SCOTUS Decision Roundup

The Supreme Court wrapped it's 2025-2026 term and headed off on summer recess, so we're running through the biggest decisions from the bench. What did the court have to say about our constitution, our federal government and our individual rights? This year they got to everything from Birthright Citizenship to mail-in ballots to executive agencies, cementing some principles and throwing others into legal limbo. A lot can change in a year, especially when nine people have the power to profoundly affect constitutional democracy. INCOGNI DEAL: They can't harm you, if they can't find you! To get an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan, go to incogni.com/CIVICS Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 1:28Hannah McCarthy?

  This is Civics 101 from NHPR. I'm Hannah McCarthy.

• 1:32Nick Capodice?

  I'm Nick Capodice.

• 1:34Hannah McCarthy?

  And today, while the robes are away, the civics hosts are gonna play. Here is what the Supreme Court had to say.

• 1:44Nick Capodice?

  This year.

• 1:46Hannah McCarthy?

  Yeah, this year, but it didn't rhyme.

• 1:51Hannah McCarthy?

  The 2025/2026 Supreme Court term wrapped up just before July 4th, aka the 250th birthday of America. Now, the Supreme Court issues decisions about cases throughout the year. Just like July is the big blockbuster month for Hollywood, June tends to be the blockbuster month for the biggest, most anticipated, often most consequential decisions from the Supreme Court.

• 2:17Nick Capodice?

  Yeah, they do seem to wait until like the very last minute to tell us what they think about everything, whether or not some or all of our lives are gonna change.

• 2:28Hannah McCarthy?

  What they don't tell us, Nick, is why we have to wait till the end of term to hear certain decisions. It's probably because those are the cases that require the most deliberation. That and, well, maybe they're saving major constitutional releases for the last minute so they can immediately pack their bags and go on summer vacation.

• 2:50Nick Capodice?

  Well, it's easier to avoid the reviews, Hannah, if you're on a private island drinking out of a coconut, I guess.

• 2:56Hannah McCarthy?

  I mean, if I were writing scripts with the power to profoundly change American constitutional democracy, I would probably take a little time away. All right, speaking of, let's get into it. The major releases of the 2025-2026 SCOTUS season. You ready?

• 3:14Nick Capodice?

  Got my popcorn.

• 3:28Nick Capodice?

  Maybe you're aware of data brokers, maybe you're not. You should be. And as much as I wish that data brokers was just Brett Spiner managing real estate, it is not. Data brokers are out there, thousands of them. And what they're doing is they are collecting every single thing about you that exists on the internet. And they're taking that huge pile of data and they are selling it to the highest bidder. And unlike commander data on the USS Enterprise, these guys are up to no good. So if you want help removing your data from the internet before it gets brokered out, you should check out Incogni.

• 4:09Nick Capodice?

  Incogni takes care of this massive first step in data protection. They help you remove that personal data from the web, and they handle the entire process. So to take that first step, to get an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan, go to incogni.com/civics. That's I-N-C-O-G-N-I.com/civics, or just click the link in the episode description box. Again, that's incogni.com/civics. Make it so. I know Data never said that.

• 4:46Hannah McCarthy?

  The older I get, the more I am looking for truly lovable closet staples that I know I will reach for just as often next year as I do right now. I want a closet that doesn't need constant updates or replacements, just high-quality clothes that last, especially the kind with tags that say 100%. As in 100% Mongolian cashmere, 100% mulberry silk, 100% organic cotton, just like the Quince Fisherman Cropt Cardi and I am wearing right this very second. This sweater has kept its shape, color, and softness for years now. I reach for it every single fall, every time I want a warm and elevated look. Quince gives you the quality you expect from a luxury brand without the luxury price tag.

• 5:31Hannah McCarthy?

  Find the fall pieces you will reach for most at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was Civics 101. It's a great way to support the show.

• 5:59Nick Capodice?

  Holiday season is coming, and I don't think I have to tell you this might be a tough one, because things are expensive in the fall of 2026. Everyone I know is looking for ways to make a little extra money, prowling around the Side Hustle subreddits. But I will say, if you're looking to sell something, to launch a store fast before the holiday rush, Shopify is the one-stop-shop platform for making a professional-looking store without touching a line of code. You can sell anything, and you can sell it anywhere that people shop online. You can have it done in minutes, and you can launch before Black Friday, that time of year when more people are already shopping and ready to buy.

