FILE PHOTO: U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts poses during a group portrait at the Supreme Court in Washington, U.S., October 7, 2022. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File Photo
President Donald Trump and his allies are having some intense debates with opponents over the amount of power that the federal government's executive branch enjoys under the U.S. Constitution.
Many of Trump's executive orders are being challenged in the lower federal courts, from tariffs to immigration policy — and Trump's allies, including Vice President JD Vance and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, are accusing lower federal court judges of failing to respect the powers of the executive branch. But Trump's opponents are responding that the executive branch, according to the Constitution, doesn't enjoy nearly as much power as Trump thinks it does — and that when federal judges and Congress (the federal government's legislative branch) stand up to Trump, that's exactly what they're supposed to do under the United States' system of checks and balances.
What remains to be seen is how the U.S. Supreme Court will view these debates.
In an article published on September 26, The New Republic's Matt Ford fears there will be some Trump-friendly rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court in the weeks and months ahead.
"From the cases it has already agreed to hear," Ford laments, "this upcoming Supreme Court term will be yet another opportunity to push the country further to the right. While the justices were out of the office for July through September, they still dealt with the myriad shadow docket petitions that crop up all year round. Many of those interventions ended up with the Roberts Court showing extreme deference to the president’s executive power. This is a trend that seems likely to continue: Two of the most important merits cases from this term will address the Trump Administration’s extraordinary claims of executive power — and how far the Court's conservative justices will go to embrace them."
One of those cases is Learning Resources v. Trump, which according to SCOTUSblog, addresses "whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act authorizes the president to impose tariffs."
Trump's opponents contend that tariffs need to be imposed by Congress, not by presidential executive orders.
"The case has monumental implications for the Trump Administration's economic agenda," Ford explains. "By imposing high tariffs on the nation's top trading partners, Trump has claimed that he will revive American industries, which is questionable, and correct long-standing trade imbalances — which is not really how trade imbalances work. Trump imposed the relevant tariffs in this case through the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, better known as IEEPA. The 1977 law gives broad powers to presidents to regulate foreign transactions in the United States during a declared national emergency."
Trump's executive powers are also at issue in Trump v. Slaughter. The Slaughter in that case is Democratic appointee Rebecca Slaughter, who Trump fired from the Federal Trade Commission (FCC); Slaughter argues that Trump was wrong to fire her without Congress' input.
"My personal rule is that I never definitively predict the outcome of a Supreme Court case," Ford writes. "The justices can always change their minds at the last minute…. That said, it would be one of the most surprising moves in the High Court's history if the justices were to side with Slaughter."
Matt Ford's full article for The New Republic is available at this link.