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In a 6-3 ruling this week that overturned nine decades of precedent, the Supreme Court granted President Donald Trump the power to fire and replace officials at independent government agencies like the Federal Trade Commission. But in a separate 5-4 decision, the justices ruled that Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook can stay in her job as she challenges Trump's efforts to fire her.
The seemingly contradictory rulings suggest a two-tier system of regulation, says Alvaro Bedoya, a former FTC commissioner who was fired by Trump last year. The independence and stability of the Federal Reserve is important to "billionaire Wall Street Bankers," and therefore remains protected, says Bedoya. "But then you have this whole series of other agencies that keep your toys safe, that keep health insurers from robbing people blind, that keep supermarkets from merging to make milk, eggs and beef … even more expensive. The court said that all those regulators can report directly to the president and be entirely beholden to his whims."
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(First column, 10th story, link)
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(Second column, 3rd story, link)
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President Donald Trump has received another setback in his ongoing quest to control U.S. elections. In a 5-4 split, the Supreme Court ruled that mail-in ballots do not need to be received by Election Day to be counted, as long as they were postmarked by then. Although a "rare victory for voting rights," the conservative justices' assertion that voting by mail is prone to fraud — a disproven theory that Trump blames his loss in the 2020 election for — is "very disturbing," says Ari Berman, the national voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones. "My fear is that this is going to embolden Republicans to double down on their efforts to try to get rid of mail voting, including the SAVE America Act, Trump's sweeping voter suppression bill, which he seems desperate to go to any lengths to try to pass," says Berman, who also comments on the court's decision to strike down a federal law limiting campaign spending.
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A democratic socialist ousted a veteran congresswoman in Denver, and a U.S. senator lost his bid for governor. But the state's other senator fended off a progressive primary challenger.
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The Supreme Court has ruled that states can prohibit transgender student athletes from competing in women's and girls' sports teams, with the court's conservative justices finding that such bans — currently introduced in Idaho and West Virginia — do not violate the Constitution, and all nine justices agreeing that they do not violate Title IX, the federal anti-sex discrimination statute. These bans are part of an "effort that we're seeing escalate to push trans people out of public life," says Chase Strangio, co-director of the ACLU's LGBTQ & HIV Project. They have the ultimate effect of "increasing the legitimacy of the Trump administration's authority over every aspect of our bodily autonomy and everyday life."
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