed conflict, or a serious humanitarian crisis. Every president since its inception—Republicans and Democrats alike—has maintained or expanded the program. Trump, however, wants to dismantle the protections granted to nationals of 13 of the 17 countries currently covered, including Haiti and Syria, which are the subject of the cases Mullin v. Doe and Trump v. Miot.

According to the Boston Globe, the two cases could directly affect up to 1.3 million people from 17 different countries. For Haitians alone—more than 300,000 of whom have benefited from TPS following the devastating 2010 earthquake—a ruling in Trump’s favor would mean immediate exposure to deportation. The newspaper notes that the Boston area is home to one of the largest Haitian communities in the United States, making the decision particularly sensitive for this state. For Syrians, approximately 3,800 people would be affected, according to NPR.

The central legal argument: the courts’ authority to review presidential decisions

The Trump administration’s central argument in these cases is formidable in its logic: decisions regarding TPS fall within the president’s discretionary authority, and the courts lack jurisdiction to review them. If the Supreme Court accepts this interpretation, it will not rule directly on the legality of the TPS withdrawal, but it will deprive the plaintiffs of any legal recourse. Several conservative justices, during oral arguments in April 2026, appeared to lean toward this interpretation, according to Axios. This would be a procedural victory for Trump, but one with enormous human consequences.

The stakes extend even beyond the individuals directly affected. If the Court upholds the notion that presidential decisions on TPS are beyond judicial review, it paves the way for the revocation of protections for nationals of other countries without any effective recourse. This precedent would extend far beyond Haiti and Syria. Hundreds of thousands more people—from El Salvador, Honduras, Nepal, or other countries in crisis—could find themselves in the same precarious situation in the coming months.

I am not naive: TPS is not a lasting solution to structural migration crises. But it is a humanitarian safety net that has allowed people to escape death and misery while their countries were brought to their knees. Dismantling this program to satisfy anti-immigration campaign rhetoric is sacrificing real human beings on the altar of a symbol. And I cannot present that as a mere public policy decision.

Asylum Applications at the Border: Where Does U.S. Territory Begin?

The “metering” policy and its legal implications

Another immigration case is awaiting a resolution: Noem v. Al Otro Lado, which concerns the “metering” policy—the cap on the number of asylum seekers admitted daily at ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border. Filed in March 2026, the case raises a fundamental legal question: Can a person intercepted on the Mexican side of the border—but who is seeking to reach an official port of entry to apply for asylum—be considered physically present on U.S. territory under federal asylum law?

The Trump administration argues that they cannot—and that individuals detained before crossing the border cannot file an asylum claim. This interpretation would allow the administration to turn away asylum seekers without subjecting them to the review process required by law or to that mandated by the international conventions to which the United States is a signatory. According to Axios, the question is where U.S. jurisdiction begins—and thus where the United States’ legal obligations toward people fleeing persecution or violence begin.

A Decision with Global Repercussions

If the Court accepts the administration’s argument, it would give future administrations—regardless of their political affiliation—a powerful tool to circumvent the right to asylum without formally amending the law. This would not be a change to the law, but an interpretation of its territorial scope that would render the protection afforded to asylum seekers meaningless. The United Nations and several international human rights organizations have expressed concerns about whether such an interpretation would comply with the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, to which the United States is a signatory.

This issue receives less media attention than those concerning citizenship or TPS, but it is no less fundamental. The right to asylum is one of the cornerstones of international humanitarian law, established in the 1950s in response to the horrors of World War II. The United States has long been a champion of this right. To see the world’s leading power restrict access to this right through a questionable geographical interpretation would send a troubling signal to the rest of the world—particularly to authoritarian regimes that are closely watching the lines the West is willing to back down from.

The West established the right to asylum so that we would never again turn a blind eye to mass persecution. It is one of the few international norms that transcends short-term national interests. When a U.S. administration seeks to circumvent this standard through a legal-geographical loophole, it is not merely “managing immigration.” It is sending a message to dictators around the world: the door can be closed. And once that door is closed, it is very difficult to reopen.

