Eight Supreme Court cases remaining
The next, but not last, decision day is Monday. Also: A reporter's privilege case on the shadow docket. And, for paid subscribers: Closing my tabs.
This is expected to be — but does not necessarily need to be — the final week of opinions for the U.S. Supreme Court this term.
There is no rule, let alone law, laying out when the court needs to finish, but the expectation is that opinions in any of the final eight cases will be handed down before the Fourth of July holiday. Unless something unexpected happens — like a case being held over for reargument next term — that means there should be seven opinions handed down this week.
The only decision day announced thus far is Monday, but it is likely that there will be one additional decision day this coming week (or two?) before all of those decisions are handed down.
Once that’s done, I’ll have more to say — big picture — about where we’re at and going, but, for now, I want to just lay out what’s left.
The cases remaining raise challenges to:
Birthright citizenship, by way of President Donald Trump’s effort to end the right via executive order
Presidential firing powers, both as to for-cause removal protections for Federal Trade Commission members and as to the way the Trump administration has sought to limit what for-cause removal protections mean as to a Federal Reserve Board governor
Transgender sports bans, via two cases, one out of Idaho and the other out of West Virginia (only one opinion is expected)
State election laws allowing ballots mailed by Election Day but received in the days after then to still be counted
Federal campaign finance laws limiting coordinated party expenditures
That’s it, and any or all of them could be extremely important decisions, depending on what the court resolves them.
Whatever happens, I’ll be there — reporting live at 10 a.m. ET and then reading and writing full reports for Law Dork.
Reporter’s privilege at SCOTUS
On Friday afternoon, Chief Justice John Roberts issued a temporary order keeping fines from accumulating against reporter Catherine Herridge while the U.S. Supreme Court considers her request to keep a contempt order on ice while she asks the Supreme Court to consider whether there is a First Amendment reporter’s privilege against testifying in court.
The appeal is over a 2024 contempt order issued by U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper in a Privacy Act lawsuit filed by Yanping Chen in 2018 over the fallout from a longtime FBI investigation that led to no charges against Chen but did lead to a 2017 Fox News report about the investigation and subsequent claimed detrimental effects on Chen. Herridge was listed as the author of the print reports of the Fox News story and, in 2024 Cooper held Herridge in contempt after she refused to answer questions under a subpoena about her sources for the 2017 report. He put the civil contempt — a fine of $800 per day — on hold while Herridge appealed the order.
At the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, a three-judge panel — in an opinion by Judge Gregory Katsas (Trump), joined by Judges J. Michelle Childs (Biden) and Harry Edwards (Carter) — affirmed the contempt order in September 2025:
The full appeals court rejected Herridge’s request for en banc review on May 22. Then, earlier this month, Herridge’s lawyers asked for an order staying the issuance of the mandate — the formal order sending the case back to the lower court — while she asks the Supreme Court to hear the case.
Although the request to the appeals court was denied on June 23, her lawyers stated in that request that her certiorari petition to the Supreme Court would address “the scope of the First Amendment reporter’s privilege protecting journalists’ confidential sources.”
On Friday, at the Supreme Court, Herridge filed an application for a stay and to file the request under seal. As such, there is no public filing at this point on the Supreme Court docket.
However, there was one key fact made clear from the docket. Herridge has a new lawyer. Her counsel of record is listed as Paul Clement — one of the most prominent Supreme Court lawyers, a former solicitor general in the George W. Bush administration who has argued more than 100 cases at the high court.
Hours later, late Friday afternoon, Roberts issued the temporary stay of the mandate and ordered a response by noon Wednesday, July 1.
Closing my tabs
For those who don’t know what this is, it’s my effort to give a little thank you to paid subscribers. “Closing my tabs” is, literally, me looking through the stories and cases open — the tabs open — on my computer and sharing with you all some of those I was unable to cover during the week but that I nonetheless want to let you know that I have on my radar. Oftentimes, they are issues that will eventually find their way back into the newsletter as a case discussed moves forward or something new happens that provides me with a reason to cover the story more in depth.
This Sunday, these are the tabs I am closing:
