Supreme Court issues onslaught of pivotal rulings

A number of pivotal Supreme Court decisions were issued this week, addressing birthright citizenship, trans sports laws, campaign finance, mail-in ballots, and digital privacy. Here's a look at the cases and what was decided.

In Trump v. Barbara, SCOTUS held that children born in the United States are citizens at birth even if their parents are in the country unlawfully or temporarily, rejecting President Trump's executive order attempting to end birthright citizenship for those children. The majority concluded that the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects birthright citizenship in these circumstances.

In West Virginia v. B.P.J., SCOTUS upheld laws in West Virginia and Idaho limiting girls' and women's school sports to biological females. The Court held that the laws do not violate Title IX or the Equal Protection Clause.

In National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission, the Court invalidated federal limits on coordinated spending between political parties and their candidates, holding that the restrictions violate the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Political parties can now coordinate much more closely with candidates, which is predicted to benefit Republicans, as they generally use more PAC money, while Dems tend to raise more through the candidates themselves.

In Watson v. Republican National Committee, the Court ruled 5–4 to uphold state laws allowing ballots mailed by Election Day but received afterward to be counted, where permitted by state law. This preserves mail-ballot grace periods in several states.

In Trump v. Slaughter, SCOTUS ruled that the president could remove members of certain independent federal agencies, including commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission, thereby narrowing nearly a century of precedent limiting presidential removal authority and strengthening presidential control over independent agencies.

In Chatrie v. United States, the Court held that "geofence warrants," which require companies like Google to identify all devices in a geographic area, implicate Fourth Amendment protections and require meaningful constitutional scrutiny. This is seen as a major victory for privacy rights, making it harder for law enforcement to conduct broad searches of location data.