Mail-in Voting in the Spotlight: The Late-Fall Election Issue

The Watson v. RNC Case and Late Ballots

The Watson v. Republican National Committee case has received the least media attention, but it could have the most immediate impact on the upcoming elections. It centers on a Mississippi law that allows mail-in ballots received up to five days after Election Day to be counted, provided they were mailed before polls closed. Fourteen states and the District of Columbia have similar provisions. The Trump administration argues that federal law mandates a single election day, which precludes the counting of any ballot arriving after that day.

During oral arguments in March 2026, Mississippi’s attorneys pointed out, according to the Boston Globe, that the White House had not produced any concrete examples of election fraud linked to late ballots. The conservative justices nevertheless appeared to lean toward the federal administration’s argument. A ruling in this direction would invalidate the rules of fifteen different jurisdictions, automatically reducing access to the ballot for specific categories of voters: those who vote by mail, including military personnel serving overseas, seniors, people with disabilities, and residents of underserved rural areas.

The Political Timing Behind the Legal Decision

Let’s state the obvious: this case comes just a few months before the November 2026 midterm elections. A ruling in favor of the Trump administration would automatically limit mail-in voting in key states, to the presumed statistical benefit of the Republican Party. Election analysts have noted this—Democrats use mail-in voting more than Republicans. It is no coincidence that this case was brought before the Court this year rather than last. The judicial calendar and the electoral calendar intersect here in a particularly transparent way.

The ironic twist in this situation, as Axios points out, is that Trump himself has voted by mail in past elections, despite his repeated attacks on this method of voting. This incongruous detail speaks volumes about the true nature of this offensive: it is not a matter of democratic principle, but rather a matter of partisan calculation. The line between defending institutions and exploiting them is sometimes thin. Here, it is not thin at all.

I am not opposed to reforming mail-in voting if it is based on evidence of systemic failures. But when one seeks to restrict access to voting without any evidence of fraud, one is not defending the integrity of elections—one is undermining it. And that—whether it’s Trump or any other leader doing it—is a line that the democratic West should never cross.

Transgender Athletes: A Decision with Significant Potential to Set a Societal Precedent

Two Consolidated Cases, Millions of Lives Affected

The cases of Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J., consolidated before the Supreme Court, raise a question that goes far beyond sports: Can states prohibit transgender athletes from competing in high school and college sports on the team that corresponds to their gender identity without violating the 14th Amendment and Title IX of the Education Act? Both cases involve young transgender women—Becky Pepper-Jackson in West Virginia and Lindsay Hecox in Idaho—whose states have enacted laws barring them from participating on girls’ teams in public schools.

During oral arguments in January 2026, which lasted more than three hours, at least five of the nine justices appeared to favor upholding these bans, according to the Trevor Project and the BBC. In a 6-3 conservative-majority Court, that will likely be enough for a majority. The question that remains is the scope of the decision: will it be limited to the specific cases of public elementary and secondary schools, or will it establish a general principle applicable to all school and college sports competitions across the country?

The Political Implications Beyond the Field

This decision comes at a time when more than 27 U.S. states have passed similar laws prohibiting transgender athletes from competing on teams corresponding to their gender identity. A Supreme Court ruling upholding these laws would provide them with a virtually definitive constitutional shield. Conversely, a ruling striking them down would place these states in a delicate legal position. It is unlikely that the conservative-majority Court will adopt this second option—signals from the oral arguments clearly point in the opposite direction.

Beyond sports, this decision will impact how transgender youth experience their school lives in the United States. School sports are not just an extracurricular activity—they are a vehicle for belonging, social integration, and identity formation. Exclusion from this sphere means, for these young people, exclusion from the school community as a whole. Organizations like the Trevor Project have published data showing that this type of exclusion significantly increases the risk of depression and suicidal behavior among transgender adolescents. The Court’s decision will not be merely legal. It will also be, profoundly, human.

I’m going to say something nuanced, because the truth is nuanced: the issue of fair competition in sports is legitimate. But the way some Republicans are using it as a cultural weapon to stigmatize an already vulnerable population—young adolescents in the midst of forming their identities—seems to me deeply indecent. It is possible to have a policy of fair sports competition without turning it into a crusade against transgender identity in every aspect of school life.

