WASHINGTON—Ken Martin began the year with high hopes of rebuilding the Democratic Party. Today, the Democratic National Committee chairman is likely more concerned with keeping his job.
Morale is low at the DNC, the New York Times reported last month, in large part because Martin is acting as if the walls are closing in. The chairman reportedly makes macabre jokes about how he&#8217;s not long for the job. He landed in hot water when he reportedly threw his phone at a staffer&#8217;s desk during a tense exchange that resulted in a human resources complaint. Martin has also, the Times reports, grown increasingly frustrated by leaks and negative press surrounding the committee.
And then there&#8217;s the money. The DNC finished June with just $16.3 million cash on hand and $18.5 million in debt, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Things are so bad that Democratic Party officials have privately asked vendors to delay sending invoices until after the midterm elections, according to the Times.
The DNC disputes this report, but the party&#8217;s money troubles are real in other ways. Unlike its counterpart, the Republican National Committee is living large with $128.5 million in cash and no debt — and that&#8217;s just the tip of the iceberg.
According to recent FEC filings, Republican Party committees and their allied congressional super PACs held roughly $657 million in cash on hand at the end of June, compared to about $334 million for Democratic committees and their allied organizations. The gap grows even larger when including MAGA Inc., President Donald Trump&#8217;s allied super PAC, which alone reported having more than $400 million available for future spending.
For much of modern campaign history, that imbalance would have been significant. Today, it may be decisive.
In June, the Supreme Court ruled in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-supreme-court-restores-some-common-sense-to-campaign-finance" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NRSC v. FEC</a> that limits on coordinated expenditures between political parties and candidates violated the First Amendment.
&#8220;It doesn&#8217;t change the money that&#8217;s available to party committees,&#8221; Jessica Furst Johnson, partner and co-chair of the political law practice at Lex Politica and counsel for the petitioners in NRSC v. FEC, told The Daily Wire. &#8220;It changes how party committees are able to spend it.&#8221;
That distinction substantially increases the value of institutional fundraising — precisely where Republicans currently hold their largest advantage.
Ironically, Democratic candidates themselves are hardly struggling. Several marquee Senate candidates continue <a href="https://rollcall.com/2026/07/16/democratic-candidates-sustain-fundraising-pace-as-gop-strains-to-keep-up/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posting enormous fundraising numbers</a>. Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff has built a sizable financial advantage over Republican challenger Rep. Mike Collins, and former North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper has likewise amassed an impressive war chest for his Senate campaign.
But those individual successes increasingly mask a broader weakness.
Historically, national party committees existed to do more than simply pay campaign bills. They recruited candidates, coordinated messaging, directed resources toward vulnerable races, elevated lesser-known challengers, and built a unified national political strategy.
Without a financially healthy national committee, those responsibilities increasingly fall on individual candidates. Instead of one cohesive fundraising operation supporting dozens of competitive races, Democrats increasingly resemble a collection of independently wealthy campaigns.
The &#8220;haves&#8221; are nationally recognizable candidates capable of raising tens of millions of dollars on their own. The &#8220;have-nots&#8221; are first-time challengers, vulnerable incumbents, and down-ballot candidates who traditionally depended on the party machinery and allied organizations to amplify their campaigns.
One longtime Democratic strategist warned that Republicans now possess enough institutional money to execute &#8220;a Cadillac plan everywhere,&#8221; while Democrats increasingly must decide which candidates deserve outside investment and which will largely fend for themselves.
&#8220;Party committees have incredibly talented staff — very experienced, very strategic, working hard and long hours — and they add a lot to the overall political ecosystem,&#8221; Furst Johnson said. &#8220;But if you truly view parties as just bill payers, then it&#8217;s no wonder you&#8217;re looking at this fundraising disparity.&#8221;
That disparity may prove lethal for Martin. Democratic strategist Eddie Vale recently told <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5992626-democrats-patience-dnc-ken-martin-midterms/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Hill</a> that the DNC chair&#8217;s poor fundraising is &#8220;hurting the other committees and candidates,&#8221; while former Kamala Harris campaign finance chair Rufus Gifford declared there is &#8220;no saving Martin&#8217;s chairmanship.&#8221;
Martin&#8217;s critics also point to his handling of the party&#8217;s delayed 2024 election autopsy, which many Democrats criticized after its eventual release for containing major omissions and errors, along with recent reports that the committee lost roughly $29,000 in an email scam last year.
But those arguments may matter less than the broader structural reality now confronting Democrats. The party still has candidates capable of raising enormous sums of money, but it increasingly lacks a national organization capable of turning those isolated fundraising successes into a coordinated national strategy.
Now, after the Supreme Court made party committees substantially more valuable, that institutional weakness may prove far more damaging than any individual candidate&#8217;s fundraising deficit.