• 6:43Nick Capodice?

  So if you're ready to launch your business before Black Friday, go to Shopify.com/civics to start your free trial. That's Shopify.com/civics. Just go to Shopify.com/civics today to hear your first.

• 7:04Nick Capodice?

  Hello, hello, welcome back, everyone. This is Civics 101. I'm Nick.

• 7:07Hannah McCarthy?

  And I'm Hannah. And we are gonna start with one of the biggest things to come out of the court this year, the Christopher Nolan's odyssey of cases.

• 7:18Hannah McCarthy?

  Trump v. Barbara.

• 7:21Nick Capodice?

  A journey to the very meaning of home.

• 7:29Hannah McCarthy?

  This one came out on June 30th in the last batch of the summer releases. The plot.

• 7:37Hannah McCarthy?

  Trump signs an executive order to end birthright citizenship for children who are born in the United States to parents who are not in this country lawfully. Three individuals, all non-citizens of the United States, challenged this order on behalf of both themselves and all people with similar situations. These three challengers, Barbara, Susan, and Mark.

• 8:01Nick Capodice?

  All three of whom chose to remain anonymous.

• 8:03Hannah McCarthy?

  That is right. All three remained anonymous throughout this entire thing to protect themselves and their family. And their situations vary. Our titular character, Barbara, is a Honduran immigrant with a pending asylum application living in New Hampshire. She was pregnant with her daughter when Trump's order came down in October of 2025. Susan is a Taiwanese citizen living in Utah, whose child, born while Susan was in the United States on a student visa, had a pending passport application. And finally, Mark, a green card applicant living in Florida, whose undocumented wife had given birth in the spring before the Trump order. Their baby had a US passport.

• 8:47Hannah McCarthy?

  And now the issue is, is that passport's validity in question?

• 8:52Nick Capodice?

  So we've got stories from across the country, across the spectrum of immigrant and citizenship status. This ensemble cast class-action case is all hinging on one question. If you're born here, are you an American? Regardless of your parents' story, with very few specific exceptions for children of diplomats and kids born in unincorporated territories.

• 9:16Hannah McCarthy?

  And in the end, the Supreme Court chose to stick with the autors of the past. Six of the nine justices decided that Trump's order was unlawful, and birthright citizenship remained intact.

• 9:37Nick Capodice?

  Well, as big as this blockbuster decision was, though, Hannah, it pretty much instantly spurred a bunch of sequels. There's a proposed bill for ending birthright citizenship in American territories, one that would classify undocumented people in the US as quote-unquote invaders to try and turn Trump's order into a law, and one that would change the Immigration and Nationality Act to get around birthright citizenship. Also, two new executive orders from Trump attempting to narrow the definitions of birthright citizenship and prevent pregnant non-citizens from traveling to the US and giving birth.

• 10:14Hannah McCarthy?

  Now, see, the trouble with retelling a SCOTUS story from an executive or even a congressional perspective is that you're dancing into constitutional territory, which is why you have a lot of experts saying eliminating birthright citizenship would require a constitutional amendment, not just a law or an executive order.

• 10:36Nick Capodice?

  In a world where nine people interpret the supreme law of the land, several lawmakers are wondering, can we avoid doing that thing that's basically impossible and get away with it?

• 10:50Hannah McCarthy?

  And who knows, they are certainly going to try. We will have to see if that one somehow gets the green light. All right, moving on, because there were two other big releases that same day with majorly different plots.

• 11:14Nick Capodice?

  Yeah, a real Barbenheimer.

• 11:16Hannah McCarthy?

  We had a political drama by the name of National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission, NRSC v. FEC.

• 11:26Nick Capodice?

  For those who are familiar with Citizens United and the widening gyre of political spending that followed, this might be of some interest.

• 11:36Hannah McCarthy?

  This case should be of interest to any American who cares about money in politics. Before this decision, there were limits on how much a political party could spend when they coordinated with a presidential or congressional candidate, meaning the party doesn't write the candidate a check, but they foot a portion of the bill for goods and services the candidate needs to campaign.

• 12:01Nick Capodice?

  Like paying for a campaign ad, for example.

• 12:04Hannah McCarthy?

  Yeah, historically, that has been the primary coordinated expense, but sometimes coordinating just means that a party will pay invoices of various kinds for a candidate. And again, Nick, there used to be a limit on how much they could actually pay, a limit that the Supreme Court upheld back in 2001. Now, here are the plot twists that helped this case to get to the Supreme Court. The National Republican Senatorial and Congressional Committees sued the FEC. They said campaign finance law has changed since 2001.

• 12:45Hannah McCarthy?

  We have super PACs now, for one thing, super PACs that exist only because the Supreme Court changed the way it thinks about First Amendment rights and campaign finance law.

• 12:56Nick Capodice?

  There's that Citizens United cameo.

• 12:58Hannah McCarthy?

  When their First Amendment argument failed at the appeals court level, the Supreme Court took it on. And here's the question SCOTUS had to answer. Do these FEC limits violate the First Amendment, making our 2001 ruling on limits irrelevant now? The answer, yes. Six to three, the limits do not exist.

• 13:22Nick Capodice?

  Which, Hannah, is what makes this one kind of rhyme with Citizens United and what followed? Back then, the Supreme Court did not get rid of the limit on individual direct campaign donations, and this year, they did not get rid of the limit on party direct campaign contributions. They just made it possible for giant entities to spend unlimited money to get a candidate elected.

• 13:49Hannah McCarthy?

  With an important addition, super PACs are forbidden from coordinating with candidates. They have to do their business totally independently. But political parties, they are very much allowed to be in the editing room. All right, next on the list is a double feature, West Virginia v. BPJ and Little v. Hecocks.

• 14:21Nick Capodice?

  This is two cases in one.

• 14:22Hannah McCarthy?

  Yeah, these were two situations in which two transgender athletes in two different states experienced the same legal barrier to participating in girls' and women's sports, namely, their states prohibited trans women and girls from participating in women's and girls' sports in grade school and college. Both of these girls sued, and when both of their cases were appealed to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court combined them.

• 14:48Nick Capodice?

  And this happens a lot. Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark case that ruled segregation in schools was unconstitutional. That was a combination of five cases, and in this one, it's because the legal question is the same in both.

• 15:02Hannah McCarthy?

  Right, both cases sued on an equal protections basis, although one also included a Title IX claim.

• 15:11Nick Capodice?

  Title IX being the law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools.

• 15:15Hannah McCarthy?

  Bingo. The Supreme Court, in another six-to-three decision, upheld these state transgender sports bans, so what that means is that states do not have to enact these bans.

• 15:27Nick Capodice?

  But if lawmakers or voters want to, they can.

• 15:30Hannah McCarthy?

  And the Supreme Court was clear, this decision does not apply to other educational situations, only to sports. What this does mean, however, is that in states like Arizona, Washington, and Colorado, where state and gender-based bans are on the ballot this year, at least portions of those bans will definitively be lawful if the ballot measures pass.

• 15:56Nick Capodice?

  All right, so those were the three final releases of this year.

• 16:05Hannah McCarthy?

  Cases with major consequences across the civic, social, and political genres.

• 16:10Nick Capodice?

  So you know what I find interesting about these cases is that all of them, in one way or another, relate to elections, right? You've got a case that changes who will and will not be given citizenship, and therefore will be or will be not allowed to vote one day, how much money can be spent to influence a political campaign, and the validity of proposed policy that some people will vote on this November.

• 16:36Hannah McCarthy?

  Right, and even for the people who are not directly affected by these decisions, the outcomes of these cases may change what your state and local candidates campaign on, what voter blocks they pay more attention to, what election laws they pass in the future, what ballot measures they may introduce the next time around, and of course, which candidates actually get a shot at the big time and which are drowned out by the spectacularly funded candidates a party wants to see in power. All right, the court did a lot more over the course of last term, and I'm going to lay some more plot summaries on you, so stay tuned. That's coming up after the break.

• 17:21Nick Capodice?

  Holiday season is coming, and I don't think I have to tell you this might be a tough one, because things are expensive in the fall of 2026. Everyone I know is looking for ways to make a little extra money, prowling around the side hustle subreddits. But I will say, if you're looking to sell something, to launch a store fast before the

• 18:01Nick Capodice?

  holiday rush, Shopify is the one-stop-shop platform for making a professional-looking store without touching a line of code. You can sell anything, and you can sell it anywhere that people shop online. You can have it done in minutes, and you can launch before Black Friday, that time of year when more people are already shopping and ready to buy. So if you're ready to launch your business before Black Friday, go to Shopify.com/civics to start your free trial. That's Shopify.com/civics. Just go to Shopify.com/civics today to hear your first.

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• 19:51Nick Capodice?

  We're back. You're listening to Civics 101 from NHPR. And today, we are looking back at the Supreme Court's major releases while they are off on their summer recess, probably sitting in a spa, eating cucumbers and listening to water sounds.

• 20:06Hannah McCarthy?

  You ever been to a spa, Nick?

• 20:07Nick Capodice?

  No, not per se.

• 20:10Hannah McCarthy?

  You know, there are often cucumbers and there are often water sounds. I will give you that. I should also say that the justices do often teach and give lectures and have to chip away at the emergency docket, AKA the shadow docket over the summer. And their clerks most definitely do not get the summer off. But why not? Spa cucumbers.

• 20:32Nick Capodice?

  All right, so let's get into it. You led us in on the last three decisions that the court released before they headed off into the sunset. What else did the Supreme Court get up to this year?

• 20:47Hannah McCarthy?

  I've got a slasher for you, Nick.

• 20:52Hannah McCarthy?

  Trump v. Slaughter.

• 20:54Nick Capodice?

  That one's too easy, Hannah.

• 20:59Hannah McCarthy?

  In 2025, Rebecca Slaughter was working at the Federal Trade Commission.

• 21:04Nick Capodice?

  The agency that enforces antitrust law?

• 21:07Hannah McCarthy?

  Right. Antitrust is designed to protect consumers and stop businesses from getting involved in all sorts of hijinks that would mess with the market, other businesses, and us, the consumers. Like all other independent federal agencies, the FTC was created by Congress. And, like all other independent agencies, it was designed to make high stakes decisions about high stakes issues without politics getting involved.

• 21:37Hannah McCarthy?

  So there are five FTC commissioners and they get appointed to seven-year terms. This board of commissioners is bipartisan by law. So out of five, you can only ever have three commissioners of one party. And there is one important piece to this whole independent agency thing. Most of them, including the FTC, specify three things that could get agency leadership fired by the president: inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.

• 22:11Nick Capodice?

  And that's actually written into the act, the law Congress passed to create the FTC?

• 22:18Hannah McCarthy?

  Yeah, it is actually written in, part of the law. These agencies are not just supposed to be protected from partisan decision-making. They are supposed to be protected from presidential political whims.

• 22:31Nick Capodice?

  Supposed to be. Sounds like somebody's got a case of the supposeds.

• 22:37Hannah McCarthy?

  Sounds like somebody has a guess where this is going.

• 22:39Nick Capodice?

  I have a feeling somebody revived his apprentice catchphrase for this case.

• 22:46Hannah McCarthy?

  And you would be right. In 2025, the two Democrat commissioners at the FTC, one of whom was Rebecca Slaughter, were fired by Donald Trump.

• 22:57Hannah McCarthy?

  And he was vague on the reason why, except to say that these Democrats did not align with the administration's priorities. Slaughter sued, saying that Trump violated the law.

• 23:14Hannah McCarthy?

  So this case goes all the way up to the Supreme Court, and they ruled six to three that the law is wrong. It violates the Separation of Powers Clause in the Constitution. The president is in charge of the executive branch and can fire at will. As the opinion reads, "The president is the, quote, 'chief magistrate with whom the buck stops.'"

• 23:37Nick Capodice?

  So fire anybody? There are a lot of people in the executive branch, Hannah.

• 23:43Hannah McCarthy?