Campaign Financing: Party Money and Democracy for Sale

The NRSC v. FEC Case and Unlimited Coordination

The case of NRSC v. FEC (National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission) may be the one receiving the least media attention, but its long-term effects on American democracy could be among the most enduring. It centers on a legal restriction dating back to 2001: political parties cannot spend funds in direct coordination with candidates beyond a certain cap. The Republicans, with Vice President J.D. Vance as the central figure in the challenge, argue that this restriction violates the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech.

The argument is familiar: coordinating spending is a form of political expression, and limiting that expression is limiting freedom. The Roberts Court has already significantly relaxed campaign finance laws since the 2010 Citizens United ruling, which opened the floodgates to super PACs. But even in this context, Justice Sonia Sotomayor stated during oral arguments in December 2025, according to the Boston Globe: “Every time we interfere with Congress’s design, we make things worse.” Both liberal justices and some conservatives appeared skeptical about the need to push the liberalization of political financing even further.

What This Would Change in Practice

If the Court strikes down the limits on coordinated spending, major donors would have even more direct access to candidates through their official parties, rather than being forced to go through super PACs, which are required to operate formally as independent entities. In practice, this would concentrate even more influence in the hands of the wealthiest donors, to the detriment of small donors, who make up a significant portion of Democratic funding. According to Axios, Democrats have tended to perform better on small individual contributions in recent years—a trend that could potentially be offset by a ruling in favor of the Republicans.

The issue is not merely partisan. It touches on the very architecture of representative democracy. When parties can coordinate unlimited spending with candidates, candidates become beholden to party donors rather than to voters. This is a logic of influence that circumvents universal suffrage without formally prohibiting it. And in a system where money already largely defines the contours of public debate, opening the floodgates even wider is not a democratic reform—it is an oligarchic drift.

Every time I read about these campaign finance scandals, I feel the same sense of vertigo. The West is fighting to defend democracy against Russia, China, and Iran—and meanwhile, it is quietly allowing its own electoral institutions to be hollowed out by injecting them with torrents of untraceable money. The most effective threat to Western democracy does not necessarily come from Beijing or Moscow. It can come from within, line by line of relaxed election law.

Political Pressure on the Court: When the Institution Must Stand Up to Those in Power

Trump, the Judges, and the Separation of Powers

Since his return to the White House, Trump has made no secret of his impatience with the judiciary. He has publicly attacked judges who blocked his executive orders, raised the possibility of ignoring certain court rulings, and exerted constant public pressure on the Supreme Court—even though he appointed three of its nine justices during his first term: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. These three justices have often ruled in favor of the executive branch, but not consistently—as illustrated by Kavanaugh’s decision in the Cook case.

Trump’s presence in the courtroom on April 1, 2026, for the citizenship hearings crystallized this unease. No sitting president had ever attended in person the oral arguments in a case directly related to his own agenda. This gesture, interpreted by some as intimidation and by others as a legitimate expression of interest, reveals something fundamental about Trump’s view of the Court: not as an independent arbiter, but as just one player among many in the game of power.

A Court Caught Between Independence and Political Reality

Yet recent events show that the Court is not merely an instrument of the executive branch. The Court has already dealt Trump a major defeat this term by striking down his tariffs—a 6-3 decision handed down in February 2026, according to Reuters and the Malay Mail, which demonstrated that even Republican justices can reject presidential overreach when it violates the Constitution. The decision on citizenship, if it goes as expected, will constitute a second significant defeat.

It is precisely this tension—a Court that sometimes rules in Trump’s favor and sometimes against him, depending on the legal analysis of each case—that is healthy in a democracy. The problem is that the public perception of the Court as a partisan body has grown considerably since 2016. And when the institution loses its credibility as a neutral body in the eyes of the public, even its most legally sound decisions are challenged by the losing parties. It’s a vicious cycle from which neither the Court nor American democracy emerges unscathed.

What worries me most about this sequence of events is not whether Trump wins or loses this or that case. It is that every time an elected leader treats an independent court as an obstacle to be circumvented rather than as a pillar of the rule of law, he contributes to eroding trust in institutions. And once that trust is eroded, it takes generations to rebuild it. The West cannot afford this erosion right now.

