Major SCOTUS rulings are on the docket in 2026

As the Supreme Court heads into the new year, Justices are preparing to hear cases and render decisions that will shape America’s legal and political landscape for years to come.

Here’s a breakdown of the biggest decisions on the docket:

Birthright citizenship: The Trump admin is challenging the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of citizenship for anyone born on US soil, arguing it was intended only for formerly enslaved people after the Civil War, not for children of undocumented immigrants. Oral arguments before SCOTUS are expected this spring.

Tariff legality: President Trump has invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act—a 1970s law allowing the president to regulate imports during national emergencies—to justify his sweeping tariffs on a wide range of countries, arguing that America’s trade imbalances constitute a national emergency. A lower court previously ruled that the IEEPA’s text doesn’t explicitly give the president tariff powers. If SCOTUS agrees, US companies could be owed billions of dollars in tariff refunds.

Congressional maps: The Court is considering whether to narrow or eliminate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965—which bans racial discrimination in voting—along with the possibility of going one step further and prohibiting lawmakers from using race as a factor in creating election districts. A ruling that bans lawmakers from considering race entirely is likely to result in widespread redistricting efforts, which NY Times analysts predict would shift around a dozen House seats from Democratic to Republican control.

Campaign finance: SCOTUS is reviewing a GOP-led push to erase limits on how much political parties can spend in coordination with candidates for president and Congress. Opponents of the spending limits argue they’ve hurt political parties in an era of unlimited campaign spending by other orgs.

Firing independent agency leaders: Under a 90-year-old SCOTUS precedent, presidents haven’t been able to fire the heads of independent agencies, like the FTC, without cause. The Court is currently considering whether to overturn that restriction.

Looking ahead…Decisions in all of these cases will be handed down before the end of SCOTUS’ current term in late June or early July.