What Did the Supreme Court Decide on These Cases?

 According to Fred Lucas, chief news correspondent for The Daily Signal, the Supreme Court announced that it will release opinions o February 20, 24, 25. Anticipated decisions would affect “the future of President Donald Trump’s tariffs, new congressional maps, and an expected strike at the ‘deep State.’” 

Among the most anticipated rulings is on Trump’s tariffs, imposed last year without authorization from Congress. Tariffs are a core element of his economic agenda….

At issue is whether the president exceeded his executive branch authority by imposing tariffs under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which is intended to address emergencies only. Normally, trade policy, including tariffs, is enacted through legislation in Congress and signed by the president….

The case marks uncharted waters for the Supreme Court, which has never ruled on how far the International Emergency Economic Powers Act extends.

[The fact that the United States was dying economically after the failed Biden administration might be considered an emergency.]

Another major case could involve justices issuing an opinion that strikes a blow against the federal bureaucracy in Washington.

This specific case of Slaughter v. Trump regards Trump’s ouster of Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter. But the court’s ruling will affect other federal boards and commissions with members appointed by Republican and Democrat presidents.

The members, in theory, operate without political concerns. They serve for a set term until it expires….

The high court, in the 1935 precedent in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, ruled Congress could enact laws limiting the power of a president to fire executive officials of an independent agency.

In oral arguments, a majority of justices seemed near certain to scrap the 90-year-old precedent, which has protected the federal bureaucracy.

In another case that could be ruled on in the coming days, the high court also heard arguments in a redistricting case in October that could affect which party controls the House of Representatives.

A majority of justices seemed inclined to uphold the congressional and legislative maps in Louisiana.

Liberal groups have sounded the alarm that the forthcoming ruling in Louisiana v. Callais could net Republicans up to 19 new sets nationwide in the U.S. House of Representatives, as the decision could impact parts of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The dispute began after the 2020 census when Louisiana redrew six congressional districts with just one majority-black congressional district.

The NAACP and others sued, alleging the new map resulting from the 2020 census violated Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act, which bans race-based gerrymandering of districts.

The state had one majority-black district from the 2010 census, but NAACP and others contend that the state’s black population shifted and grew, resulting in the need for a second district.

In 2022, U.S. District Chief Judge Shelly Dick sided with the NAACP and ordered the state to redraw the map with two majority-black districts.

After the state created a new map, other state voters sued, asserting the new map violated the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution’s 14^th Amendment, since the boundary lines of the second district had been drawn based on race. The 5^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the new map.

Yet another high-profile case involves campaign finance law. Justices heard arguments in December in National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission, and a majority seemed inclined to further roll back campaign finance limits.

If the Supreme Court sides with the Republicans in the case, it would mean candidates can accept funding directly from a political party and also discuss with party officials how to use the funds.

The case emerged in 2022, when plaintiffs, including then-U.S. Senate candidate JD Vance, now vice president, as well as then-Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, sued the Federal Election Commission. The plaintiffs contend that coordinated expenditure limits violate the First Amendment.

Did You Hear About the Unanimous Supreme Court Decision?

It is not often that the nine justices on the U.S. Supreme Court issue a unanimous decision, but they did last week. In pushing back against regularity overreach by the Biden administration, the Supreme Court returned the Clean Water Act to its original purpose and restored federalism.

The case involved Chantell and Mike Sackett who purchased some new property in Priest Lake, Idaho, to build a home and began backfilling the land in preparation for doing so in 2004. The Environmental Protection Agency determined that the construction work on the land was affecting the “waters of the United States.”

According to Rachel Wilfong at The Daily Signal, the construction activity by the Sacketts was “discharging pollutants into surrounding wetlands that the agency deemed to be ‘waters of the United States’ and therefore subject to federal regulation.” The fine was upwards of $40,000 per day until the site was restored to its original state. Wilfong continued with this explanation: 

The Clean Water Act is a federal statute that allows the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers to regulate “navigable waters.” In the past, both the EPA and Corps have attempted to introduce vague interpretations of these waters, which delivered the Washington bureaucracy a perfect opportunity to expand its power.

Luckily for all Americans, the Supreme Court ruled May 25 in favor of the Sacketts. The high court issued a judgment in Sackett v. EPA in line with the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s plurality opinion in a separate major Clean Water Act case, Rapanos v. United States. Scalia’s opinion in that 2006 case held that the term “waters of the United States” can refer only to “relatively permanent, standing, or flowing bodies of water,” and “does not include channels through which water flows intermittently or ephemerally or channels that periodically provide drainage for rainfall.”

At the time Scalia’s opinion didn’t have the necessary five votes to achieve a majority of the nine justices.

Until last week, that is, when the Supreme Court honored the plurality by determining in Sackett v. EPA that the use of “waters” in the Clean Waters Act “refers only to ‘geographic[al] features that are described in ordinary parlance as “streams, oceans, rivers, and lakes” and to adjacent wetlands that are ‘indistinguishable’ from those bodies of water due to a continuous surface connection.”

In other words, the Supreme Court provided a succinct definition of “waters” under the Clean Water Act, providing a legal defense for rolling back federal overreach….

Until now, pushing back against the Biden administration’s draconian interpretations of the Clean Water Act, as well as those of previous administrations, has been an upstream battle.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Sackett v. EPA is a major step in the right direction for common sense, states’ rights, and private property rights. It could provide a legal precedent for fighting other instances of the EPA’s overreach.

Democrats and the EPA are upset with the ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court. We can expect more calls to pack the Supreme Court with more justices because the justices currently there are following the law and common sense.