Opinion Days: A Tense Schedule

June 23, 25, and 30—and perhaps July 2

The logistics of end-of-term decisions are, in and of themselves, a source of fascination for observers of U.S. constitutional law. According to data from SCOTUSblog, the next scheduled days for opinions are Tuesday, June 23, and Thursday, June 25. The following week is expected to see one or two additional sessions, with a likely final date around June 30 or July 1. Reason magazine reported on June 18, 2026, that the consensus among court reporters is that the term will end on June 30 or July 1—an extension that would be nothing out of the ordinary, as the Court has not concluded until at least June 27 in any of the previous five terms.

It is the Court’s consistent practice to reserve its most controversial decisions for the very end of the term. This is not a whim: it is a way to minimize political pressure on the justices during the weeks of deliberation. By issuing an explosive decision on the last day, there is less time for political actors to organize campaigns of intimidation or pressure regarding the ongoing deliberations. This is institutional wisdom that Trump, apparently, struggles to understand or accept.

The Mechanics of Opinion Writing Under Pressure

Behind the mystery of the deliberations lies a concrete reality: the Supreme Court justices and their law clerks work in a state of constant urgency in June. Each decision requires a majority opinion, often one or more concurring opinions, and often one or more dissenting opinions. The more complex the case and the more divergent the positions, the longer the drafting takes. The Cook case, argued in January 2026, is still pending in June—five months after the hearings. As noted in the June 21 YouTube video analyzing the term’s outlook, some observers have pointed to this lengthy deliberation period as a sign that the justices are struggling to agree on the exact scope of the decision.

Twenty decisions remained at the end of June, at least six of which were directly related to the Trump agenda. The docket is heavy, time is running out, and the justices in the Court’s nine chambers are, in all likelihood, under considerable pressure. The June 22, 2026, Basin Brief noted that the Court still had 17 decisions to render and was rushing through the process, with sessions on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday of the same week—an unusual pace that reflects the pressure of the schedule.

There is something both noble and dizzying about this process: nine men and women, isolated in their deliberation chambers, must decide on issues that will affect millions of lives, within a timeframe dictated by the institutional calendar. I do not envy them. And I am relieved that it is they—and not a president or a Congress in the midst of a campaign—who have the final say on these matters.

What This Says About Trump—and the State of the West

A president who tests the limits, a court that holds its ground

Taken as a whole, the cases at the end of this session paint a coherent picture of Donald Trump’s philosophy of power: maximizing the executive branch’s control over all levers of government, reducing institutional checks and balances, using the courts as political tools, and advancing on all fronts simultaneously to wear down institutional defenses. Political scientists sometimes refer to this strategy as “executive aggrandizement”—the deliberate and systematic expansion of presidential powers at the expense of the legislative and judicial branches.

What the signals from this Supreme Court show is that even a 6-3 conservative-majority institution, composed largely of justices appointed by Republican presidents, cannot be entirely reduced to a partisan tool. The defeat on tariffs, the doubts about citizenship, the reservations regarding Cook—all of this demonstrates that the culture of the rule of law survives, at least in part, despite political pressures. That is reassuring. But history teaches us that this culture survives only if it is actively defended—by judges, by journalists, by citizens.

The West is watching—and what it sees matters

This legal drama is not just an American story. It is being watched in every capital around the world, particularly by the adversaries of the Western liberal order—Beijing, Moscow, Tehran. Every time American institutions stand their ground in the face of pressure from an authoritarian executive, it sends a positive signal to all democracies fighting for their survival. Every time these institutions give in, it sends a negative signal—and an invitation to autocrats around the world to push their own boundaries just a little further. What is happening at the U.S. Supreme Court in late June 2026 is not just about U.S. constitutional law. It is about geopolitics.

Ukraine, which has been fighting Russian aggression since 2022 with a courage that history will remember, needs a West that believes in its own institutions. Trump’s United States is a complex partner—useful on certain defense issues, dangerous on others due to its institutional volatility. In this context, the Supreme Court serves as the anchor: the institution that says “no” when the executive branch goes too far. Its role, in late June, is crucial not only for Americans but for all those who look to the West and wonder whether it still stands firm.

I’m thinking of Zelensky, who is fighting to bring his country into a West governed by the rule of law and institutions. And I’m thinking of what’s happening in Washington, where those very same institutions are undergoing an unprecedented stress test. I’m not saying that America is becoming an autocracy—it isn’t. But I am saying that every compromise on checks and balances, every precedent that weakens the independence of agencies or courts, imperceptibly brings the American model closer to the very one it is supposed to combat.