US-VOTE-POLITICS-DEMOCRATIC-CONVENTION

What The Democrats’ Cash Crunch Means For 2026 And Beyond

2026 Midterms

2028 presidential election

campaign funds

Democratic Party

fundraising

Ken Martin

Supreme Court

A new proposal from Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) seeks to keep gender-confused boys off of girls&#8217; sports teams and out of their locker rooms.  
The <a href="https://www.blackburn.senate.gov/services/files/9DB266B1-2A2D-4FCF-B948-A031AC31AB5C">bill</a> introduced Tuesday by Blackburn and 10 other GOP senators would tie federal funding to whether schools protect girls from discrimination based on biological reality. The bill seeks to codify language into federal law that makes it clear that discrimination protections under Title IX are based on sex and not sexual orientation or so-called gender identity. 
“The Biden administration weaponized Title IX to force women to compete with men in sports and allow men to invade women’s spaces,” Blackburn told The Daily Wire. “Thankfully, President Trump restored common sense in Title IX, and now Congress must codify these protections for women into law to prevent future abuse.”
Blackburn’s proposal, called the “Title IX Clarification Act,” would ensure that discrimination under the provision is based “on the biological reality of sex” and would make federal funding contingent on recognizing that understanding. 
The bill’s introduction comes amid a nationwide controversy fueled by WNBA player Sophie Cunningham’s stance on keeping gender-confused boys out of girls&#8217; sports. 
“I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men,” Cunningham said in a recent interview with ESPN, drawing backlash from fellow WNBA players and coaches.
Her comments have angered WNBA fans and even led to pro-trans advocacy from Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve, who <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/wnba-coach-protests-sophie-cunningham-with-pro-trans-shirt?author=Drew+Berkemeyer&amp;category=undefined&amp;elementPosition=10&amp;row=3&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+News&amp;rowType=Vertical+Carousel&amp;title=WNBA+Coach+Protests+Sophie+Cunningham+With+Pro-Trans+Shirt">recently</a> wore a “Trans Kids Belong” shirt during a game. 
The Biden administration attempted to <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/03/11/2021-05200/guaranteeing-an-educational-environment-free-from-discrimination-on-the-basis-of-sex-including">expand</a> the traditional understanding of Title IX to include “gender identity” as being protected under the definition of sex. Critics argued that interpretation would force schools from keeping sports teams, bathrooms, and locker rooms separate on the basis of sex. 
Shortly after taking office, President Donald Trump officially <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/initial-rescissions-of-harmful-executive-orders-and-actions/">rescinded</a> Biden’s interpretation of Title IX and <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/">directed</a> federal agencies to protect from sex-based discrimination, not gender identity. The Supreme Court <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/supreme-court-protects-womens-sports-in-landmark-ruling">recently held</a> in a landmark decision that states did not violate Title IX if they had laws in place keeping boys out of girls’ sports. 
“They may determine eligibility for women’s and girls’ sports based on biological sex,” Justice Kavanaugh wrote. “The Constitution and Title IX do not require an overhaul of women’s and girls’ sports throughout America.”
Blackburn said her legislation would bring common sense back to federal discrimination law. 
“The Title IX Clarification Act would ensure that common sense, not leftist ideology, governs federal education funding tied to Title IX requirements to protect young women,” she said. 
Other lawmakers backing the proposal are Senators Katie Britt (R-AL), Jim Justice (R-WV), Ted Budd (R-NC), Jim Risch (R-ID), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Rick Scott (R-FL), Pete Ricketts (R-NE), Steve Daines (R-MT), and Tim Sheehy (R-MT).
A House version of the proposal was introduced in May 2026 by Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-TX) and advanced through the Committee on Education and Workforce. It is backed by conservative groups like the Family Research Council, Alliance Defending Freedom, and the American Principles Project.

