The Supreme Court's latest term was a masterclass in judicial self-preservation. In case after case, the justices weakened Congress, fortified the presidency, and cemented their own authority as the final arbiter of American governance.
The pattern is unmistakable. Congress can no longer shield federal regulators from presidential control. It cannot limit political spending by parties. It cannot require voting maps that protect minority representation. And it cannot easily enforce federal laws against state officials who violate them. Each of these powers slipped away during a single term.
At the root of this shift sits an old conservative theory: the unitary executive. The idea holds that the Constitution vests all enforcement power in one person, the president. No regulator, no agency, no official can operate free from presidential command. This term, the Supreme Court made that theory the law of the land, repeatedly and decisively.
Consider the Federal Trade Commission case. The court decided to keep the FTC's powers while stripping away the independence Congress had written into law. "The Roberts Court has adopted for itself a line-item veto," according to Boston University legal historian Jed Shugerman. It picks which parts of legislation to enforce and which to erase.
The consequences ripple outward. Voting rights enforcement became nearly impossible when the court made it harder to challenge maps that dilute Black and Latino voting power. The court reversed a 2001 decision and struck down limits on coordinated political party spending. It even allowed the president to withhold $4 billion in foreign aid that Congress had appropriated, a move that strikes at Congress's most fundamental power: control of the purse.
The court's methods matter as much as its results. The justices have shown a willingness to overturn precedent, disregard facts found by lower courts, and apply legal theories inconsistently. When freezing federal aid helped the president, the court cited rigid executive power doctrine. When protecting the Federal Reserve's independence suited the outcome, the same justices carved out an exception they themselves called unprincipled.
"The real headline of the current term is 'Supreme Court rules for itself, 6 to 3,'" Georgetown Law professor Steve Vladeck said. The court has become increasingly willing to use whatever legal reasoning delivers the result it wants, regardless of consistency.
Much of this power now flows through the shadow docket, an expedited process where cases skip full briefing and argument, and unsigned orders arrive with minimal explanation. There, the justices have reviewed Trump's most contested moves: immigration crackdowns, mass federal worker firings, voting map changes, and restrictions on transgender passports.
Trump did lose three major cases this term. Chief Justice John Roberts authored all three: blocking emergency tariffs, protecting Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, and rejecting an order to end birthright citizenship. Yet even in defeat lies a warning. Four justices voted to overturn birthright citizenship, a position considered fringe just a decade ago. That near-miss suggests radical constitutional arguments will find new audiences.
Congress weakens year after year. The executive branch accumulates power. And the Supreme Court stands above both, answering to no one, accountable to nothing but its own nine members.
Author James Rodriguez: "The court has stopped even pretending to apply law evenhandedly, and that should terrify anyone who believed the judiciary was supposed to be separate from partisan outcomes."
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