The legacy of this session: decisions that will shape the decade

A Milestone in American Constitutional History

With the benefit of a few weeks’ hindsight, the Supreme Court’s October 2025 ruling is likely to find its way into American constitutional history textbooks. The decision on tariffs has already invalidated a major presidential claim. The anticipated decision on citizenship could either confirm or overturn a century and a half of constitutional law. The decisions in Slaughter and Cook will redraw the boundaries of presidential power over independent agencies—perhaps for the next fifty years. The decision on TPS will determine whether the courts can rein in presidential discretion regarding humanitarian immigration.

Each of these decisions, taken in isolation, would already be a major ruling in any other term. Taken together in a single term, they form a body of case law of exceptional depth. It will take years for lawyers, law professors, and government officials to fully grasp all of their implications. And these implications will not be abstract: they will play out in the real lives of millions of Americans—those born in the United States to immigrant parents, those benefiting from TPS, those who vote by mail, and those who work in independent regulatory agencies.

The Court as the Last Bastion—or as a Mirror of Its Time

It is tempting to view the Supreme Court as the last bastion of American democracy. This view is partially correct, but it is also dangerous if it leads to an overreliance on nine unelected justices to uphold democratic safeguards. Judges are human beings, with their own philosophical preferences, blind spots, ambitions, and loyalties. What truly defends democracy is a vibrant civic culture, pluralistic institutions, a free press—and citizens who understand what is at stake when these institutions are under pressure.

What the 2026 end-of-session period reveals, at its core, is that the United States is experiencing a moment of intense constitutional tension. Not a crisis—the system is still functioning; judges are sitting, lawyers are arguing cases, and decisions are being handed down. But there is tension. The tension of an executive branch that systematically tests the limits, a Supreme Court that must constantly redefine those limits, and a society divided over what those limits should be. The outcome of this judicial standoff, to be made public in the coming days, will say a great deal about the true state of American democracy in 2026.

I’ve been covering American affairs long enough to know that democracy doesn’t disappear all at once. It crumbles away—one precedent at a time, one weakened institution after another. That’s why I take these twenty rulings seriously—not as isolated legal incidents, but as indicators of the health of a system that the entire Western world has a stake in seeing survive.

Conclusion: Twenty Decisions, A Civilization Put to the Test

The Historic Ruling Ahead

In the coming days, the U.S. Supreme Court will issue rulings, some of which will leave a lasting mark on American constitutional history. Whether the Court rules on birthright citizenship, the independence of the Federal Reserve, the fate of hundreds of thousands of immigrants with Temporary Protected Status (TPS), or the ability of states to exclude transgender youth from school sports competitions—each of these decisions will have concrete and lasting effects on the lives of millions of people. Nothing announced on or after June 23, 2026, will be insignificant.

Trump has presented the Supreme Court with an ambitious and controversial agenda. Some of his positions will be upheld—notably regarding the power to remove members of independent agencies. Others will be overturned—particularly regarding citizenship. This mixed outcome is, in a sense, proof that the system works: a proactive executive branch that pushes forward, courts that arbitrate, and a Constitution that serves as a guide. It’s noisy, sometimes chaotic, often uncomfortable. But that is precisely what a vibrant democracy means.

What We’ll Take Away from These Two Weeks

What this end-of-session period ultimately teaches us is that institutions matter. Not individual leaders, not political parties, not polls—institutions. The Supreme Court, despite its internal tensions and ideological divides, is still capable of resisting pressure from an expansionist executive branch. That’s good news. But this resistance isn’t guaranteed forever: it depends on the quality of the justices, the strength of the legal culture, and citizen vigilance. All of these things can deteriorate if we take them for granted.

Twenty decisions in two weeks. For many Americans, these will be twenty news items about a distant institution in a marble building in Washington. For others—Haitian immigrants in Boston, transgender youth in Idaho, voting rights activists in Mississippi—these will be twenty verdicts on their lives, their futures, and their place in the national community. It is there, in the gap between legal abstraction and human reality, that the true stakes of these extraordinary weeks are played out.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist