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  • FL Supreme Court doesn’t review legislative ballot measures

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    After a contentious debate with Democrats, Florida House Republicans passed their version of a property tax overhaul that would eliminate non-school property taxes for Floridians’ primary residences. 

    As the House neared a vote on the proposed amendment Feb. 19, Rep. Toby Overdorf, R-Palm City, dismissed legislators’ concerns that the tax cut would strip local governments of money for services, saying municipalities’ budgets have increased sharply over the last several years.

    Then he turned to Florida’s ballot amendment approval process.

    “What we pass today will eventually go, hopefully, to the Supreme Court,” Overdorf said on the statehouse floor. “And they will review that language and then it goes to the voters. The voters will make that choice.”

    The tax proposal is a legislative ballot measure that will require voters to weigh in. The Florida Supreme Court doesn’t automatically review that type of proposal.

    The state Supreme Court typically reviews citizen-led initiatives before they go to voters, not ones passed by the Legislature. In this case, the court would review the proposal’s language only if anyone files a lawsuit challenging it. Given the controversial nature of the property tax proposal, experts believe it is likely to face legal challenges.

    University of Central Florida political science professor Aubrey Jewett found that from 1978 to 2019 the Florida Supreme Court removed eight legislative proposals from the ballot in reviews spurred by lawsuits. In each case, the court declared the amendments or their ballot summaries confusing, misleading or incomplete.

    Overdorf told PolitiFact he was referring to the possibility of a lawsuit, saying that his use of the word “hopefully” was meant toward the measure passing the Legislature. The Senate has not taken up the measure and is working on its own property tax proposal with Gov. Ron DeSantis, who floated the possibility of a special session later in the year to get it done. 

    “I have to be conservative as I go through this process, and the measure is subject to review if somebody challenges the ballot language,” Overdorf told PolitiFact in a phone interview. “According to the statutes, anyone that disagrees with the language and files an action, which they have to do within 30 days, that would have to be reviewed by the court and it takes precedence of any other action by the court.”

    The different ways Florida handles ballot measures

    There are five ways an amendment can be placed on Florida’s election ballots: citizen-led initiative petition, legislative proposal, constitutional revision commission, taxation and budget reform commission and a constitutional convention. At least 60% of voters must approve of a measure for it to become a Florida law. 

    Florida has never had a constitutional convention, but it has utilized the four other methods over the years to put ballot measures before voters. 

    For citizen-led initiatives, “after a certain percentage of required signatures is reached, a supreme court review of the amendment is officially requested, and the court must agree that the initiative covers only one subject and that the ballot summary is not confusing or deceptive,” Jewett said. “If the court finds that it fails either of those tests, then it will not go on the ballot.”

    Florida’s Republican lawmakers have taken steps to make it harder for ballot initiative backers to get measures approved. 

    In 2020, they passed a bill raising the number of signatures initiatives need to spur review by the state’s highest court, increasing it from 10% to 25% of the total signatures required to get on the ballot. The law also raised the requirement for signatures to be collected in at least half of the state’s congressional districts, instead of one-fourth of them.

    DeSantis signed another law in 2025 that requires petition circulators to be Florida residents and U.S. citizens, prohibits felons who haven’t had their voting rights restored from circulating petitions and requires all circulators to register with the Florida Division of Elections. (Petition circulators gather signatures for ballot initiatives.) The state can now levy a $50,000 fine against an organization that allows ineligible people to handle petitions, per violation.

    The tougher restrictions can be seen in real time: DeSantis’ administration recently announced that no citizen initiatives made the November 2026 ballot. Legislative proposals, meanwhile, must pass as a joint resolution by a three-fifths vote in both the House and Senate, and are not subject to a governor’s veto. 

    Since Republicans currently have the supermajority, any measure the party wants to put on the ballot has a good chance of getting there. Once passed, barring a lawsuit, the proposals typically go straight to the ballot.

    “The legislative majority typically resents having its legislative proposals removed or revoked and believes the Florida Supreme Court should not interfere with its ability to place constitutional changes before the voters,” Jewett wrote in his book, “Politics in Florida.” “In several cases, the legislature has simply rewritten its proposal and put the issue back before the voters.” 

    For example, when the Florida Supreme Court removed a 2007 proposal to reduce property taxes and increase exemptions, the Legislature called a special session and got the rewritten proposal back on the ballot, where it passed easily.

    The court, which now has six conservative DeSantis-appointees, has not removed any legislative proposals from the ballot in 2020, 2022 or 2024.

    RELATED: Florida’s Amendment 4 on abortion is short. Does a lack of definitions mean no rules? 

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  • The Supreme Court’s tariff decision vindicates the rule of law and the separation of powers

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    On Friday, hours after the Supreme Court ruled that President Donald Trump had no tariff authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), he invoked a different law to impose “a temporary import surcharge of 10 percent,” later raised to 15 percent. Trump suggested he also might impose tariffs under four other statutes, some of which he has used before.

    Despite that seemingly quick recovery from a decision that Trump called “terrible” and “deeply disappointing,” the IEEPA ruling undeniably complicated his economically illiterate trade war. More importantly, it upheld the rule of law and the separation of powers by rejecting Trump’s audacious claim that the 1977 law, which does not even mention import taxes and had never before been used to impose them, gave him the previously unnoticed authority to completely rewrite the tariff schedule approved by Congress.

    Trump maintained that IEEPA authorizes the president to impose any taxes he wants on any imports he chooses from any country he decides to target for any length of time he considers appropriate whenever he deems it necessary to “deal with” an “unusual and extraordinary threat” from abroad that constitutes a “national emergency.” And according to Trump, Chief Justice John Roberts noted, “the only way of restraining the exercise of that power” is the “veto-proof majority in Congress” required to terminate the supposed emergency.

    The Constitution unambiguously gives Congress the power to “lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises.” If Congress meant to delegate that authority to the president as completely as Trump claimed, the Supreme Court reasoned, it would have said so.

    “When Congress grants the power to impose tariffs, it does so clearly and with careful constraints,” Roberts noted. “It did neither here.”

    In other words, the very statutes to which Trump resorted after his Supreme Court defeat provide compelling evidence that Congress did not grant him the extraordinary powers he claimed under IEEPA. Among other things, those laws authorize tariffs to protect “national security,” counter allegedly discriminatory trade practices, help U.S. manufacturers “adjust” to foreign competition, and alleviate “fundamental international payments problems.”

    These provisions cover a lot of territory, and their use is often dubious. But all of them restrict presidential action by specifying acceptable rationales, requiring agency investigations, or limiting the size, scope, or duration of tariff hikes.

    Trump’s attempt to avoid those “careful constraints” prompted a richly deserved rebuke. Roberts, a George W. Bush appointee, concluded that Trump’s reading of IEEPA ran afoul of the “major questions” doctrine, which says the executive branch can exercise delegated powers of “vast ‘economic and political significance’” only with clear congressional approval.

    Two Trump appointees, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, agreed that the president could not meet that test. “The Constitution lodges the Nation’s lawmaking powers in Congress alone, and the major questions doctrine safeguards that assignment against executive encroachment,” Gorsuch explained in his concurring opinion.

    Under that doctrine, “the President must identify clear statutory authority for the extraordinary delegated power he claims,” Gorsuch wrote. “That is a standard he cannot meet,” Gorsuch continued, because Congress “did not clearly surrender to the President the sweeping tariff power he seeks to wield.”

    The three Democratic appointees on the Court—Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson—saw no need to rely on the major questions doctrine. But they agreed that the IEEPA cannot reasonably be read as conferring the untrammeled authority that Trump perceived.

    By joining Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson in rejecting his power grab, Trump averred, Gorsuch and Barrett became “an embarrassment to their families,” revealing themselves as “fools and lapdogs for the RINOs and the radical-left Democrats.” But that assessment had nothing to do with the quality of their reasoning.

    Trump’s condemnation instead hinged on the fact that Gorsuch and Barrett had the temerity to vote against the president who appointed them. Unlike Trump, they understand that justices have a higher duty than obedience to the president’s will.

    © Copyright 2025 by Creators Syndicate Inc.

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    Jacob Sullum

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  • The Supreme Court’s landmark tariff decision is the latest defeat ‘piercing President Trump’s seeming invincibility’ | Fortune

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    President Donald Trump’s trade war isn’t over, despite the Supreme Court striking down his global tariffs, but the legal setback adds to the growing wall of resistance.

    The last two months represent a stunning reversal from the first year of his second term when lawmakers, CEOs, foreign governments, and the high court itself deferred to the president—even as he sought to tear down the existing world order.

    The 6-3 ruling against Trump’s levies under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act earned the six justices in the majority a severe tongue lashing. In a press briefing on Friday, he said they were a “disgrace to our nation,” adding that they’re “fools and lapdogs for the RINOs and the radical left Democrats.”

    He combined his insults with bravado over his ability to enact a fresh set of tariffs under separate laws, and he quickly followed through by imposing a 10% global duty that he hiked to 15% just a day later.

    “Still, the importance of this judgment is another step in piercing President Trump’s seeming invincibility,” wrote Kurt Campbell, a longtime diplomat and national security official who is also chairman of the Asia Group.

    “We have seen a series of domestic actions, including the withdrawal of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement from Minneapolis, various Republicans separating from the White House on domestic legislation and now the Supreme Court basically hollowing out the most important plank on President Trump’s economic vision.”

    In a note on Friday, he also pointed out that Congress had already pushed back on his tariff agenda. In fact, several Republicans joined Democrats in the House of Representatives to revoke Trump’s import taxes on Canada, though the vote earlier this month was largely symbolic.

    Campbell predicted that lawmakers on Capitol Hill from both parties will reaffirm the Supreme Court decision, making it difficult for the Trump to pass any legislation meant to reinforce his tariff authority. 

    “This is significant at a time that the president seeks to head into midterm elections with a head full of steam,” he said.

    Biggest ruling since New Deal was struck down

    Trump’s rush to establish alternate tariffs clashes with his attempts to address the affordability crisis, which helped Democrats win off-year elections in 2025 and is shaping up to deliver control of at least one chamber of Congress in 2026.

    If Democrats do take over Congress, it will severely limit Trump’s maneuvering room as they seek to rein in his administration’s spending and policies, especially in areas like immigration.

    The Supreme Court’s tariff decision could signal that the judicial branch may join the legislative branch in drawing a line against the executive branch.

    Harvard law professor and Bloomberg columnist Noah Feldman called the ruling a turning point and compared it to the high court striking down President Franklin Roosevelt’s first New Deal in 1935.

    “It took almost a decade, but Chief Justice John Roberts and the Supreme Court finally found a way to stand up to President Donald Trump’s executive power overreach, striking down the tariffs that are the signature initiative of his presidency,” he wrote on Friday.

    Epstein files, Jerome Powell, Greenland

    For months, cracks have been forming in Trump’s support. After Democrats scored big election victories in November, Congress ordered the release of the Epstein files on near-unanimous votes with broad GOP approval. In December, heavy redactions and the Justice Department’s failure to disclose all of the records by the deadline added to the tension.

    At the start of the new year, Trump seemed to be riding high after the U.S. military pulled off a stunning raid that captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, despite grumblings that another foreign intervention strayed from his “America first” motto.

    Then a series of events in rapid succession quickly unwound his aura of invincibility. A week after the Maduro raid, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell issued a defiant video statement that revealed he was facing a Justice Department criminal investigation related to a renovation project at the central bank’s headquarters.

    That rallied support for Powell on Capitol Hill, including from key Republicans who want to preserve central bank independence.

    A week after that, Trump announced tariffs against several NATO countries unless they supported his bid to seize control of Greenland. Canada and Europe held firm on protecting the semi-autonomous Danish territory, and Trump backed down.

    And the following week, federal agents shot to death a second U.S. citizen in Minnesota during Trump’s deportation campaign in the state.

    Silicon Valley workers expressed their anger, and Minnesota-based CEOs pleaded for de-escalation. Democrats in Congress stiffened their opposition to an appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security, leading to a partial government shutdown. Meanwhile, more Republicans voiced some uneasiness with federal agents’ tactics.

    Eventually, Trump dispatched his border czar, who ousted the Border Patrol’s Greg Bovino and announced an end to the Minnesota surge.

    At the time, the swirl of events added up to a tipping point for Trump.

    “Starting to feel like we are in the midst of a historic hinge moment here,” political scientist Lee Drutman, a senior fellow at the New America think tank, posted on X last month.

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    Jason Ma

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  • Murky outlook for businesses after tariff ruling prompts countermoves by Trump

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    NEW YORK — Businesses face a new wave of uncertainty after the Supreme Court struck down tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump under an emergency powers law and Trump vowed to work around the ruling to keep his tariffs in place.

    The Trump administration says its tariffs help boost American manufacturers and reduce the trade gap. But many U.S. businesses have had to raise prices and adjust in other ways to offset higher costs spurred by the tariffs.

    It remains to be seen how much relief businesses and consumers will actually get from Friday’s ruling. Within hours of the court’s decision, Trump pledged to use a different law to impose a 10% tariff on all imports that would last 150 days, and to explore other ways to impose additional tariffs on countries he says engage in unfair trade practices.

    “Any boost to the economy from lowering tariffs in the near-term is likely to be partly offset by a prolonged period of uncertainty,” said Michael Pearce, an economist at Oxford Economics. “With the administration likely to rebuild tariffs through other, more durable, means, the overall tariffs rate may yet end up settling close to current levels.”

    Efforts to claw back the estimated $133 billion to $175 billion of previously collected tariffs now deemed illegal are bound to be complicated, and will likely favor larger companies with more resources. Consumers hoping for a refund are unlikely to be compensated.

    The fight against tariffs continues

    With Trump’s unyielding position on tariffs, many business are braced for years of court battles.

    Basic Fun, a Florida-based maker of toys such as Lincoln Logs and Tonka trucks, last week joined a slew of other businesses in a lawsuit seeking to claw back tariffs paid to the government.

    While company CEO Jay Foreman is concerned about any new tariffs Trump may impose, he doesn’t think they will affect toys. Still, he said, “I do worry about some type of perpetual fight over this, at least for the next three years.”

    The new 10% tariff Trump announced Friday immediately raised questions for Daniel Posner, the owner of Grapes The Wine Co., in White Plains, New York. Since wine shipments take about two weeks to cross the Atlantic, he wonders if a shipment arriving Monday will be affected.

    “We’re reactive to what’s become a very unstable situation,” Posner said.

    Ron Kurnik owns Superior Coffee Roasting Co. in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, across the border from Canada. In addition to U.S. tariffs, Kurnik faced retaliatory tariffs from Canada for much of last year when he exported his coffee.

    “It’s like a nightmare we just want to wake up from,” said Kurnik, whose company has raised prices by 6% twice since the tariffs went into effect. While he’s pleased with the Supreme Court’s ruling, he doesn’t think he will ever see a refund.

    Industries pine for more stability

    A wide array of industries, including retail, tech and the agricultural sector, used the Supreme Court ruling as an opportunity to remind Trump of how his trade policies have affected their businesses.

    The Business Roundtable, a group that lobbies on behalf of more than 200 U.S. companies, released a statement encouraging the administration to limit the focus of tariffs going forward to specific unfair trade practices and national security concerns.

    In the retail industry, stores of all stripes have embraced different ways to offset the effects of tariffs – from absorbing some of the costs themselves, to cutting expenses and diversifying their supply network. Still, they have had to pass on some price increases at a time when shoppers have been particularly sensitive to inflationary pressures.

    Dave French, executive vice president of government relations for The National Retail Federation, the nation’s largest retail industry trade group, said he hoped lower courts would ensure “a seamless process” to refund tariffs. That issue wasn’t addressed in Friday’s ruling.

    For the technology sector, Trump’s tariffs caused major headaches. Many of its products are either built overseas or depend on imports of key components. The Computer & Communications Industry Association, which represents a spectrum of technology companies employing more than 1.6 million people, expressed hope that the decision will ease the trade tensions.

    “With this decision behind us, we look forward to bringing more stability to trade policy,” said Jonathan McHale, the association’s vice president for digital trade.

    Farmers, who have been stung by higher prices for equipment and fertilizer since the tariffs went into effect, and reduced demand for their exports, also spoke out.

    “We strongly encourage the president to avoid using any other available authorities to impose tariffs on agricultural inputs that would further increase costs,” said American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall.

    Industries that aren’t feeling any relief

    The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act did not give the president authority to tax imports, a power that belongs to Congress. But the decision only affects tariffs imposed under that law, so some industries will see no relief at all.

    The decision leaves in effect tariffs on steel, upholstered furniture, kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities, according to the Home Furnishings Association, which represents 15,000 furniture stores in North America.

    At Revolution Brewing in Chicago, the aluminum they use for cans costs as much as the ingredients that go inside them because of tariffs Trump has placed on metals that are not affected by the Supreme Court ruling. While the cans are made in Chicago, the aluminum comes from Canada, said Josh Deth, managing partner at the brewery.

    Tariffs have been just one challenge for his business, which is also affected by volatile barley prices and a slowdown in demand for craft beer.

    “Everything kind of adds up,” he said. “The beverage industry needs relief here. We’re getting crushed by the prices of aluminum.”

    Reaction overseas

    Italian winemakers hard-hit by the tariffs greeted the Supreme Court decision with skepticism, warning that the decision may just deepen uncertainty around trade with the U.S.

    The U.S. is Italy’s largest wine market, with sales having tripled in value over the past 20 years. New tariffs on the EU, which the Trump administration initially threatened would be 200%, had sent fear throughout the industry, which remained even after the U.S. reduced, delayed and negotiated down.

    “There is a more than likely risk that tariffs will be reimposed through alternative legal channels, compounded by the uncertainty this ruling may generate in commercial relations between Europe and the United States,” said Lamberto Frescobaldi, president of UIV, a trade association that represents more than 800 winemakers.

    Elsewhere in Europe, initial reaction focused on renewed upheaval and confusion regarding costs facing businesses exporting to the US.

    Trump’s tariffs could hit pharmaceuticals, chemicals and auto parts, said Carsten Brzeski, an economist at ING bank. “Europe should not be mistaken, this ruling will not bring relief,” he said. “The legal authority may be different, but the economic impact could be identical or worse.”

    ___

    Anne D’Innocenzio in New York; Dee-Ann Durbin in Detroit; Michael Liedtke in San Francisco; David McHugh in Frankfurt, Germany; Jonathan Matisse in Nashville, Tennessee; Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee; and Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.

    Copyright © 2026 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

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    AP

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  • What the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down tariffs means for L.A.’s trade-dependent economy

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    The Supreme Court’s decision Friday to strike down the majority of tariffs imposed by President Trump could provide some relief to L.A.’s trade-reliant economy — but only if they are not reimposed again through other means.

    The court’s 6-3 ruling that Trump didn’t have the authority to impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act rolled back levies that have upended international trade.

    “We’ve seen that the tariffs have a significant impact on our supply chain, on our manufacturers and especially on our port logistics and trade sector,” said Stephen Cheung, chief executive of the nonprofit Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.

    “I think this decision will have a significant impact on the Los Angeles economy. However, it’s going to take a long time to unravel, so we’ll see specifically how everything is going to pan out,” he said.

    The tariffs dealt a blow to a large swath of businesses in Southern California and across the state, including farmers, automakers, home builders, tech companies and apparel retailers.

    MGA Entertainment, the Chatsworth maker of Bratz dolls, said a little more than half of its products are made in China, while hardware and lumber seller Anawalt in Malibu said the majority of its lumber comes from Canada and nearly all of its steel products are made in China.

    During a news conference Friday following the decision, Trump said that under other legal authorities he would impose a 10% global tariff and pursue additional levies, including a possible 30% tariff on foreign cars. Later in the day he signed an order imposing the 10% tax, which takes effect Feb. 24.

    “The Supreme Court’s ruling on tariffs is deeply disappointing, and I’m ashamed of certain members of the court — absolutely ashamed,” Trump said. “They’re very unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution.”

    Friday’s high-court decision affects up to $170 billion in tariffs collected under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, including 10% to 50% duties and penalties on China, Canada and Mexico.

    Whether importers who paid the tax can seek refunds was left to a lower court to decide. It’s estimated some $100 billion in tariffs were not affected by the decision.

    The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach — which handle nearly a third of the nation’s containerized cargo and are the primary trade gateway to Asia — saw a surge of traffic the first half of last year as importers sought to get ahead of the tariffs, largely imposed in April.

    However, traffic tailed off the second half of the year, with the L.A. port expecting a single-digit decline in volume this year before Friday’s decision.

    The twin facilities form the largest ports complex in North America, supporting more than 200,000 jobs and contributing $28 billion to the regional economy in 2022, according to a California Center for Jobs & the Economy report.

    The uncertainty surrounding the tariffs derives from the complexity of the tariffs themselves — as well as the other legal options Trump has to impose them again.

    Mike Jacob, president of the Pacific Merchant Shipping Assn., which represents ocean carriers, marine terminal operators and others in the industry, said the tendency is to think of the tariffs as uniform.

    “It was different rates for different countries. That was compounded by different rates for different commodities. And there’s a lot of changes that have occurred with specific commodities,” he said. “So it’s almost impossible to take a broad brush and say, here’s what we expect to happen — except to say that it’s still a pretty unsettled space.”

    In imposing a 10% global tariff, Trump would be relying on a provision of the Trade Act of 1974, while his ability to pursue additional levies would rely on other law.

    Economist Jock O’Connell, international trade advisor at L.A.’s Beacon Economics, said that Trump may have authority to impose the 10% global tariffs, but additional levies would involve trade authorities.

    “That would be a cumbersome process. The tariffs have to be more specifically framed and the subject of an investigation,” he said.

    Also complicating the process are trade deals the U.S. has been negotiating with foreign countries based on the tariffs. O’Connell expects they will seek to renegotiate them.

    “They’re likely to come back to the table and say, ‘Well, you don’t have the authority to impose these,’” he said.

    Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, said importers are facing tough decisions right now, given that any ocean carrier leaving an Asian port today would not be subject to the tariffs that were struck down.

    “That executive is asking: ‘Are my commodities now exempt from this tariff?’ If the answer is yes, ‘Can I buy more of that product and get it shipped while there are no tariffs?’” he said.

    Those decisions would revolve around such factors as the availability of space on the vessel and local warehouses, as well as trucking services, he said.

    Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, said the decision should be good news for the larger U.S. economy and businesses on the “front line” of the trade wars, such as transportation, distribution, agriculture and retail.

    “If the president lets the Supreme Court decision stand and doesn’t try to replace the tariffs, that’s a plus for the economy — but that’s not what’s going to happen,” he said.

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    Laurence Darmiento

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  • Justices strike down law Trump used to impose wide tariffs

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    In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court ruled that President Donald Trump cannot use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to levy tariffs on his own, blocking the primary tool he’s been using to reshape the U.S. and global economy.

    In a 6-3 decision, the court ruled that “when Congress grants the power to impose tariffs, it does so clearly and with careful constraints. It did neither in IEEPA.”

    Trump had justified his most far-reaching assertions of tariff power by citing IEEPA, a 1977 law that allows tariffs on all imports during an “unusual and extraordinary threat … to the national security, foreign policy or economy of the United States.”

    Trump will still be able to levy tariffs using other laws, but these generally require more complicated processes. 

    “Trump cannot raise tariffs on his own, anywhere he pleases, any longer — that’s the biggest takeaway from SCOTUS this morning,” Ross Burkhart, a Boise State University political scientist who specializes in trade policy, said Feb. 20. Trump can still pursue his America First agenda, Burkhart said, but “he just has to convince more audiences of the national security threat than just himself and his advisors.”

    The court’s decision would seem to end: the minimum 10% tariff Trump levied on most trading partners during his April 2025 “Liberation Day” announcement; higher rates that Trump misleadingly described as “reciprocal” tariffs for certain trading partners; the tariffs linked to drug trafficking on Canada, Mexico and China; and many of the tariffs placed on China, experts said.

    These tariffs have been the main drivers of Trump’s second term increases in tariff revenues. ​​Since January 2025, the U.S. has seen an increase over the existing tariff baseline of $223.5 billion.

    Still in play for the administration would be other types of tariffs, including:

    • Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act, which allows tariffs when the president determines that a foreign country “is unjustifiable and burdens or restricts United States commerce” through violations of trade agreements;

    • Section 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act, which lets the president impose tariffs if national security is threatened. Trump and President Joe Biden used Section 232 as the basis for steel and aluminum tariffs imposed since 2018;

    • Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act, which allows the president to address “large and serious” balance-of-payments deficits through import surcharges, quotas, or a combination;

    • Section 338 of the 1930 Tariff Act, which authorizes tariffs of up to 50% if a country “discriminates” against U.S. commerce.

    “Even without IEEPA, the president retains ample statutory authority to quickly recreate much of the current trade policy chaos,” wrote the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank skeptical of Trump’s tariff policy.

    Trump learned of the decision during a meeting with governors at the White House, The New York Times reported. Citing two people familiar with the proceedings, the Times reported that Trump called the decision a “disgrace” and left the meeting early.

    The Constitution says Congress holds the power to impose tariffs, not the president. However, over the years, Congress has passed multiple laws ceding some of that power to the president. 

    One of those was IEEPA, but small businesses challenged that position in court, making two key arguments. They contended that the law doesn’t explicitly let the president impose tariffs. And they argued that the tariffs didn’t rise to the level of an “unusual and extraordinary” emergency. The plaintiffs succeeded at the trial and appeals level, and now have convinced the Supreme Court as well.

    Left unclear are how and when the billions in tariffs collected will be refunded; in the dissenting opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, joined by justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, wrote that this process “is likely” to be a “mess.”  

    RELATED: Year of the Lies: Farmer says some Trump tariff statements ‘as far from the truth as you can get’

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  • The ‘alternative scenario’ of an even bigger national debt disaster is in play after the Supreme Court ruled Trump’s tariffs illegal | Fortune

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    The Supreme Court ruled Friday that President Donald Trump’s extensive use of tariffs during his first year back in office were illegal. The court responded to escalating protests from small businesses saddled with higher costs and a large portion of Americans who are skeptical as to the benefits of Trump’s tariff regime. But by striking down part of Trump’s trade agenda, the judges might send America’s ever-widening deficit soaring even higher.

    The national fiscal outlook is already on an unsustainable trajectory. As the Congressional Budget Office projected earlier this month, federal debt is set to reach 120% of GDP by 2036, but that forecast assumes current policies will remain in place. A perfect storm of other factors could align to send debt climbing to even greater heights.

    One of those forces is the fate of Trump’s tariffs. The severity of America’s fiscal path has been somewhat “mitigated” in part by tariff-driven revenue, according to a report published Thursday by the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB). Removing this revenue stream would contribute to an “alternative scenario,” one with an even steeper debt burden than the one projected by the CBO. 

    Assuming Trump’s tariffs are not replaced, and certain government spending programs are either made permanent or revived, the deficit would reach nearly $4 trillion, debt could climb to 131% of GDP in 2036, and the additional interest burden would hit $820 billion, according to the report. 

    The mechanism by which vanishing tariff revenues fuel the deficit is straightforward but massive in scale. Currently, the CBO’s baseline fiscal projections are softened by the assumption that significant revenue from tariffs unilaterally imposed by the Trump administration will continue to flow into the Treasury. But the administration’s legal foundation for these collections crumbled before the court. Most of these tariffs were authorized under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a tool that has never before been used to implement tariffs and that the U.S. Court of International Trade already ruled illegal last year. 

    If the administration fails to replace the revenue with other taxes or offsets, the CRFB estimates that federal revenue would fall by $1.9 trillion through 2036. This loss represents roughly 0.5% of the nation’s total GDP over the next decade. While the administration could theoretically attempt to use alternative trade maneuvers to replicate the tariffs, there is no guarantee such a transition would be seamless or legally bulletproof.

    That lost revenue would presumably be evident immediately. The government is now on the hook to refund $175 billion of its tariff revenue, according to recent analysis by  the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn-Wharton Budget Model. But the costs would be even greater over the long run. Losing $1.9 trillion in expected income does more than just widen the immediate gap between spending and revenue; it triggers a compounding interest effect that worsens the overall debt. 

    When the government loses a primary revenue stream like tariffs, it must borrow more to cover its existing obligations. Under the report’s alternative scenario, this loss of revenue, combined with the permanent extension of temporary tax provisions from Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act and a potential revival of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies, which expired earlier this year, would raise the deficit by $4.2 trillion over the next decade. This deficit, worsened by higher interest costs, could risk crowding out other forms of essential spending as the federal government becomes increasingly consumed by its own debt burden.

    “The alternative scenario does not account for dynamic effects on interest rates and the economy, which could worsen the fiscal outlook by pushing the economy further into a debt spiral,” CRFB researchers wrote in the report.

    The report outlines a more upbeat scenario, where debt rises more slowly than in the CBO’s forecast. In this version, lawmakers would either allow temporary tax policies to expire or fully offset their costs, while also ensuring that tariff revenues are either preserved by the courts or replaced by new legislative measures. Coupled with reforms to stabilize trust funds like Social Security, this path could see debt stabilize at a much lower 111% of GDP by 2036. 

    For now, however, the nation’s fiscal health remains on a deteriorating path. Removing Trump’s tariffs might be greeted favorably abroad and by most Americans, given that up to 90% of tariff costs are now paid for by American companies and consumers, according to a recent New York Fed report. But striking down the tariffs without replacements could come with hidden costs further down the road, as the alternative scenario of an even greater debt burden gets closer to becoming the new reality.

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    Tristan Bove

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  • How Can Justice Jackson Be Seen as Im­partial? | RealClearPolitics

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    Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson continues to dismay.

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    Miranda Devine, New York Post

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  • Supreme Court, with no dissents, rejects GOP challenge to California’s new election map

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    WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that California this fall may use its new election map, which is expected to send five more Democrats to Congress.

    With no dissents, the justices rejected emergency appeals from California Republicans and President Trump’s lawyers, who claimed the map was a racial gerrymander to benefit Latinos, not a partisan effort to bolster Democrats.

    Trump’s lawyers supported the California Republicans and filed a Supreme Court brief asserting that “California’s recent redistricting is tainted by an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.”

    They pointed to statements from Paul Mitchell, who led the effort to redraw the districts, that he hoped to “bolster” Latino representatives in the Central Valley.

    In response, the state’s attorneys told the court the GOP claims defied the public’s understanding of the mid-decade redistricting and contradicted the facts regarding the racial and ethnic makeup of the districts.

    Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed re-drawing the state’s 52 congressional districts to “fight back against Trump’s power grab in Texas.”

    He said that if Texas was going to redraw its districts to benefit Republicans so as to keep control of the House of Representatives, California should do the same to benefit Democrats.

    The voters approved the change in November.

    While the new map has five more Democratic-leaning districts, the state’s attorneys said it did not increase the number with a Latino majority.

    “Before Proposition 50, there were 16 Latino-majority districts. After Proposition 50, there is the same number. The average Latino share of the voting-age population also declined in those 16 districts,” they wrote.

    It would be “strange for California to undertake a mid-decade restricting effort with the predominant purpose of benefiting Latino voters and then enact a new map that contains an identical number of Latino-majority districts,” they said.

    Trump’s lawyers pointed to the 13th Congressional District in Merced County and said its lines were drawn to benefit Latinos.

    The state’s attorneys said that too was incorrect. “The Latino voting-age population [in District 13] decreased after Proposition 50’s enactment,” they said.

    Three judges in Los Angeles heard evidence from both sides and upheld the new map in a 2-1 decision.

    “We find that the evidence of any racial motivation driving redistricting is exceptionally weak, while the evidence of partisan motivations is overwhelming,” said U.S. District Judges Josephine Staton and Wesley Hsu.

    In the past, the Supreme Court has said the Constitution does not bar state lawmakers from drawing election districts for political or partisan reasons, but it does forbid doing so based on the race of the voters.

    In December, the court ruled for Texas Republicans and overturned a 2-1 decision that had blocked the use of its new election map.
    The court’s conservatives agreed with Texas lawmakers who said they acted out of partisan motives, not with the aim of denying representation to Latino and Black voters.

    “The impetus for the adoption of the Texas map (like the map subsequently adopted in California) was partisan advantage pure and simple,” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote in a concurring opinion.

    California’s lawyers quoted Alito in supporting their map.

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    David G. Savage

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  • Supreme Court president warns attacks on judiciary threaten democratic order

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    Supreme Court President Isaac Amit warns Israel’s judiciary is under a “full-fledged attack,” emphasizing the erosion of judicial independence and the rule of law in the country.

    The judiciary in Israel is undergoing a “full-fledged attack” that “goes far beyond the boundaries of legitimate criticism,” Supreme Court President Isaac Amit warned on Wednesday.

    Amit made the remarks at a ceremonial event in Jerusalem for newly licensed lawyers who had recently passed the Bar exam.

    His comments come amid near-daily verbal and procedural challenges directed at the judiciary. From the judicial overhaul legislation advanced in 2022, through the government’s refusal to formally recognize Amit as Supreme Court president, to efforts to remove the attorney-general, tensions between the judicial branch and the legislative and executive branches have reached unprecedented levels.

    “We are witnessing attempts to weaken the judiciary, harm its independence, and wear down its dedicated and professional judges who have pledged their lives to public service,” Amit said.

    One of the central flashpoints in the standoff between the judiciary and the government – particularly Justice Minister Yariv Levin – concerns the appointment of judges.

    Levin repeatedly refused over the past year to convene the Judicial Selection Committee and advance appointments to the Supreme Court. After a series of High Court rulings compelled the committee’s convening, Amit was selected as Supreme Court president and assumed office after taking the oath before the president.

    Levin declined to recognize Amit’s appointment

    Levin has since declined to formally recognize Amit’s appointment through ministerial publication and has openly challenged the court’s authority in related proceedings, framing the dispute as one over democratic legitimacy and the balance of powers.

    At present, the High Court is weighing a growing number of petitions that test the limits of executive discretion in judicial appointments. Its rulings are expected to shape not only the status of specific appointments, but the future contours of judicial independence and governance in Israel.

    “The obligation to follow the law and observejudicial decisions is a necessary and basic condition for the existence of a functioning democratic society,” Amit said.

    “When public figures completely ignore rulings that do not align with their views, what message does that send to the public?” he asked. “If someone in a position of power allows themselves to disregard a judicial ruling that does not suit them, why would an average citizen see themselves as bound by that same ruling?”

    What Israel is witnessing now, Amit warned, is an erosion of “the very idea of equal application of the law – a system that obligates every citizen. If the law is not applied equally, it loses its meaning.”

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  • Trump lawyers urge Supreme Court to block California’s new election map while upholding Texas’

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    WASHINGTON  — Trump administration lawyers have joined California Republicans in urging Supreme Court to block California’s new election map on the grounds that one district in the San Joaquin Valley was drawn to favor Latinos.

    Two months ago, Trump’s lawyers called on the court to uphold a new Republican-friendly election map in Texas, arguing that it was partisan gerrymander, not one driven by race.

    “Plaintiffs bringing a racial-gerrymander claim have the heavy burden to show that race was the predominant factor motivating” how the map was drawn, Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer said then.

    The Supreme Court agreed by a 6-3 vote and lifted a judges’ order that had blocked the Texas map which was drawn to win five more House seats for Republicans.

    Voting rights advocates had sued, noting Gov. Greg Abbott said the goal to eliminate four “coalition districts,” which had a combined majority of Black and Latino voters and elected Democrats.

    In a brief opinion, the justices said they presume state officials acted in “good faith” in drawing the maps of congressional districts.

    “It is indisputable that impetus for the adoption of the Texas map (like the map subsequently adopted in California) was partisan advantage pure and simple,” wrote Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

    The justices also said it was too late in the election-year calendar for reshuffling the districts again.

    Undeterred, Trump’s lawyers now stake out the near opposite view to support the GOP’s attack on the California map which was upheld by the voters in November.

    “California’s recent redistricting is tainted by an unconstitutional racial gerrymander,” Sauer wrote.

    He pointed to past comments from Paul Mitchell, the designated map maker, who said he hoped the Latino districts in the Central Valley could be “bolstered in order to make them most effective.”

    Trump’s lawyer said District 13 in Merced County has an odd-looking “northern plume” that brings in Democratic voters near Stockton.

    “California’s motivation in adopting the Prop. 50 map as a whole was undoubtedly to counteract Texas’s political gerrymander,” Sauer said. “But that overarching political goal is not a license for district-level racial gerrymandering.”

    He advised the justices to declare the new California map unconstitutional and require the state to return to the former map.
    The political impact of such a ruling is obvious. It would likely cost Democrats five seats in the House of Representatives.

    Justice Elena Kagan, who oversees appeals from the West Coast, asked for a response from California by Thursday. That would suggest the justices may act on the GOP’s appeal in the first week of February.

    Election law experts have been skeptical of the Republican arguments in the California case.

    “I don’t think Republicans are likely to prevail here,” UCLA law professor Rick Hasen wrote on his Election Law Blog.

    He said legal challenge “comes too late,” the proposed remedy is too broad, and it ignores the fact that the California’s voters were focused on partisanship, not race. It’s their intent that counts, he said.

    Then, Hasen added, there’s “the optics. It would be a terrible look for the Court … to allow Texas’s Republican gerrymander to go forward but stop California’s, especially if it’s a party line vote. That might be too much even for this Court.”

    There is also a key legal difference in how the appeal arrived at the court.

    In Texas, a three-judge panel heard the evidence, wrote a 160-page opinion and ruled against the state in a 2-1 decision.

    In the California case, by contrast, a three-judge panel heard the evidence and rejected the racial gerrymandering claim in a 2-1 decision.

    In December, Kagan dissented in the Texas case and argued the court should be reluctant to overturn the factual findings of the three judges who heard the case.

    The two judges in the majority said they did not see evidence of a racial gerrymander.

    “We find that the evidence of any racial motivation driving redistricting is exceptionally weak, while the evidence of partisan motivations is overwhelming,” said U.S. District Judges Josephine Staton and Wesley Hsu.

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    David G. Savage

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  • In the case of the Federal Reserve, Supreme Court appears to carve out a murky exception

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    By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER, AP Economics Writer

    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court for the past year has repeatedly allowed President Donald Trump to fire heads of independent agencies, but it appears to be drawing a line with the Federal Reserve.

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    The Associated Press

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  • Wall Street celebrates the end of Trump’s Greenland drama and is hoping the Supreme Court will kill the rest of his tariffs | Fortune

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    The S&P 500 closed up 0.55% yesterday on good news about U.S. GDP growth and President Trump backing down over his plan to invade Greenland. The S&P is again above 6,900 and within 1% of its all-time high. Gold hit another record yesterday, too.

    But futures on the index were down 0.24% prior to the opening bell in New York and markets in Europe sold off slightly this morning after Asia closed mixed, a sign that traders are booking profits after yesterday’s rally. 

    On the macro front, Wall Street analysts are bullish. It’s a marked change from the fraught mood of the last few days, when investors were anticipating another transatlantic tariff war.

    In fact, Trump’s tariffs are turning out to be a much smaller economic deal than “earlier worst-case fears,” JPMorgan Chase says. Companies have adjusted their pricing and supply chains, and the result is “the realized tariff rate has been much lower at ~11% (versus expectations of 15%,”), according to Dubravko Lakos-Bujas and his team. “Only 14% of S&P 500 companies are highly sensitive to tariffs.” 

    And it could get better if the U.S. Supreme Court rules against the president, the bank says.

    “Prediction markets assign >65% odds that the Supreme Court rules against the government, and those odds have consistently been against the government, especially following the November Supreme Court oral arguments,” Lakos-Bujas told clients.

    Source: Polymarket

    Analysts were also cheered by a new upward revision for Q3 2025 U.S. GDP, at 4.4%. 

    “The 4.4% real growth rate is much higher than normal and is likely to moderate over the course of the year, but if we can stay above 3% for the entire year it could lead to double-digit returns in the stock market,” Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at Northlight Asset Management said in an email seen by Fortune.

    EY-Parthenon Chief Economist Gregory Daco was singing from the same hymnbook. “Momentum was driven by resilient consumer spending, robust equipment and AI-related investment, a sizeable boost from net international trade, and a rebound in federal government outlays. The U.S. economy is neither overheating nor stalling—it is adjusting,” he said in a note.

    All of that explains the calm we’re seeing in the markets today.

    “For some assets, it was almost like the selloff never happened, with the VIX index of volatility (-1.26pts) back at 15.64pts, which is beneath its levels prior to Saturday’s tariff announcements,” according to Jim Reid and his team at Deutsche Bank. 

    Here’s a snapshot of the markets ahead of the opening bell in New York this morning:

    • S&P 500 futures were down 0.24% this morning. The last session closed up 0.55%.
    • STOXX Europe 600 was down 0.22% in early trading.
    • The U.K.’s FTSE 100 was down 0.11% in early trading. 
    • Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 0.29%.
    • China’s CSI 300 was down 0.55%.
    • The South Korea KOSPI was up 0.76%. 
    • India’s NIFTY 50 was down 0.95%. 
    • Bitcoin was flat at $89.9K.
    Join us at the Fortune Workplace Innovation Summit May 19–20, 2026, in Atlanta. The next era of workplace innovation is here—and the old playbook is being rewritten. At this exclusive, high-energy event, the world’s most innovative leaders will convene to explore how AI, humanity, and strategy converge to redefine, again, the future of work. Register now.

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    Jim Edwards

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  • Supreme Court appears likely to strike down California law banning guns in stores and restaurants

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    WASHINGTON  — Do licensed gun owners have a right to carry a loaded weapon into stores, restaurants and other private places that are open to the public?

    California and Hawaii are among five states with new laws that forbid carrying firearms onto private property without the consent of an owner or manager. But the Trump administration joined gun-rights advocates on Tuesday in urging the Supreme Court to strike down these laws as unconstitutional under the 2nd Amendment.

    Such a law “effectively nullifies licenses to carry arms in public,” Trump’s lawyers said.

    If you “stop at a gasoline station, you are committing a crime,” Deputy Solicitor Gen. Sarah Harris told the court.

    An attorney representing Hawaii said the issue is one of property rights, not gun rights.

    “An invitation to shop is not an invitation to bring your Glock,” Washington attorney Neal Katyal told the court. “There is no constitutional right to enter property that includes a right to bring firearms.”

    The justices sounded split along the usual ideological lines, with the court’s conservatives signaling they are likely to strike down the new laws in five Democratic-led states.

    “You are relegating the 2nd Amendment to second-class status,” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. told Katyal.

    He said the court had ruled law-abiding persons have a right to carry a firearm for self-defense when they leave home. That would include going to stores or businesses that are open to the public.

    “If the owners don’t like guns, why don’t they just put up a sign?” Alito said.

    Both sides agreed that business owners are generally free to allow or prohibit guns on their property. However, state officials said, the laws are important because business owners rarely post signs that either welcome or forbid the carrying of guns.

    Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said the 2nd Amendment should have the same standing as the 1st Amendment.

    He said it was understood based on the 1st Amendment that a political candidate may walk up to a house and knock on the door or drop off a pamphlet. He questioned why the court should uphold a law that limits gun owners from entering places that are open to the public.

    Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh said they too believed the “right to keep and bear arms” included the right to carry weapons, including into stores.

    Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson said property rights should prevail over gun rights.

    “Is there a right to go on private property with a gun?” Sotomayor asked repeatedly. She said the court had never upheld such a broad right.

    But with the possible exception of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, none of the conservatives agreed.

    Four years ago, the court ruled law-abiding gun owners had a right to carry a concealed weapon for self-defense when they left home. They also said then that guns may be prohibited in “sensitive places” but they did not decide what that meant.

    In the wake of that decision, California, Hawaii, New York, New Jersey and Maryland adopted new laws that restricted carrying guns in public places, including parks and beaches.

    The laws also said gun owners may not take a gun into a privately owned business without the “express authorization” of an owner or manager. California’s law went a step further and said the owner must post a clear sign allowing guns.

    The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the laws from Hawaii and California, except for the required posting of a sign in California.

    Three Hawaii residents with concealed carry permits appealed to the Supreme Court and won the backing of the Trump administration.

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    David G. Savage

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  • An Unhappy Anniversary: Trump’s Year in Office

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    Paper and clocks are associated with first wedding anniversaries, or so the gift guides say. As the United States reaches the one-year mark in its increasingly dysfunctional and abuse-laden political marriage with Donald J. Trump, though, the President has made it clear that he will take almost any sort of gift—even, and maybe especially, someone else’s Nobel Peace Prize medal. The Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado offered hers up to him last week, in a large gold-colored frame, ready for hanging. Although something of a pathetic gesture, given that the Trump Administration seems to have cut a deal with the remnants of Nicolás Maduro’s government (while Maduro himself is in a Brooklyn jail), it did earn her an upgrade. After Maduro’s arrest, Trump said that Machado was “a very nice woman, but she doesn’t have the respect”; post-medal bestowal, she was “a wonderful woman” and her gift “a wonderful gesture of mutual respect.” Those words might even get her somewhere, if only she had control over a lot of oil reserves. But clocks can make good gifts, too. After a group of Swiss businessmen arrived at the White House in November, bearing a desk clock in the form of an oversized Rolex, the country got a break on tariffs.

    Those who aren’t trying to please the President might still keep clocks in mind this January 20th, because the country is in a countdown. Three hundred and sixty-five days of Trump means a thousand and ninety-six to go, including a leap year. (That’s not counting all the Trump first-term days, of course; this is a tragedy of remarriage.) We have aged so much in Trump years that the Biden Administration can feel much longer ago than it was. The brief era of Elon Musk running around the White House may now seem like a fever dream—he and Trump seem to have an off-and-on thing—but hundreds of thousands of people lost their jobs in his wake or otherwise had their lives changed irrevocably, including recipients of U.S. aid around the world. On January 1st, millions of Americans lost their health-care subsidies. Immigrants, even legal ones, live with a new level of fear. So, too, do many academics, scientists, and even lawyers. There’s an undercurrent of political violence that wasn’t present in the same way a year ago.

    Crucially, there are now only two hundred and eighty-seven days until the midterm elections, which have at least the potential to significantly change the balance of power in Washington. Republicans control both houses of Congress, but the margins are slim: 218–213 in the House of Representatives, giving the G.O.P. a hold so tenuous that the Majority Whip, Tom Emmer, has reportedly indicated that he won’t excuse absences for matters other than “life or death”; the margin in the Senate is 53–47. The entire House is up for reëlection, and it is more than plausible that the Democrats will prevail there; taking the Senate, where thirty-five seats will be contested, will be much tougher, though not impossible. Even before November, there will be special elections for four vacant House seats, including the one held, until recently, by the Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene. Her spinning away from the Trump majority—spurred by, of all things, the Jeffery Epstein case—may be an indication that this Administration is decaying more quickly than the calendar alone would indicate.

    For at least some other Republicans, at this one-year juncture, the breaking point may be Trump’s uncannily serious talk of buying or seizing Greenland, a territory of our NATO ally Denmark. Some MAGA types love the idea, but, as Politico reported, the Senate Majority Leader, John Thune, said last week that there was “certainly not an appetite for some of the options that have been talked about or considered.” That statement came before Trump’s announcement, this past Saturday, that he will be imposing tariffs on Denmark and seven other European countries “until such time as a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland.” Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, has raised the possibility of invoking the War Powers Act, a tool that Congress has for reining in the President. Not incidentally, Tillis has said that he will not seek reëlection this year. His seat is open, and one of the top targets for Democrats, who have a strong candidate in former Governor Roy Cooper.

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    Amy Davidson Sorkin

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  • Supreme Court may block thousands of lawsuits over Monsanto’s weed killer

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    WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court announced Friday it will hear Monsanto’s claim that it should be shielded from tens of thousands of lawsuits over its weed killer Roundup because the Environmental Protection Agency has not required a warning label that it may cause cancer.

    The justices will not resolve the decades-long dispute over whether Roundup’s key ingredient, glyphosate, causes cancer.

    Some studies have found it is a likely carcinogen, and others concluded it does not pose a true cancer risk for humans.

    However, the court may free Monsanto and Bayer, its parent company, from legal claims from more than 100,000 plaintiffs who sued over their cancer diagnosis.

    The legal dispute involves whether the federal regulatory laws shield the company from being sued under state law for failing to warn consumers.

    In product liability suits, plaintiffs typically seek to hold product makers responsible for failing to warn them of a known danger.

    John Durnell, a Missouri man, said he sprayed Roundup for years to control weeds without gloves or a mask, believing it was safe. He sued after he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

    In 2023, a jury rejected his claim the product was defective but it ruled for him on his “strict liability failure to warn claim,” a state court concluded. He was awarded $1.25 million in damages.

    Monsanto appealed, arguing this state law verdict is in conflict with federal law regulating pesticides.

    “EPA has repeatedly determined that glyphosate, the world’s most widely used herbicide, does not cause cancer. EPA has consistently reached that conclusion after studying the extensive body of science on glyphosate for over five decades,” the company told the court in its appeal.

    They said the EPA not only refused to add a cancer warning label to products with Roundup, but said it would be “misbranded” with such a warning.

    Nonetheless, the “premise of this lawsuit, and the thousands like it, is that Missouri law requires Monsanto to include the precise warning that EPA rejects,” they said.

    On Friday, the court said in a brief order that it would decide “whether the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act preempts a label-based failure-to-warn claim where EPA has not required the warning.”

    The court is likely to hear arguments in the case of Monsanto vs. Durnell in April and issue a ruling by late June.

    Monsanto says it has removed Roundup from its consumer products, but it is still used for farms.

    Last month, Trump administration lawyers urged the court to hear the case.

    They said the EPA has “has approved hundreds of labels for Roundup and other glyphosate-based products without requiring a cancer warning,” yet state courts are upholding lawsuits based on a failure to warn.

    Environmentalists said the court should not step in to shield makers of dangerous products.

    Lawyers for EarthJustice said the court “could let pesticide companies off the hook — even when their products make people sick.”

    “When people use pesticides in their fields or on their lawns, they don’t expect to get cancer,” said Patti Goldman, a senior attorney. “Yet this happens, and when it does, state court lawsuits provide the only real path to accountability.”

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    David G. Savage

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  • When is a Corporation Also New Jersey?

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    The Supreme Court heard argument yesterday in Galette v. New Jersey Transit Corporation, a pair of consolidated cases asking whether the New Jersey Transit Corporation shares in the State of New Jersey’s sovereign immunity. The plaintiffs, who were hit by N.J. Transit buses in Pennsylvania and in New York, argue no. Sovereign immunity is for sovereigns, and New Jersey deliberately created the Corporation as a separate legal person—with separate capacity to sue and be sued, separate wins and losses in court, and separate assets and liabilities.

    Will Baude and I agree, as we wrote in an amicus brief: States retain the immunity from suit they had at the Founding, and that immunity extended to the sovereign States themselves, not to their political subdivisions or public corporations. But there were four questions that came up at argument that deserve further attention.

    The first question is whether corporate separateness needs to be assessed de jure or de facto. As a matter of law, the Corporation has its own assets and liabilities, and a loss for the Corporation in court doesn’t necessarily have any impact on the rights and obligations of the State of New Jersey. In practice, of course, New Jersey routinely subsidizes the Corporation and contributes to its budget. So if the Corporation has to pay Cedric Galette’s medical bills after its bus hits Galette’s car, that might eventually impose some minor burden on the state fisc. But whether an entity is amenable to judicial process and to being sued without its consent doesn’t depend on whether a sovereign government will eventually choose to bail you out. Everyone agrees that New York City lacks sovereign immunity and is a separate legal person from New York State, even though NYC going bankrupt would be a major headache for New York’s balance sheet; everyone agrees the “Greenspan put” or Fannie Mae’s implicit government guarantee doesn’t turn “too big to fail” banks and mortgage guarantors into sovereigns with immunity from suit. Another defendant here, N.J. Transit Bus Operations Inc. was created as a separate corporation even from N.J. Transit, with even less of an argument for immunity; yet if Bus Operations had to pay a plaintiff’s medical bills, the fact that the Corporation might bail it out rather than give up on running buses wouldn’t make subsidiary and parent the same legal person. (A de facto test might also create strange results in future cases, when the facto‘s might have changed. If NJ Transit ridership ​goes through the roof, turning it from a cost center into a major cash cow for New Jersey, will the courts then have to overrule any decisions finding the Corporation immune, depending on its budgetary prospects this year?)

    A second question involved two civil procedure doctrines, the “real party in interest” doctrine and the required joinder of parties. Normally, under Civil Rule 17, a lawsuit has to be brought by or against the “real party in interest.” And when a remedy sought against Party A actually affects the rights and obligations of Party B—say, by rescinding a three-sided contract to which plaintiff, A, and B are all parties—Rule 19 sometimes requires that B be made a defendant too, as a necessary or indispensable party. And when B has sovereign immunity, as in Republic of the Philippines v. Pimentel, sometimes that might require dismissing the whole action at once. This can often muddy the sovereign-immunity waters, because arguing that “this lawsuit naming a separate legal person is really seeking relief against the State” sounds a lot like arguing that “the person who’s named here is really just the State, and not a separate legal person at all.” But as the Court has made clear in past cases—such as Hopkins v. Clemson Agricultural College of South Carolina, which was filed against a separate legal person but sought removal of a State-owned dyke on State land—these are two very different arguments: one concerns the named defendant’s amenability to process, and the other concerns the permissible types of relief. Fortunately, here these confusions don’t come up. By state law, the N.J. Transit Corporation’s liabilities aren’t liabilities of the State, so a money damage award against the Corporation can’t make New Jersey the real party in interest.

    A third question was about the “blast radius” of the plaintiffs’ position. The Corporation noted that various States have labeled their agencies as corporations—especially some important parts of the government of Louisiana. We’re not experts in Louisiana law (which, being rooted in civil law rather than common law, is famously opaque to outsiders), but we’d be surprised to learn that Louisiana cabinet departments were really separate legal persons from the State, with their own separate capacities to sue and be sued, their own separate courtroom wins and losses not binding the State’s rights and obligations, and their own separate legal assets and liabilities. So the blast radius of a separate-legal-person test is likely smaller than it might appear. But suppose that for some reason Louisiana really did decide to set up its prison system (or what have you) as a separate corporation, with the corporation owning the prison buildings and such outright, and with the State not legally answering for its debts or being estopped by its courtroom losses—the way Fannie Mae might guarantee mortgages not guaranteed by the United States. That might seem a very strange thing to do, but if it’s what the State chose, would it be so strange to say that its choice might have consequences for the corporation’s suability too?

    Finally, a fourth point concerned the Court’s decision in Biden v. Nebraska, which centered on the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority, a Missouri public corporation. MOHELA has the independent capacity to sue and be sued, but the Court still found that a financial injury to MOHELA was enough of an injury to Missouri to support the State’s Article III standing. But Article III injury-in-fact is a different (and more capacious) concept than legal personhood; a parkgoer can be injured in her “[a]esthetic and environmental well-being” without having to be the same legal person as Sequoia National Park. As one of us noted in an amicus brief in Biden, the authorities were divided on whether MOHELA was an arm of the state for sovereign immunity purposes. But the Biden majority elected not to resolve such questions, instead responding that “a public corporation can count as part of the State for some but not ‘other purposes.’” If Biden decided that the arm-of-the-state inquiry didn’t determine the standing issue there, it’d be unusual (to say the least) for the Court to treat Biden‘s standing holding as determining the arm-of-the-state-inquiry here.

    (cross-posted from Divided Argument)

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    Stephen E. Sachs

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  • Murray: How antitrust laws ruined college football | Long Island Business News

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    In Brief:
    • rulings allow athletes to receive compensation and endorsements for their likeness.
    • now lets Division I schools distribute up to 22% of Power 5 revenue to players.
    • , expanded playoffs, and unrestricted have altered traditional rivalries.
    • Critics warn reforms risk turning college football into a professional league focused on money over school pride.

    Everyone who follows college football saw huge changes in the game this year. There is now revenue sharing between the colleges and players, a realignment of conferences, expanded playoffs and no restrictions on players transferring. But most college football fans may not realize these changes arose due to a Supreme Court decision eliminating the restraints on a college player’s ability to make money. Permitting to receive compensation for their contributions is warranted; however, these changes have diminished the sport’s traditional appeal. Instead of representing their school, college athletes have become free agents, willing to play for the highest bidder.

    In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled in National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston that the NCAA could not restrict a player’s ability to be paid for the use of his likeness or endorsements and struck down limits on the number of scholarships awarded to players. The Supreme Court expressly held that the NCAA is subject to antitrust limitations and suggested that the limitation on a school paying a player would be illegal also.

    Although a few professional sports leagues, like Major League Baseball, are exempt from the antitrust laws, as of now college football is not one. To be expected, lawsuits challenged any restrictions on a player’s ability to be paid by the school they attend, and these lawsuits were consolidated as a class action. This past year, a settlement of the class action was approved.

    Pursuant to the settlement, which colleges could opt out of and continue with litigation, NCAA Division I member schools can share up to 22% of the revenue of the Power 5 schools —SEC , Big Ten ACC, Big 12 and PAC 12—including media rights, ticket sales and sponsorships. This cap means that any one of the over 350 Division I schools can share up to $20.5 million with its student athletes.

    The settlement has been criticized as merely exchanging one cap—zero—with another cap. This limit on revenue sharing, critics claim, will actually constrain an athlete’s earning capacity and is likely to engender more litigation. At the other extreme, legislation introduced in Congress, called the SCORE Act, would exempt college football from the antitrust laws.

    There is a compelling argument to allow college football players to earn money for playing. College football raises millions of dollars for the schools, and the players are at risk of injury, which could prevent them from playing in the NFL. But the NCAA’s actions have made college football just another professional league. Fewer conferences now stretch coast to coast, players can transfer without restrictions, and colleges now compete as to how much money they can pay.

    Revenue sharing seems like a workable solution, but the other reforms—including removing restrictions on transferring—such as losing a year of eligibility, did not have to be pushed to the sideline. College football’s popularity was based on student and alumni pride in their schools and regional rivalries. While complete exemption from the antitrust laws is not necessary, some leeway must be given to the NCAA to preserve players’ excitement for playing for their school’s pride and not just for money. That is a terrible thing to lose.

     

    E. Christopher Murray is a partner at Rivkin Radler’s Commercial Litigation and Real Estate practice groups. The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily represent the views of the firm.


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  • Supreme Court Seems Ready To OK ‘A Huge Can Of Worms’

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    Conservative Supreme Court justices on Tuesday appeared sympathetic to arguments that states can ban transgender athletes from playing on girls’ and women’s sports teams.

    The justices heard more than three hours of arguments by Idaho and West Virginia, as well as a Trump administration lawyer, defending laws that bar transgender athletes. The two cases heard back-to-back on Tuesday — Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J. — were first brought by a transgender college student and high school student, respectively, who alleged that these laws violated their rights to equal protection under the Constitution and federal anti-discrimination law.

    But the Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority seemed poised in both cases to accept the states’ arguments that transgender identity does not equal sex, and therefore the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment doesn’t apply.

    During the first case to be heard in the back-to-back session, Little v. Hecox, both conservative and liberal justices raised questions — including those about what level of scrutiny to apply to anti-trans sports bans and whether this case itself was still valid.

    But it was during the second case, West Virginia v. BPJ, that the conservative justices seemed to lean toward allowing state-level bans to stand, focusing on how to square transgender status and sex in terms of anti-discrimination law.

    This case comes from Becky Pepper-Jackson, now 15, who sued the state three years ago when she was barred from trying out for the girls’ track team despite having received medication that stopped her from ever experiencing male puberty. Pepper-Jackson’s family argued, and the lower courts agreed, that the state’s law violated her rights to equal protection and Title IX.

    Justices waded through a variety of hypothetical questions about differences between boys and girls with respect to everything from calculus to chess. But Justice Amy Coney Barrett seemed eager to avoid getting into “similarly situated” arguments.

    “I think it opens a huge can of worms that maybe we don’t need to get into here,” she said.

    However, other conservative justices pressed lawyers on broader questions of the definition of “sex.”

    Hashim Mooppan, arguing on behalf of the Trump administration for Idaho and West Virginia, said that it doesn’t matter if an athlete’s testosterone levels have been suppressed, as is the case with both Hecox and Pepper-Jackson, because no amount of hormonal therapy can change their “sex” as West Virginia defines it. Under West Virginia’s statute, “biological sex” is solely based on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.

    Joshua Block, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union representing Pepper-Jackson, said that Title IX, which Congress passed in 1972, bars discrimination on the basis of sex and did so without defining it. He urged the Court not to make a decision in this case based on West Virginia’s definition of sex.

    “I think the purpose [of Title IX] is to make sure sex isn’t used to discriminate by denying opportunities,” Block said. “Our argument is that there’s a group of people assigned male at birth for whom being placed on the boys’ team is [harmful], and there’s a word for those people – transgender girls.”

    Block said he would accept some kind of loss at the Supreme Court that might still allow the case to continue in lower courts, which have largely ruled in favor of the transgender plaintiffs.

    Lawyers for plaintiffs in the first case of the morning similarly hoped for a remand decision by the justices. At the center of the case is Lindsay Hecox, a senior at Boise State University who sued over Idaho’s 2020 law banning transgender girls and women from playing women’s sports. She argued that the law violated her rights to equal protection under the Constitution, and she eventually won her case in the lower courts. In September 2025, Hecox argued that her case is moot because she no longer plays or intends to play any college or team sports in the state.

    Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson pressed on that line of thought and highlighted the negative attention the plaintiff has received for being part of the lawsuit. If the justices don’t choose to dismiss the case as moot, they argued, they would be forcing “an unwilling plaintiff” to continue to be part of a high-profile lawsuit. Such a decision could be a dodge for the court: If the justices decide the case is moot, there would be no reason for them to rule on it, and the case would likely go back to the lower courts for any further legal process.

    Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch asked Alan Hurst, Idaho’s solicitor general, if transgender people should be considered a legally protected class in this case — a major and still-unanswered question that comes up in nearly all cases involving transgender rights. Gorsuch wrote a significant 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County that protected transgender employees from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

    Hurst did not fully respond to Gorsuch’s inquiry but said the court needs to consider the precedent set by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the definition of sex includes gender identity.

    Another conservative justice, Amy Coney Barrett, raised questions about the implications of Idaho’s anti-trans sports law, wondering if the law would bar 6-year-olds, for example, from sports teams matching their gender identity. Hurst claimed without evidence that young boys have an inherent athletic advantage by that age, and therefore, the law could apply to children that young.

    Mooppan, the Trump administration lawyer, argued that the state’s law is legitimate because so few trans women play sports. His statement is a bit ironic, considering that President Donald Trump has rolled back trans rights in part by focusing an outsized amount on this low number of trans athletes. There are about 550,000 college athletes in the country, and only about 10 of them are trans, the president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association told Congress in December 2024.

    Idaho justifies its law by arguing that there’s a need to protect women from people with so-called “biological advantages.”

    Kathleen Harnett, Hecox’s lawyer, said this distinction does not apply to her client, who has a physiology similar to any cisgender woman after receiving testosterone suppression and estrogen therapy for over a year.

    Harnett noted that there are few examples of trans athletes in girls’ and women’s sports who have “participated and excelled.”

    In both cases, the justices also seemed to take an interest in the question of whether one state could force its rules permitting or banning trans athletes on any other state. Currently, 27 states have restrictions on trans athletes.

    “You are litigating this case the opposite way among states that do not prohibit trans women and girls from participating in sports teams. Is that correct?” Justice Elena Kagan asked Mooppan at one point during arguments in B.P.J. “You said, and I appreciate this, that we should not address that question. Are there arguments that do suggest what the answer is on that question?” Mooppan, in response, circled back to how to define sex in the context of transgender status.

    Hecox and Pepper-Jackson are the only known athletes in their states who would be subject to the laws affecting trans athletes.

    “What stands out today is that the Court recognizes that these extreme bans harm transgender kids and pose real fairness concerns. As multiple federal courts have recognized previously, transgender student athletes like B.P.J. and Lindsay Hecox may have no competitive advantage due to medical treatment or other reasons,” Shannon Minter, a lawyer from the National Center for LGBTQ rights, said in a statement following the oral arguments. “The Constitution does not permit states to impose blanket exclusions that ignore reality and override individual circumstances.”

    At a rally outside of the court this morning, hundreds of people showed up with signs and strong feelings on both sides about the participation of trans athletes in women’s sports.

    Ashley, who spoke to HuffPost giving only her first name, said she flew in from Portland, Oregon, in order to represent her 7-year-old trans child.

    “I’ve been feeling helpless, and this is something I could do,” she said, holding a sign with a message from her child. The handmade sign read: “Trans girls in sports rule! Exclusion drools!”

    Across the barrier, one woman, who declined to give her name, said she flew in from Arizona to demonstrate her opposition to trans girls playing in girls’ sports. She said the issue was about the “protection of women,” because “they can be harmed by competing against men.”

    When HuffPost asked if she meant trans men aren’t as strong as cisgender men and could get hurt competing in sports against them, she couldn’t answer if that was her point.

    The arrival of these cases on the Supreme Court’s docket is the culmination of five years of increasing anti-LGBTQ+ legislation led by right-wing lawmakers and activists.

    In 2019, the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal group, defended several cisgender athletes who opposed Connecticut’s inclusive sports policy. From there, the group helped author dozens of anti-trans sports bans, including for West Virginia. The ADF’s lawyers are now representing both West Virginia and Idaho.

    These cases could have broad implications not only on the fate of other bans across the country, but also raise other legal questions around privacy, sex discrimination and how transgender people are treated more broadly under the law, advocates told HuffPost.

    The Trump administration has targeted transgender people since his return to office last year, including by threatening to withhold federal funding from schools with trans-inclusive athletic policies, ousting trans people from the military, and barring trans people from updating their passports with the correct gender marker.

    Jennifer Bendery contributed to this report.

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  • Can states ban transgender athletes from school sports? Supreme Court takes up cases

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    The Supreme Court will hear two cases Tuesday that address whether state laws restricting transgender women and girls from participating in sports are constitutional. The first case involves 25-year-old Lindsay Hecox who transitioned from male to female and sued over Idaho’s ban to try out for the women’s track and cross country teams at Boise State University. She did not make either team and is no longer looking to do so, but competed in club-level soccer and running while she studied in Idaho. The second case centers around 15-year-old Becky Pepper-Jackson. She has been taking puberty-blocking medication, has identified as a girl since age 8, and was issued a West Virginia birth certificate recognizing her as female. Pepper-Jackson is the only transgender person who has attempted to compete in girls’ sports in West Virginia. The lower courts in both cases ruled in favor of the transgender athletes who challenged the state bans. More than two dozen Republican-led states, including Idaho and West Virginia, have enacted bans on transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s teams. Today, the mainly conservative justices are expected to focus on whether these sports bans violate the Constitution or Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in education. A decision in both cases is expected to be released by early summer. In the past year, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of state bans on gender-affirming care for transgender youth and allowed restrictions on transgender people to be enforced. Keep watching for the latest from the Washington News Bureau:

    WASHINGTON —

    The Supreme Court will hear two cases Tuesday that address whether state laws restricting transgender women and girls from participating in sports are constitutional.

    The first case involves 25-year-old Lindsay Hecox who transitioned from male to female and sued over Idaho’s ban to try out for the women’s track and cross country teams at Boise State University.

    She did not make either team and is no longer looking to do so, but competed in club-level soccer and running while she studied in Idaho.

    The second case centers around 15-year-old Becky Pepper-Jackson. She has been taking puberty-blocking medication, has identified as a girl since age 8, and was issued a West Virginia birth certificate recognizing her as female.

    Pepper-Jackson is the only transgender person who has attempted to compete in girls’ sports in West Virginia.

    The lower courts in both cases ruled in favor of the transgender athletes who challenged the state bans.

    More than two dozen Republican-led states, including Idaho and West Virginia, have enacted bans on transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s teams.

    Today, the mainly conservative justices are expected to focus on whether these sports bans violate the Constitution or Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in education.

    A decision in both cases is expected to be released by early summer.

    In the past year, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of state bans on gender-affirming care for transgender youth and allowed restrictions on transgender people to be enforced.

    Keep watching for the latest from the Washington News Bureau:


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