SCOTUS 2025-26 Term Preview: Tariffs, Voting Rights Act, Agency Power & More

On this episode: The Supreme Court’s 2025 term opens with a docket that could reshape trade, elections, civil rights, and executive power. Among the major cases: challenges to Trump-era tariffs that test the scope of presidential authority over economic policy, a Voting Rights Act dispute from Louisiana involving claims of racial gerrymandering, and a Title IX case on whether transgender students can participate in school sports. The justices will also confront questions about capital punishment and intellectual disability, the independence of federal agencies like the FTC and Federal Reserve, and the growing influence of the Court’s emergency docket.

Zachary Shemtob, executive editor of SCOTUSblog, helps break down the key cases to watch, the broader trends shaping the Court’s work, and how this term’s decisions could have lasting consequences for law, politics, and governance in the United States.

• Read Shemtob’s analysis: https://www.scotusblog.com/author/zachary/ 
• Learn more about the cases coming before the Supreme Court in the 2025-26 term: https://ballotpedia.org/Supreme_Court_cases,_October_term_2025-2026

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*On The Ballot is a conversational podcast featuring interviews with guests across the political spectrum. The views and opinions expressed by them are solely their own and are not representative of the views of the host or Ballotpedia as a whole.