The federal government may be shut down, but the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) gaveled in its 2025-26 session this week. The nine justices began hearing oral arguments on Monday. Per the SCOTUS calendar, they will continue to hear oral arguments during most weeks through April 2026 and to conduct other business — including issuing decisions — through June of next year.
The court has a full docket for the coming nine months. It will hear arguments in at least 39 cases — the justices could add more to their docket at any time — including several high profile matters challenging Trump administration policies and procedures. “Three of the biggest cases we know the Supreme Court will hear this term are major executive power showdowns,” Politico newsletter reported last night. “One, set for November, is a showdown over Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs. The two others involve Trump’s authority to fire Biden-appointed members of multi-member boards in the executive branch that Congress has sought by law to insulate from politics, at least to a degree.”
This week we’ll take a look at those cases, and others, but first let’s examine exactly how many Trump administration policies are under review by SCOTUS and lower federal courts, which include district and appellate courts.
How Many Trump Administration Actions Are Under Judicial Review?
It’s difficult to say for certain how many Trump administration actions are under review — in part, because the volume is so high. The nonprofit publication Lawfare tracks legal challenges to the actions taken by the Trump administration regarding national security only. According to its database, regarding Trump administration national security-related actions alone there are:
- 190 active cases challenging them;
- 61 lawsuits or appeals that have been dismissed;
- 17 Supreme Court stays or order to vacate lower court orders;
- 1 Supreme Court affirmation of lower court order;
- 12 suits where judges ruled for the federal government; and
- 28 suits where judges ruled against the federal government.
The total number of cases is much larger, however. According to an ABC News story in April, approximately 220 lawsuits were filed against Trump administration actions in the first 100 days of the president’s second term, which started on January 20.
The independent, non-partisan, daily digital law and policy journal Just Security estimates there have been 434 legal challenges to Trump administration actions. Nearly half of these cases, 190, are still awaiting a federal court ruling. But according to The New York Times, in at least 100 of these cases, federal courts “have issued preliminary injunctions, or temporary restrictions on the administration’s directives.”
The volume of cases is so large that SCOTUS has had to expand its emergency docket, also known as the interim or shadow docket, which “consists of applications seeking immediate action from the court” that, according to SCOTUSblog “are handled on an expedited basis with limited briefing and typically (though not always) no oral argument.”
Supreme Court Will Hear Two Challenges to Federal Agency Firings
Financial services and financial technology companies will be watching two cases in particular during the current SCOTUS term: Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook’s challenge to President Donald Trump’s decision to fire her, and Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter’s legal challenge over her own termination.
Prior to the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision in September, a district court judge ruled in favor of Cook, saying she could stay on the job while the justice system sorts out whether her termination was legal.
The district court judge strongly suggested that, under federal law regarding the Fed, President Trump did not sufficient grounds for the termination. Indeed, the judge said Cook was “substantially likely to succeed” on the claim that President Trump violated the Federal Reserve Act, which only allows the president to remove a member of the Fed “for cause.” The judge also said Cook would likely win on the claim that she was deprived of due process to address the allegations of mortgage fraud that the president wielded against her.
President Trump asked SCOTUS for an emergency order to remove Cook from the Fed. SCOTUS denied that request, but will hear legal arguments in this case in January. Cook will remain in her role in the meantime.
FTC Commissioner Slaughter was not as lucky. On September 22, SCOTUS said she could not return to her role while her case makes its way through the courts. In this case, SCOTUS will consider whether to the president’s power to shape independent agencies by overturning a century-old federal law that limits when presidents can fire board members for political reasons. “If the court strikes down the law — as many legal experts expect — it will further hobble Congress’ ability to insulate the leaders of regulatory agencies from political pressure,” Politico reported. In essence, a ruling against Slaughter in this case will allow the president of the United States to fire the heads of independent agencies at will — an outcome that will unquestionably further politicize these bodies over time.
The court will hear oral arguments in Slaughter’s case in December.
Trade and Elections Laws Also are on SCOTUS’ Docket
The private sector also will be closely watching a case for which SCOTUS will hear oral arguments next month: a challenge to how the president has used his emergency powers to justify imposing tariffs on U.S. trading partners.
As The Hill explained this week, earlier this year, President Trump used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), a law that allows the U.S. president to issue certain economic sanctions in an emergency to counter “unusual and extraordinary” threats, to authorize the broad tariffs. “The use of that emergency, and whether that is legal, is at the heart of the case before the high court,” The Hill explained.
President Trump’s use of the IEEPA in this manner is unprecedented. While past presidents have used the law to impose sanctions against countries they have deemed a security threat, no commander in chief has used the IEEPA to issue tariffs, and certainly not as broadly.
With control of the U.S. House and Senate up for grabs in November 2026, this year SCOTUS also will hear three cases that could shape future election law and, as The Hill said, “shake up future races.” These cases concern proper counting of mail-in ballots, congressional redistricting, and federal limits on spending by political parties made in coordination with a candidate’s own campaign committee.
Each of these cases come at a time when the American public seems to be showing rapidly declining confidence in SCOTUS.
How Do Americans Feel About the Supreme Court?
Last month, Pew Research Center released a survey that found only half of Americans currently hold a favorable opinion of the Supreme Court.
“Although opinions of the court have been relatively stable over the last few years, favorable views remain close to a three-decade low,” Pew reported. “Today, the court’s favorable rating is 22 percentage points lower than it was in August 2020, when 70 percent of Americans had a positive view.”
As readers might expect, Americans’ views diverged sharply based on party lines; only 26 percent of Democrats said they have a favorable view of SCOTUS while 71 percent of Republicans hold the court in high regard.
Even with that unfavorable view, Pew found 57 percent of Americans said the Supreme Court has the right amount of power. Only 32 percent said it has too much power. (Nine percent of the Americans said SCOTUS has too little power.) Poll respondents were “less likely today than last year to say the court has too much power,” Pew noted.
In a Gallup survey released last week, SCOTUS favorability was even lower: 42 percent of people polled told Gallup they have a favorable view of the court while 52 percent said they have an unfavorable view. “With just a few exceptions, the Supreme Court earned majority approval between 2000 and 2010,” Gallup explained. “Since then, approval only exceeded 50 percent between 2018 and 2020, when Donald Trump was president and the court had a slim 5-4 conservative majority.”
In the Gallup poll, the partisan divide was even stronger than it was in the Pew Research Center survey. “In fact, the current 65-point gap in Republican (79 percent) and Democratic (14 percent) approval of the court is the largest,” Gallup noted. “Those figures compare with an average 22-point party gap between 2000 and 2020.”
While it’s impossible to know how SCOTUS’ nine justice will rule in the cases related to trade, elections, and a U.S. president’s ability to fire personnel at independent agencies, it’s almost certain that how the court rules will serve only to further widen the partisan divide.