  Well, we're not talking about every single executive branch employee, many of whom have civil service protections. There are other ways, of course, to eliminate people in lower positions. For example, withholding federal funding, which this administration has done to great effect. Now, Nick, here is the question. This is a decision about the FTC that applies to the FTC. But what about the dozens of other independent executive agencies that have similar or identical for-cause removal provisions for the people who lead them?

• 24:18Nick Capodice?

  I mean, if the court is saying the FTC's for-cause provision is unconstitutional, doesn't that suggest that the for-cause thing is unconstitutional across the board?

• 24:31Hannah McCarthy?

  Well, Nick, on the very same day that the court released Slaughter, stripping protections for the people in charge of one independent agency, they released another opinion that did the exact opposite thing for another independent executive agency. This one is called Cook.

• 24:56Nick Capodice?

  One chef's journey to independence in the high-stakes world of the executive kitchen.

• 25:03Hannah McCarthy?

  And Cook v. Trump, the setup is similar. Trump tries to fire a head of an independent federal agency claiming without proof or due process that she committed mortgage fraud. Not a commissioner at the FTC, but a governor on the Board of the Federal Reserve by the name of Lisa Cook. Lisa Cook sued. A federal judge blocked her removal from the job while her lawsuit progressed. Trump said to the Supreme Court, "Hey, just let me fire her." And the Supreme Court said five to four, "No. You cannot randomly fire a governor on the Board of the Federal Reserve."

• 25:40Nick Capodice?

  As in, the central bank of the United States. Why is that an exception?

• 25:45Hannah McCarthy?

  Yeah, here is the strange thing, Nick. SCOTUS says Trump cannot randomly fire her because the law that established the Federal Reserve includes a clause that requires a firing to be, quote, "for cause."

• 26:03Nick Capodice?

  Hmm. So that is weird, Hannah, because I'm pretty sure you just told me that on the very same day, the Supreme Court said the for-cause clause in the FTC law was unconstitutional.

• 26:17Hannah McCarthy?

  You heard me correctly. Yes, I did just tell you that.

• 26:22Hannah McCarthy?

  So what exactly is going on here? Some say that the logic in the Slaughter case extends to other independent agencies. Others say, well, hang on. If the court made an exception for the Federal Reserve, will there be exceptions for other agencies too?

• 26:40Nick Capodice?

  Did the court explain what makes the Federal Reserve so special?

• 26:45Hannah McCarthy?

  All right, so here is how Chief Justice Roberts sees it. There's a line in his opinion for Trump v. Cook where he says that removing the protections we have for the Federal Reserve leaders would be out of step with the law. And out of step with, quote, "our nation's tradition of central banking protected from political interference." Thing is, Nick, the whole point of independent executive agencies is to make sure that high-stakes decisions are made by people who aren't worrying about the politics of those decisions. They're not supposed to be worrying about whether the president and his party don't like it.

• 27:27Hannah McCarthy?

  They're supposed to be worrying about the economy, the law, the American people. They're supposed to be playing the long game. So here on out, the question is going to be, which agencies are worthy of protection from politics and which aren't? And that is a question the courts are likely going to have to decide, and probably more than once.

• 27:58Hannah McCarthy?

  All right, let's pivot here. This next case is a vampire tale.

• 28:14Hannah McCarthy?

  So Hawaii has some pretty restrictive gun laws, including one that says concealed carry permit gun owners cannot bring their gun onto private property that is open to the public, like a store, a restaurant, et cetera, without permission from the owner.

• 28:30Nick Capodice?

  I get it. It took me a second to get why this is a vampire story. Won't you invite me in?

• 28:37Hannah McCarthy?

  Exactly. This is known as a vampire rule.

• 28:42Nick Capodice?

  Really?

• 28:43Hannah McCarthy?

  Yeah, really. Whether you're packing fangs or heat, you need explicit permission to cross the threshold. By the way, California also has a similar set of even stricter vampire rules. And so what happened is this. Gun rights advocacy groups and gun owners in both states, California and Hawaii, sued, arguing that these laws violate the Second Amendment. The cases got consolidated and ended up before a panel of Ninth Circuit judges. Now, these judges said that Hawaii's law was consistent with its legal history, and Hawaii got to keep their vampire law. California's, however, was inconsistent. Their vampire law had to go. So what ended up getting appealed to the Supreme Court was the decision

• 29:28Hannah McCarthy?

  on Hawaii's law.

• 29:30Nick Capodice?

  Count Dracuay versus State of Hawaii.

• 29:34Hannah McCarthy?

  Wolford v. Lopez.

• 29:36Nick Capodice?

  I tried, Hannah.

• 29:47Hannah McCarthy?

  The Supreme Court agreed in a six to three ruling that vampire laws do indeed violate the Second Amendment. And to be clear, this decision is also going to impact similar laws in Maryland, New York, and New Jersey.

• 30:02Nick Capodice?

  I do have to ask an important question in all seriousness, Hannah. Did the majority opinion use the word vampire?

• 30:10Hannah McCarthy?

  It did not.

• 30:11Nick Capodice?

  Real missed opportunity there.

• 30:17Hannah McCarthy?

  Okay, Nick, just a couple more major cases for you here. Some political sagas, if you will. In what promises to be a high stakes midterm, the court established some major direction for how things are going to play out. First, Watson v. Republican National Committee. What happened here is that the Republican National Committee claimed that federal law says ballots have to be received on election day in federal elections. The majority, five to four, disagreed. Federal law, they said, only defines when a ballot must be cast, not when it must be received.

• 30:56Nick Capodice?

  Man, mail-in ballots are huge this season. And this is the court affirming that states can count mail-in ballots that are postmarked by election day, even if they arrive after election day.

• 31:09Hannah McCarthy?

  That is correct.

• 31:10Nick Capodice?

  So just to clarify, because I'm actually not sure about this, how late can ballots actually be counted?

• 31:16Hannah McCarthy?

  That is what makes this a states are in charge of elections case. This decision is not saying that you have to accept postmarked ballots after election day. It is saying that states are allowed to have laws that say, for example, we will accept your postmarked ballot up to five days after the election. Okay, last full treatment here, and this is a big one. Louisiana v. Calais. And this is based on a true story that goes like this. Black voters in Louisiana have long been fighting to change congressional maps, the tools that divide states into voting districts. The way these maps were drawn, black voters said, diluted their vote.

• 31:59Nick Capodice?

  As in, black voters had less of a say in their elections. The maps were drawn without giving them as much of a say as the white majority.

• 32:08Hannah McCarthy?

  Right, and the Voting Rights Act, the landmark statute of 1965, is specifically designed to stop this from happening. States are not allowed to have standards or practices that result in a citizen having their voting rights denied or abridged. Keep that part in mind, because I am going to come back to it. Black voters sued in Louisiana and a new map with a new majority black district was created.

• 32:35Nick Capodice?

  Right, this essentially gave black Louisianans an extra opportunity to elect the candidate that they wanted. And it worked, right?

• 32:43Hannah McCarthy?

  By all appearances, yes. For the first time in history, two black Louisianans won congressional seats in the same election. And then a group of self-described non-black voters sued, claiming this new district was a racial gerrymander. This case went all the way up to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court agreed with the group of non-black voters.

• 33:07Nick Capodice?

  As in, the Supreme Court agreed that this new district violated the Voting Rights Act?

• 33:13Hannah McCarthy?

  Yes, but the court did not stop there. Justice Samuel Alito wrote that, "In order to succeed with a Voting Rights Act challenge, you have to prove that a state had the intent to discriminate."

• 33:29Nick Capodice?

  And you didn't have to prove that before?

• 33:31Hannah McCarthy?

  Well, the Voting Rights Act, specifically Section 2, stops states from having standards and practices that result in votes being denied or abridged. Remember, I told you I was going to come back to that. Results in, not intends to. But after Louisiana v. Calais, that is all over. You now have to prove that your state is motivated by racial discrimination.

• 34:01Nick Capodice?

  But how do you prove that? A state can give any number of reasons for drawing a district one way or another.

• 34:08Hannah McCarthy?

