In his first presidency, Donald Trump reconstituted the U.S. Supreme Court, appointing a third of its current membership. Since then, the supermajority of six conservative justices has overruled Roe v. Wade, invalidated affirmative action programs, and held in favor of religious liberty claimsāall positions the Trump administration favorsāat record rates. And yet, in his first term in office, Trump won a lower percentage of his Supreme Court cases than any modern-day president.
Trumpās second presidency is generating many legal controversies that the federal courts are having to address. The president is āflooding the zoneā with executive actions that upturn a range of domestic and foreign policies, so the Courtās rulings are increasingly consequential for American governance and for the citizenry. Edited by AAPSS Fellows Lee Epstein and Rogers M. Smith, this volume of The ANNALS illuminates how these developments arose, many of the changes they have brought so far, and what they portend for the future. The articles are written by leading law professors, political scientists, and journalists, and they center on how the Court has been influenced by Trump, how the Trump administration is being shaped by the Court, and how the resulting policies are affecting the lives of Americans.
