October 12, 2025
Week one was a doozy. Already the United States supreme court has heard two important cases – and I hope you’re sitting down because those were just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to controversial topics the justices are going to be making big decisions about this term. We’re talking about things like elections, tariffs, gerrymandering and presidential power.
So let’s talk about what just happened last week. On Tuesday — the justices heard oral arguments on a case called Chiles v Salazar. Chiles is Kaley Chiles, a licensed counselor who uses her Christian faith in her talk therapy for minors to engage in what most people would call sexual orientation or gender identity conversion therapy. Like many other states — in the state of Colorado conversion therapy is banned and the 10th circuit court of appeals upheld that state law saying Ms. Chiles cannot use her version of talk therapy to try and convert minors from gay to straight for example. Well – Ms. Chiles appealed saying that Colorado law violates her first amendment rights because she says these are consensual conversations between herself and these minors and her clients are seeking her out specifically because of her faith and because of her brand of therapy. After hearing about 90 minutes of oral arguments– it appears the justices are inclined to side with Ms. Chiles and could overturn this Colorado law. If that happens, it would impact about half of the states in this country that have also banned this type of conversion therapy.
Last week the justices also heard a case called Bost v Illinois. Now this is one of several election related cases being heard this term. This one comes from representative Mike Bost a Republican from Illinois 12th congressional district. He attempting to sue the state of Illinois over its election law that allows for mail in ballots to be counted up to 14 days after election day as long as they are postmarked by election day. Bost says that law contradicts federal law that sets the time for federal elections. All the other federal courts that have heard this case already say that Bost does not have standing to sue Illinois because he won by such a landslide that he was not harmed by this mail in ballot law at all. But after last week’s oral arguments, the justices appear to be supportive of Bost and his lawsuit.
This upcoming week the justices will hear another important election related case out of Louisiana that tackles gerrymandering. And this is interesting because it’s one of those damned if you do and damned if you don’t cases that in the end could reshape the voting rights act. In 2022 the state of Louisiana was sued over a gerrymandered map that took away one of the two majority black congressional districts. In the end a federal court demanded the state legislature redraw the map and bring that district back because it disenfranchised those black voters and violated the voting rights act. Well now – a group that calls itself “non-African American” is suing saying that the new map with two majority black districts violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. So now the supreme court is going to decide what to do not only with the map in Louisiana but also whether to strip even more protections allowed in the voting rights act.
One last election related case to keep your eye on this term tackles what some would consider dark money in politics. It’s a case called National Republican Senatorial Committee v Federal Elections Commission. In this case the justices will revisit their own ruling form 2001 that upheld a limit on how much coordination political parties can have with individual candidates when it comes to how to spend millions and millions of dollars in campaign donations. What’s interesting about this case is then Senator JD Vance was part of a group who sued the FEC saying that limiting the ability of a political candidate to coordinate the spending of campaign finances with his or her political party violates the first amendment.
Now – let’s talk about checking President Trump’s power. So far there are two big cases the justices will hear including one I’ve already talked a lot about on my channel that will tackle whether Trump has the power to enact these wide spread tariffs on virtually all countries without the approval of congress. So far the federal appeals court has said trump does not have the power and his tariffs are illegal. We’ll have to see what the justices say when they hear that case on November 5th.
The justices will also hear a case called trump v slaughter where the justices will decide whether the president of the United States has the power to fire members of independent federal agencies like the federal trade commission. Now this case does not necessarily talk about the federal reserve – but it’s possible that the justices will make some kind of determination about that too given the fact that the president is also taking the unprecedented step of trying to remove a federal reserve governor.
