Lyle Denniston

Sep 9 2025

Court steps into tariff fight

The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to decide, on a fast schedule, the constitutional controversy over President Trump’s claim that he has almost unlimited power to impose charges on goods entering the U.S. from anywhere in the world. Two lower courts have denied the President that power, declaring that imposing tariffs on imports belongs to… Read More

Sep 8 2025

Court allows immigrant raids to go on

The Supreme Court, continuing a string of orders temporarily freeing President Trump from lower-court orders blocking his use of broad new powers, on Monday gave his government permission to continue rounding up hundreds of individuals suspected of being in the U.S. illegally. By an apparent vote of 6-to-3, the Court set aside a Los Angeles… Read More

Sep 4 2025

Court urged to speed tariff review

Both sides in the historic controversy over President Trump’s policy of imposing charges on goods coming into the U.S. from around the world have urged the Supreme Court to act with unusual speed to decide the dispute. By agreement, government lawyers and those for challengers to the tariffs asked the Court to agree within one… Read More

Aug 30 2025

Will the Court uphold Trump’s tariffs?

The Supreme Court apparently is going to have the last word on the legality of President Trump’s wide-ranging tariffs on imported goods, but getting there could put the Court between two legal theories that it applies these days. One theory – favorable to Trump – is the current Court majority’s generous support of presidential power… Read More

Aug 29 2025

Trump loses on tariffs

A power that President Trump fondly embraces and uses in sweeping and unprecedented ways – setting import charges on goods coming into the U.S. from nearly the whole world – does not exist, a federal appeals court ruled Friday in a historic defeat for his policy. Only Congress has that power under the Constitution, the… Read More

Aug 21 2025

Trump spared — for now — a huge penalty

A state court in New York, issuing 323 pages of a dizzying array of conflicting legal and factual findings plus a patched-together final compromise, ruled on Thursday that President Trump, his family and his business firm should not have to pay nearly a half-billion-dollars in penalty for years of rampant business fraud. The ruling, though,… Read More

Aug 3 2025

End of an era on voting rights?

The Supreme Court has just given itself a truly historic test: is it ready to take away much of the protection that federal law has long provided for racial minorities’ right to vote, because that is no longer needed? At the center of two orders the Justices have issued in recent days is the future… Read More

Jul 24 2025

The Court adds to Trump’s power

In a new and more revealing sign that the Supreme Court is on the verge of allowing President Trump to put partisan loyalists in all policy making posts in the federal Executive Branch, the Court on Wednesday gave him permission to fire three members of a half-century old consumer protection agency. The Court has done… Read More

Jul 16 2025

Abortion access narrowed again

Addinto the loss of women’s reproductive health choices, the last potential for constitutional protection failed in a federal court decision yesterday.  If that ruling holds after higher court review, any right to abortion may be gone.  Only Congress would still have power to provide nationwide protection – an unlikely prospect. The new ruling by a federal… Read More

Jul 14 2025

Court aids Trump attack on government

Continuing to allow President Trump to take sweeping steps to shutter federal government functions, the Supreme Court on Monday permitted the firing of half of the staff of the U.S. Department of Education and other moves toward its total shutdown – without permission from Congress. Though the Court acted only temporarily, the completely unexplained order… Read More

Lyle Denniston continues to write about the U.S. Supreme Court, although he “retired” at the end of 2019 following more than six decades on that news beat. He was there for three revolutions – civil rights, women’s rights, and gay rights – and the start of a fourth, on transgender rights. His career of following the law began at the Otoe County Courthouse in his hometown, Nebraska City, Nebraska, in the fall of 1948. His online, eight-week, college-level course – “The Supreme Court and American Politics” – is available from the University of Baltimore Law School, and it is free.

Recent Posts

  • Court steps into tariff fight
  • Court allows immigrant raids to go on
  • Court urged to speed tariff review
  • Will the Court uphold Trump’s tariffs?
  • Trump loses on tariffs
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