Indiana Fever v Golden State Valkyries

Sophie Cunningham’s Trans Sports Stance Could Become Federal Law

Donald Trump

Joe Biden

Marsha Blackburn

Sophie Cunningham

Title IX

Transgender Athletes

WNBA

Women's sports

Despite its many groundbreaking victories for originalism and textualism, the Supreme Court’s term closed with a barrage of vitriol from some conservatives aimed at Justice Amy Coney Barrett. The biggest trigger was the Court’s birthright citizenship decision, <a href="https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/r01/___https:/www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25-365_4hdj.pdf___.YXAzOmNyY2E6YzpvZmZpY2UzNjVfZW1haWxzX2F0dGFjaG1lbnQ6YjhhOWQ2MmM2OTYyMjMzYTViODE4Y2NhZmQ2NWRhYzY6Nzo5OWU0Ojc2NDE4MWI0MTg2M2EzYjM4NTc2YTM4YTcwNDEwYzcyYTBlMTg5OTZjYmI3YzJkNWNmNWVlOWE2NTJmZGU5OTU6cDpGOkY">Trump v. Barbara</a>, which came on the Court’s last day. Social media lit up with barbs declaring that Barrett had veered Left. The College Republicans from her alma mater and former employer, Notre Dame, <a href="https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/r01/___https:/x.com/NDRepublicans/status/2071981700813377755___.YXAzOmNyY2E6YzpvZmZpY2UzNjVfZW1haWxzX2F0dGFjaG1lbnQ6ZjIwMWYwZGQxYzJhNjhiMGM1YTg3NzgxNTUyMzQ1ZTg6NzpjZWJkOjkzOGM0ZmI2MTY0Y2E4NmY0NzYyYjBlNDE0OWQwYTc3NmY1MmM2MDM0ZDkzNGRkYTI1NGQ3NGJmYjA2ZjY1NmI6cDpUOkY">called</a> her an “absolute disgrace” and Rep. Nancy Mace <a href="https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/r01/___https:/x.com/NancyMace/status/2071979617569636863?s=20___.YXAzOmNyY2E6YzpvZmZpY2UzNjVfZW1haWxzX2F0dGFjaG1lbnQ6ZjIwMWYwZGQxYzJhNjhiMGM1YTg3NzgxNTUyMzQ1ZTg6NzoxODVhOjQzNWRhYmEzNTcyMTMzZGRiNDk1MzczMjEzM2RhMTM2YjU2MzQyODI4MGI5NzBlMDc1MWFkMGI0NzYzMTc2ZDU6cDpUOkY">declared</a> that she “should be removed from the Bench.” Missing from the pile-on was any contextual analysis of Barrett’s full track record on the Court.
Frustration over Barbara is understandable. Conservatives (including me) care about immigration enforcement and hoped for a different outcome. But the justices do not cast votes on outcomes, and it’s a mistake to judge them solely by the question, “Did my side win or lose?” Fidelity to the Constitution is what matters. We should credit the originalist majority for its good-faith effort to apply originalism and textualism in difficult cases. No approach does better at reading the law as it is rather than as judges wish it to be.
The Court regularly wrestles with hard methodological questions, and even principled originalists sometimes err. Take Justice Antonin Scalia, who more than anyone else steered the Court — and legal scholarship generally — toward originalism. He wrote the Court’s decision in <a href="https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/r01/___https:/tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep494/usrep494872/usrep494872.pdf___.YXAzOmNyY2E6YzpvZmZpY2UzNjVfZW1haWxzX2F0dGFjaG1lbnQ6YjhhOWQ2MmM2OTYyMjMzYTViODE4Y2NhZmQ2NWRhYzY6Nzo1M2QyOmI3ZmZmYzc1MDIzZTc5YzkwZWQzZTg1OGU4NTJmNjA5NmM2MTI1ODZhNDFhOGU5NTRhMDQwNjVkMDVjYThiYzM6cDpGOkY">Employment Division v. Smith</a> (1990), gutting free-exercise protections so badly that Congress had to pass the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to fix it. He spent years championing Chevron deference to agency interpretations of ambiguous laws. And in <a href="https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/r01/___https:/tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep545/usrep545001/usrep545001.pdf___.YXAzOmNyY2E6YzpvZmZpY2UzNjVfZW1haWxzX2F0dGFjaG1lbnQ6YjhhOWQ2MmM2OTYyMjMzYTViODE4Y2NhZmQ2NWRhYzY6NzpmMDc5OmQ0NDdiZTUxNTBkNmU5ZmM2ZWZhZTAyYTA3MTUwYmI4ZTNjZjIwYTE1YjQxYjUzZTg2NzFmM2JiNThmNTEzYzg6cDpGOkY">Gonzales v. Raich</a> (2005), he provided a concurring vote for a sweeping reading of the Commerce Clause that let the federal government prohibit local cultivation of marijuana — an affront to federalism.
Justice Clarence Thomas, a favorite of mine and of many other originalists, dissented in Raich. But weeks later, he wrote the Court’s opinion in <a href="https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/r01/___https:/tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep545/usrep545967/usrep545967.pdf___.YXAzOmNyY2E6YzpvZmZpY2UzNjVfZW1haWxzX2F0dGFjaG1lbnQ6YjhhOWQ2MmM2OTYyMjMzYTViODE4Y2NhZmQ2NWRhYzY6NzoxZDk0OjYzOTFjNTBmZTRlYWUzM2ExNGFlYTljYWQ4NDhhYmMzY2NkNjY4ZjQyZjhiYzBhNTc4NmM2NGM2NmRiNzc2ZTg6cDpGOkY">National Cable &amp; Telecommunications Assn. v. Brand X Internet Services</a>, which expanded Chevron deference over Scalia’s dissent. (In 2020, Thomas <a href="https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/r01/___https:/www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/19-402_o75p.pdf___.YXAzOmNyY2E6YzpvZmZpY2UzNjVfZW1haWxzX2F0dGFjaG1lbnQ6YjhhOWQ2MmM2OTYyMjMzYTViODE4Y2NhZmQ2NWRhYzY6Nzo4ZGJiOjQ0YTI3ZTlkZTA1ZjYxZjRlZWE1YTUzMWQyNGU0N2NjMjk5ZDMwYTA2YjU4YjdlMzc0MjRlYWU5ZjJjZGUxOTY6cDpGOkY">changed his position</a>.) Justice Samuel Alito, another towering originalist, balked at perhaps the <a href="https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/r01/___https:/www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/fragmented-gundy-court-suggests-the-nondelegation-doctrine-might-have-a-future/___.YXAzOmNyY2E6YzpvZmZpY2UzNjVfZW1haWxzX2F0dGFjaG1lbnQ6ZjIwMWYwZGQxYzJhNjhiMGM1YTg3NzgxNTUyMzQ1ZTg6NzpkOGI5OmM2OWE5ZGQzYTNiZmE2ODk3YWJlNTgzMGIyODU4OWZlMzZhYjFiODM4MjY1MDU2NWI4MWRmZmExMTdiMjk2ZWY6cDpUOkY">best opportunity</a> over the past decade to revive the nondelegation doctrine, the separation-of-powers principle under which Congress is prevented from transferring its legislative power to another branch. Those are long-serving judicial superstars.
Of course, many Republican appointees drifted leftward over time, embracing the bald judicial activism of “living Constitution” liberals: Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony Kennedy, and David Souter. Justice Barrett is not one of them. In fact, she helped clean up the jurisprudential mess those justices had made — most notably voting to overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey in <a href="https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/r01/___https:/www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf___.YXAzOmNyY2E6YzpvZmZpY2UzNjVfZW1haWxzX2F0dGFjaG1lbnQ6YjhhOWQ2MmM2OTYyMjMzYTViODE4Y2NhZmQ2NWRhYzY6NzpjMWM0OjkxODNiZmRhMmYzMzM3MDJjMDQ1ZGYwZDZkY2E3YmQwNjY4MWIxOTM3Nzk1MzdjZTI0M2ExYjI1ZWJjZGFjOTE6cDpGOkY">Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization</a> and to overturn racial preferences in education in <a href="https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/r01/___https:/www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_hgdj.pdf___.YXAzOmNyY2E6YzpvZmZpY2UzNjVfZW1haWxzX2F0dGFjaG1lbnQ6YjhhOWQ2MmM2OTYyMjMzYTViODE4Y2NhZmQ2NWRhYzY6Nzo3MTFjOjY1ZDI3NGZiZTFjZDgwMzc5NmM5Mjk4YmNkZjU2ODk1NmQ0YTkyMTk5ZTRjOTZhZjY0NzVhOGUyMDQ2MDQyM2E6cDpGOkY">SFFA v. Harvard</a>. She also voted to end Chevron deference in <a href="https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/r01/___https:/www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/22-451_7m58.pdf___.YXAzOmNyY2E6YzpvZmZpY2UzNjVfZW1haWxzX2F0dGFjaG1lbnQ6YjhhOWQ2MmM2OTYyMjMzYTViODE4Y2NhZmQ2NWRhYzY6Nzo0ZjA5OmMyMGZlMjlhZDUxZmQwZDAzNmFjZjNhNWQ5M2I1YzZhMDQxNDk3NDdhNmI1NTVkOGVjODk5NTI4ZDE3MzIwYzY6cDpGOkY">Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo</a>. 
