When the nine justices of the Supreme Court return to their raised mahogany bench each year on the first Monday of October, it typically marks the end of a three-month stretch of rest and reflection.
But this summer’s traditional recess was anything but a cooling-off period.
Instead, the justices churned through emergency requests from the Trump administration that sharply divided the court along ideological lines, in a reflection of how much President Trump’s agenda has consumed their calendar.
The president’s policies will have an even more central role in the term that begins on Monday, after the justices agreed to take three cases with broad consequences for his agenda. In November, they will hear arguments about the legality of Mr. Trump’s sweeping tariffs, a centerpiece of his trade strategy. In December, they will consider Mr. Trump’s efforts to wrest control of independent agencies, and in January, his attempt to fire a member of the Federal Reserve Board.
By the time the term ends in June, there could be others. Already, the administration has asked the court to take up a pair of cases testing the legality of the president’s executive order ending birthright citizenship, an issue that raises fundamental questions about what it means to be an American.
The result will be a term of generational consequence for the court and the presidency, and a defining one for the legacy of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who will mark his 20th year on the bench.
“It’s hard to imagine bigger tests of presidential power than these potentially once-in-a-century separation-of-powers battles,” said Deepak Gupta, a lawyer at the firm Gupta Wessler who frequently argues cases before the justices. “And we’re seeing more than one of them at once.”
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