The first Supreme Court term of Donald Trump’s second presidential term concluded in June. How did the justices—three of whom were appointed by Trump—take to the administration? Largely by ruling “for the administration, and often along 6–3 partisan lines,” writes David Cole in the Review’s August 21 issue. And while “the Court did not explicitly reverse any precedents,” he notes,

it certainly made new law, by the less obvious path of misreading or simply refusing to follow prior cases. In three of its most significant decisions—involving gender-affirming care for minors, Internet pornography, and religious objections to public school curricula—the Court divided 6–3 along partisan lines and made up new rules that seemed designed to reach a conservative result that would have been foreclosed had it followed precedent. In a fourth major 6–3 decision, involving Trump’s attempt to deny constitutionally guaranteed birthright citizenship to the children of certain immigrants, the Court yet again rewrote the rules, this time to restrict lower courts’ authority to issue nationwide injunctions.

Below, alongside Cole’s most recent essay, are his reports from the last five Supreme Court terms, from 2019 to 2024.

David Cole
Umpires No More

In several major cases in its 2024–2025 term, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority reached its desired results not by overturning precedent but by ignoring it.

David Cole
The Supreme Court’s Power Grab

In a series of disturbing decisions this term, the Supreme Court drastically weakened the power of the executive agencies that govern financial markets, agriculture, health care, energy, the airwaves, the environment, the workplace, and so much else.

—August 15, 2024

David Cole
The Supreme Court Picks Its Battles

June ended with far-reaching upsets for civil rights, but a closer look at the Supreme Court’s decisions across the 2022–2023 term suggests the justices are not immune to public scrutiny.

—July 4, 2023

David Cole
Egregiously Wrong: The Supreme Court’s Unprecedented Turn

In several of the term’s most controversial cases, the Court’s new majority applied originalism to disastrous effect.

—August 18, 2022

David Cole
The Court’s Declarations of Independence

In the end, the Supreme Court’s 2019–2020 term was much less conservative than anyone had expected.

—August 20, 2020

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