Apart from those jurisprudential earthquakes, she has been a reliable originalist vote in hard-fought First Amendment cases, on both speech and free exercise — supporting a web designer’s <a href="https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/r01/___https:/www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/21-476_c185.pdf___.YXAzOmNyY2E6YzpvZmZpY2UzNjVfZW1haWxzX2F0dGFjaG1lbnQ6YjhhOWQ2MmM2OTYyMjMzYTViODE4Y2NhZmQ2NWRhYzY6NzplZDRjOmZmMjEwMWFhZGYxZjkzMzAwMzM5Zjk0ZTNhOGEzNWI5NjBkN2FlNzI5NjI4MWVkM2U4YmFmNWQwYmIzMDk0YjI6cDpGOkY">ability to refuse websites</a> that violate her religious beliefs, protecting parents’ <a href="https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/r01/___https:/www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24-297_4f14.pdf___.YXAzOmNyY2E6YzpvZmZpY2UzNjVfZW1haWxzX2F0dGFjaG1lbnQ6YjhhOWQ2MmM2OTYyMjMzYTViODE4Y2NhZmQ2NWRhYzY6Nzo1MDZhOmMxNTI1MTdmZGJjNzdjMzc4ZTM4ZTFiNDU3YTliM2ZiZjM3OTdjM2Q1ZjIzMzhhNmU3Mjg4NzI0OWIwYzVhZTc6cDpGOkY">right to opt out</a> of sexual material in public schools, upholding states’ ability to require <a href="https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/r01/___https:/www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/23-1122_3e04.pdf___.YXAzOmNyY2E6YzpvZmZpY2UzNjVfZW1haWxzX2F0dGFjaG1lbnQ6YjhhOWQ2MmM2OTYyMjMzYTViODE4Y2NhZmQ2NWRhYzY6NzpkZjE2OjRjNTk4NzMyYTAwYzJkNGM5YTZhOWFiZmMzZDkzNmM5ZWNmMTY5YjJlNTNlNzE1ZWJjYWYyNTNmYjNhOWZlNTc6cDpGOkY">age verification</a> for pornography, <a href="https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/r01/___https:/www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-621_h315.pdf___.YXAzOmNyY2E6YzpvZmZpY2UzNjVfZW1haWxzX2F0dGFjaG1lbnQ6YjhhOWQ2MmM2OTYyMjMzYTViODE4Y2NhZmQ2NWRhYzY6NzpmYjlkOjU1OWQ5NzYyN2UyODBlOTdiNzYxNzA2YmM5M2Y4MWQxNjgwYzRlNGVlMzhlNjIwNjY5OWNiYTA5OGY0MTU5YmQ6cDpGOkY">safeguarding political speech</a>, and striking down Colorado’s <a href="https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/r01/___https:/www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-539_fd9g.pdf___.YXAzOmNyY2E6YzpvZmZpY2UzNjVfZW1haWxzX2F0dGFjaG1lbnQ6YjhhOWQ2MmM2OTYyMjMzYTViODE4Y2NhZmQ2NWRhYzY6NzoyNTM5OmRjOTg5MDkzMzgwMDRhYTJlNmU0YmVmNzk1N2QxMDQ0ODBjZWYwMGY3ZTcyZjRlZGMxZWJlMTRmOTRlMGZhNTA6cDpGOkY">“conversion therapy” ban</a>. The same holds for Second Amendment protections of the individual right to bear arms in cases from <a href="https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/r01/___https:/www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf___.YXAzOmNyY2E6YzpvZmZpY2UzNjVfZW1haWxzX2F0dGFjaG1lbnQ6YjhhOWQ2MmM2OTYyMjMzYTViODE4Y2NhZmQ2NWRhYzY6NzowMjRhOjA2OTA2ZjBlYTA5ZTg5YTNhNDA2YzdmNzY3ZWU5NDcxODQ5NWM0MGRjMjc2MWRmOTIwNDAyMDkzYjEwNjZlZDY6cDpGOkY">New York State Rifle &amp; Pistol Assn. v. Bruen</a> in 2022 to <a href="https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/r01/___https:/www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-1046_nmio.pdf___.YXAzOmNyY2E6YzpvZmZpY2UzNjVfZW1haWxzX2F0dGFjaG1lbnQ6YjhhOWQ2MmM2OTYyMjMzYTViODE4Y2NhZmQ2NWRhYzY6NzplMGY3OmNjMjRiNDJkMGJiM2YwM2Q1ODIyY2FhOGI5NTA1MTU3OGM5Y2M2MDU5MjJiYmIwMDMxMTZhMTI3ZDBkYTY1NzY6cDpGOkY">Wolford v. Lopez</a> this term.
Barrett helped the Court reject activist contortions of the Equal Protection Clause — efforts to stop states from <a href="https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/r01/___https:/www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/23-477_2cp3.pdf___.YXAzOmNyY2E6YzpvZmZpY2UzNjVfZW1haWxzX2F0dGFjaG1lbnQ6YjhhOWQ2MmM2OTYyMjMzYTViODE4Y2NhZmQ2NWRhYzY6Nzo1ZjAwOjhjZTNkYTY3YzFkMGE4NmI4ODE3YjgxZTFmZGI2MjlmNWFjZTYwYTQ2NDQ3ZDI0MTQ5ZDIzYmU2MTIzYjhjYmI6cDpGOkY">prohibiting transitioning procedures</a> for minors and <a href="https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/r01/___https:/www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-43_2b35.pdf___.YXAzOmNyY2E6YzpvZmZpY2UzNjVfZW1haWxzX2F0dGFjaG1lbnQ6YjhhOWQ2MmM2OTYyMjMzYTViODE4Y2NhZmQ2NWRhYzY6Nzo0NjllOjJlYjcwMDUwNGQ0Y2Y5ODBmOGU4MjQ0MzJkYzI5MmFmNDE3YTQxNjEwOWJmMzVmMjhhMDUxZjNjZTc2ZTNjMWU6cDpGOkY">limiting women’s sports</a> to biological females. She supported extending the colorblind principle to <a href="https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/r01/___https:/www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-109_21o3.pdf___.YXAzOmNyY2E6YzpvZmZpY2UzNjVfZW1haWxzX2F0dGFjaG1lbnQ6YjhhOWQ2MmM2OTYyMjMzYTViODE4Y2NhZmQ2NWRhYzY6Nzo0MDM4OmU4OTRjNjdhMmYyMDFhNDdlNTQxODUwOWY5YThkYTI4ZTJlOGMzOTY0ZjY0NzBhOGQxNmZkZjczOTA5NmYzNDE6cDpGOkY">racial gerrymandering</a> cases.
A strong protector of the separation of powers, Barrett <a href="https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/r01/___https:/www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25-332_qn12.pdf___.YXAzOmNyY2E6YzpvZmZpY2UzNjVfZW1haWxzX2F0dGFjaG1lbnQ6YjhhOWQ2MmM2OTYyMjMzYTViODE4Y2NhZmQ2NWRhYzY6NzoxNTgwOmY5MWJjY2JiOWE4MTRlZDJiOTNhMzg4M2U4YzM1YjE1OWIxYTBlMzBmN2FiMTllOGMyMjRiMmIyYzZhZjkyYzc6cDpGOkY">defended</a> the president’s ability to fire heads of “independent” commissions — overturning a 91-year-old precedent that had <a href="https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/r01/___https:/www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/farewell-humphreys-executor/___.YXAzOmNyY2E6YzpvZmZpY2UzNjVfZW1haWxzX2F0dGFjaG1lbnQ6YjhhOWQ2MmM2OTYyMjMzYTViODE4Y2NhZmQ2NWRhYzY6Nzo3NjFhOmQxZjNiMjRlZGRmMmVmNzFkMTNhM2VhNWE2OGZjZGZjN2VjODhlNmRhYWJjY2I4ZTFhYTg2Zjk2NjJlNmY1NTE6cDpGOkY">fueled</a> the modern unaccountable administrative state — and dissented with other conservatives when the majority declined to apply the same principle to the Federal Reserve. She has also invoked the major questions doctrine to check executive overreach involving draconian <a href="https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/r01/___https:/www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-1530_n758.pdf___.YXAzOmNyY2E6YzpvZmZpY2UzNjVfZW1haWxzX2F0dGFjaG1lbnQ6YjhhOWQ2MmM2OTYyMjMzYTViODE4Y2NhZmQ2NWRhYzY6Nzo5NmQ5OmQxNWNiYjZlZWZmODVhNzAzZTA0NTAyM2M3Zjg2ZGRlYjYyNzk5M2Y3MGI4YmVhYzY3YjZjOWE2YmNlYjI5OTE6cDpGOkY">carbon mandates</a> and <a href="https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/r01/___https:/www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/22-506_nmip.pdf___.YXAzOmNyY2E6YzpvZmZpY2UzNjVfZW1haWxzX2F0dGFjaG1lbnQ6YjhhOWQ2MmM2OTYyMjMzYTViODE4Y2NhZmQ2NWRhYzY6NzozMGNmOmM4NjU5MTQ2Zjk4Y2IzZjU1Njk2MjJmMGFmMjMzZWI4NjE0YzRjN2VkNjExZWYyZTIxYTk3ODQzM2Q1YTRkMzk6cDpGOkY">student loan forgiveness</a>. Yet all these strong rulings risk being overshadowed by the online fury over Barbara, a challenging case in which originalists differed over the text and history of the Citizenship Clause. Barrett’s critics selectively ignore this term’s other textualist victories, several of which she joined on the side of immigration enforcement, including the president’s termination of Temporary Protected Status.
The major originalist and textualist victories in the six years since Barrett joined the Court seemed completely out of reach a generation ago. That is not a record of a justice, let alone a majority of the Court, slouching leftward. This is one of the greatest Courts in American history, and Justice Barrett is an instrumental part of it.
***
Carrie Severino is the President of the Judicial Crisis Network.