  Well, that might be what Justice Elena Kagan was asking herself when she wrote her dissent. She said, quote, "The consequences are likely to be far-reaching and grave. Today's decision renders Section 2 all but a dead letter. In the states where that law continues to matter, the states still marked by residential segregation and racially polarized voting, minority voters can now be cracked out of the electoral process."

• 34:49Hannah McCarthy?

  Now, Nick, I have to say, there are plenty of other not-quite blockbuster cases that the court took on this year as well. Cases that are certainly a big deal. I mean, they made it all the way to the Supreme Court, but with decisions that were narrow or even kind of ambiguous. Take the Colorado conversion therapy case.

• 35:09Nick Capodice?

  Colorado banned conversion therapy. A conversion therapist sued. The court said the ban was unconstitutional.

• 35:17Hannah McCarthy?

  This was a narrow one. The therapist who sued was a talk therapist. So the court said, all right, come on, guys, we are literally talking about speech here. This is a cut-and-dry free speech violation. And Justice Elena Kagan even went on to say, you know, if the ban had been worded differently, this might have been a much more difficult decision. And then there was a case that said that Trump could not use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs. But the decision did not stop Trump from using other paths to impose tariffs. There was a ruling that said that police can enter a home without a warrant if they

• 35:59Hannah McCarthy?

  are doing it to provide emergency assistance, but the cops have to exercise, quote, "objective reasonableness."

• 36:07Nick Capodice?

  Phew, objective reasonableness. What is that, Hannah? How do you define that?

• 36:13Hannah McCarthy?

  Well, I mean, that's literally a case-by-case question, right? A lot of Supreme Court decisions might be totally fascinating to law buffs or the courts slash businesses slash people it directly affects or to Civics 101 hosts, but not quite grabby enough for the average citizen to sit through.

• 36:39Nick Capodice?

  All right, well, have we got anything major brewing for next year?

• 36:44Hannah McCarthy?

  Oh, yeah. There is a climate injury case that will probably decide whether big energy companies can be sued by states for the costs of the damages from flooding and wildfires and drought, et cetera.

• 36:56Nick Capodice?

  Oh, wow. So it is literally, you guys caused climate change, and it's messing up our state, give us money.

• 37:02Hannah McCarthy?

  Yeah, so one way or another, this will be a huge decision for the long-term future of the country. There is another case about a lawful permanent resident who was held by ICE for 21 months without a bond hearing. And the question is whether that was unconstitutional. The court is first going to decide whether they can even decide on this case.

• 37:23Nick Capodice?

  Why wouldn't they be able to? They tend to be able to do a lot.

• 37:28Hannah McCarthy?

  Well, the man who was held has since been released, so the court might decide the case is moot. Basically, no problem here anymore. But if they do take up the case, that could have massive consequences for immigrant rights.

• 37:46Hannah McCarthy?

  So far, the court has agreed to take on 25 cases. There will be more, and they will figure out what they're going to add to the list when they are finally back from feeling the sand between their toes and the wind in their hair.

• 37:57Nick Capodice?

  And eating those spa cucumbers.

• 37:59Hannah McCarthy?

  We are going to get you a spa day ASAP.

• 38:08Hannah McCarthy?

  This episode was produced by me, Hannah McCarthy, with Nick Capodice. Dana Cotaldo is our digital producer. Marina Hanke is our producer. Taylor Quimby is our interim executive producer. Music in this episode comes from Epidemic Sound. If you have questions about America, democracy, the Constitution, the courts, the executive branch, Congress, or any of the other stuff that really matters and has a lot of explaining to do, you can ask us about it at our website, civics101podcast.org. Civics 101 is a production of NHPR, New Hampshire Public Radio.

• 38:56Speaker 07

  What does it really take to start a startup? I'm David Rosenko, entrepreneur, investor, and the host of Leap Forward. In each episode, I go behind the scenes with successful founders and someone who knew them before they were famous. Their college roommate, their first employee, or their mom. To hear the sometimes uncomfortable but very real inside stories of how companies actually get built. Companies like Reddit, Airbnb, or Twitch. Listen to the new season of Leap Forward for never-before-heard stories behind the world's most iconic companies.

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• 39:57Speaker 01

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