Senators Meet With Supreme Court Nominee Amy Coney Barrett

The Barrett ‘Betrayal’ Myth

Amy Coney Barrett

Anthony Kennedy

Antonin Scalia

Clarence Thomas

Dobbs v. Jackson

DW Opinion

Equal Protection Clause

First Amendment

Harry Blackmun

John Paul Stevens

Roe v. Wade's Long And Brutal Legacy

Sandra Day O’Connor

Second Amendment

Trump v. Barbara

President Donald Trump ordered a probe over the weekend as he said federal judges have been unduly influenced by a taxpayer-funded science organization pushing “discredited” climate activism. 
Trump lambasted the National Academy of Sciences on Sunday as he said guidebooks produced by the organization had been used to hand massive legal wins to climate activists and created “huge losses” for the country. The academy, which has received tens of millions of dollars in federal grants, has a history of publishing research closely linked to <a href="https://www.nas.org/blogs/article/the-climate-science-controversy/">climate activists</a>. 
“The National Academy of Sciences has historically published analytical Scientific Manuals expressly for our Federal Judiciary,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Of course, the Academy has been run by Radical Left Dumocrats who, it turns out, published fraudulent, biased, and misleading Manuals on Climate Change. These bogus Manuals were used by Judges to decide massive ‘Climate Change’ Cases, and have created huge losses across our Country.”
Trump added that he asked federal officials to review the details around what role manuals published by the academy had on the judiciary.  
“These Manuals have been totally DISCREDITED. Our Nation’s Federal Judges deserve Facts and Science, not Political Fraud and False Science on Climate. With this TRUTH, I hereby order Federal Suspension and Debarment Officials to review this conduct,” Trump said. “Our Taxpayers should not be funding Climate Fraud, and Judges should never have relied upon it.”
The National Academy of Sciences did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump&#8217;s post comes as the Supreme Court is set to hear arguments this year in a case that will <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/qp/25-00170qp.pdf">focus</a> on whether federal law preempts state-level claims for supposed injuries caused  by “the effects of interstate and international greenhouse-gas emissions on the global climate.” The case centers on a lawsuit by the city of Boulder, Colorado, that alleges multiple oil companies have knowingly caused harm.
In recent months, the National Academy of Sciences has frequently faced criticism from Republican officials who argue it is pushing biased science. The claims stem from a report <a href="https://www.nationalacademies.org/read/28590/chapter/3#13">released</a> earlier this month on “attribution science,” or the argument that human activity can directly impact frequency and severity of extreme weather. Additionally, its recent “Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence: Fourth Edition” contains a chapter on climate science authored in part by two leftist activists who have advocated ending the use of fossil fuels. 
The Federal Judicial Center, which co-produced the manual, removed the climate-focused chapter from its version earlier this year after scrutiny from Republican officials. 
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/1010506858/AG-Letter-To-DOT-DOW-And-DOE?utm_source=chatgpt.com">argued</a> that the manual “was designed to influence judges in multi-billion-dollar climate cases, was funded by climate litigation funders, was written by academics with little relevant scientific expertise and documented financial and institutional ties to climate litigation advocacy.”
The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/gop-officials-demand-trump-admin-suspend-funding-of-science-org-over-climate-activism">reported</a> in March that over a dozen Republican attorneys general asked the Departments of Energy, War, and Transportation to cut funding to the National Academies.
In 2024, the National Academies received $84 million in contracts or grants from the Department of Transportation, $7 million from the Department of Energy, and $33 million from the Department of War.

Spain v Argentina: Final – FIFA World Cup 2026

Trump Puts Taxpayer-Funded Org On Watch Over ‘Climate Fraud’

Climate Advocates

Climate Change

federal judge

Science

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan — nominated to the high court in 2010 by then-President Barack Obama — took a moment on Tuesday to remember the late Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and had only kind words to say about him.
Kagan recalled her confirmation process, noting specifically how strange it was for a Republican to vote in favor of her confirmation when the nominee was chosen by a Democratic president — and vice versa — and said that Graham had approached the process with &#8220;seriousness&#8221; appropriate for the situation.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Justice Elena Kagan on her 2010 confirmation hearing: &#8220;Many people have talked about how funny Senator Graham was&#8230;What I remember about that hearing was that somehow Senator Graham made me look funny, which is a harder thing entirely, by asking me what I had done on… <a href="https://t.co/U6IFdoGIwN">pic.twitter.com/U6IFdoGIwN</a>
— CSPAN (@cspan) <a href="https://x.com/cspan/status/2077039841267646902?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 14, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.x.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Kagan began by offering her condolences to Graham&#8217;s family and friends, adding that &#8220;the entire Court&#8221; wished them well.
&#8220;I&#8217;ll just say that I didn&#8217;t get many Republican votes when I was confirmed to the Supreme Court,&#8221; Kagan said with a smile, adding, &#8220;And that&#8217;s the usual state of things today.&#8221;
She went on to say that it was even more striking to see a Republican from a deep red state like South Carolina cast a cross-party vote for a nominee: &#8220;And yet, Senator Graham voted for me.&#8221;
&#8220;I vividly remember, because he was a vivid person, the conversation that we had in his office prior to my hearing,&#8221; Kagan said. &#8220;It was a long conversation; he took the opportunity to get to know me. He questioned me with great seriousness and great knowledge about my record. &#8230; And I still more vividly remember the conversations we had at my hearing itself.&#8221;
&#8220;In the last day or so, many people have talked about how funny Senator Graham was. I think Al Franken said that he was the funniest man in the Senate,&#8221; Kagan continued. &#8220;What I remember about that hearing was that somehow Senator Graham made me look funny, which is a harder thing entirely, by asking me what I had done on Christmas. &#8230; Many people said to me afterwards that exchange with Senator Graham was the moment my confirmation was sealed.&#8221;
Graham mentioned his vote for Kagan during his famous tirade at Justice <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/flashback-the-lindsey-graham-speech-that-turned-the-tide-for-brett-kavanaugh">Brett Kavanaugh&#8217;s</a> hearing. To Kavanaugh, he said, &#8220;When you see Sotomayor and Kagan, tell them that Lindsey said hello because I voted for them.&#8221;
He turned his attention back to the Democrats and said, &#8220;I would never do to them what you’ve done to this guy. This is the most unethical sham since I’ve been in politics. And if you really wanted to know the truth, you sure as hell wouldn’t have done what you’ve done to this guy.&#8221;

Kagan, Barrett To Defend Budget As Hill Tensions Simmer

Obama-Appointed Justice Has Only Kind Words For Lindsey Graham

Brett Kavanaugh

Elena Kagan

Lindsey Graham

Media

Politics

Justice Amy Coney Barrett delivered a chilling account to lawmakers on Tuesday on the threats she has faced after the infamous Dobbs leak.
Testifying before a House Appropriations subcommittee on the Supreme Court&#8217;s 2027 budget, Barrett revealed that her own children have been swept up in the wave of threats and harassment aimed at the nation&#8217;s highest court — from a bulletproof vest she had to explain to her young son to a terrifying swatting hoax that sent police cruisers swarming her street.
Roughly six weeks before her testimony, Barrett revealed, her family was targeted in a swatting attack — a false report of gunfire and yelling inside her home that sent a fleet of police cars racing to her door. One of her teenage sons opened the door to head out with friends only to find the street lined with squad cars, she said. Supreme Court police on scene were able to convince local officers that the call was a hoax before anyone tried to force entry.
Barrett said she and other justices have also received anonymous, intimidating deliveries sent under a specific name: Daniel Anderl, the slain son of federal judge Esther Salas.
Anderl, 20, was gunned down at the family&#8217;s North Brunswick, New Jersey, home in July 2020 by a gunman disguised as a FedEx courier. The shooter, lawyer Roy Den Hollander, had appeared before Salas in court and was believed to have been targeting the judge herself. Anderl answered the door and was killed instantly; his father, attorney Mark Anderl, was critically wounded. Den Hollander took his own life soon after, and investigators later discovered he&#8217;d been scoping out other female judges as potential targets.
The killing spurred passage of &#8220;Daniel&#8217;s Law&#8221; in New Jersey and the federal Daniel Anderl Judicial Security and Privacy Act, signed in December 2022, which shields judges&#8217; home addresses and personal data from public disclosure.
Barrett&#8217;s remarks also revived scrutiny of the still-unsolved Dobbs leak — the 2022 disclosure of Justice Samuel Alito&#8217;s draft opinion gutting Roe v. Wade, published by POLITICO weeks before the official ruling. The breach, the first of its kind in Court history, ignited protests outside justices&#8217; homes and led to a man&#8217;s arrest near Justice Brett Kavanaugh&#8217;s residence on attempted murder charges.
A probe that grilled nearly 100 court staffers came up empty in 2023; the FBI announced in 2025 it was reopening the case.
The leaker&#8217;s identity remains one of the Court&#8217;s most stubborn unsolved mysteries.

Barrett Tells Congress Of Chilling Threats Against Her

Death Threats

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) passed away on Saturday, and as the news circulated into the Sunday morning hours, friends and colleagues shared stories about his life and career. One moment stood out above many, however, appearing in dozens of tributes to the South Carolina lawmaker: his passionate and unwavering defense of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Graham was serving as the Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman when Kavanaugh was nominated to fill the seat vacated by retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy. He presided over the ensuing battle — which played out in a series of ugly and contentious hearings — after Democrats on the committee blindsided everyone with an 11th-hour sexual assault allegation against the nominee.
On September 27, 2018, Graham made it clear that he had had enough.
WATCH:
<div style="max-width: 728px; margin: 0 auto;"><iframe style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; max-width: 100%; width: 100%; margin: 20px auto 5px; border: 0;" src="https://player.mux.com/GJi1ZgvGyBYXXo4CA00cgBVBgJ5JZju97?metadata-video-content-type=embed_video&amp;metadata-video-id=4548b28f-7360-4c11-860c-f7349001625a&amp;metadata-video-stream-type=on-demand&amp;metadata-video-title=2026-7-12%20flashback%20Graham%20Kavanaugh%20&amp;poster=https%3A%2F%2Fdailywireplus-v2.imgix.net%2Fimages%2Fembedded-videos%2F5a77ac2e-a13e-4be8-b615-b3c4b6609b9c.jpg&amp;autoplay=false&amp;accent-color=%23DB3D3B&amp;primary-color=%23ffffff&amp;secondary-color=%23000000" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></div>
&#8220;Are you aware that at 9:23 on the night of July the 9th, the day you were nominated to the Supreme Court by President Trump, Senator Schumer said 23-minutes after your nomination, &#8216;I will oppose Judge Kavanaugh&#8217;s nomination with everything I have, I have (sic) a bipartisan — and I hope a bipartisan majority will do the same. The stakes are simply too high for anything less.&#8217; Well, if you weren&#8217;t aware of it, you are now,&#8221; Graham began his questions to Kavanaugh. &#8220;Did you meet with Senator Dianne Feinstein on August 20th?&#8221;
&#8220;I did meet with Senator Feinstein,&#8221; Kavanaugh confirmed
&#8220;Did you know that her staff had already recommended a lawyer to Dr. Ford?&#8221; Graham asked, referencing Kavanaugh&#8217;s accuser, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford.
&#8220;I did not know that,&#8221; he replied.
&#8220;Did you know that her and her staff had this — allegations for over 20 days?&#8221; Graham asked, suggesting that Feinstein had sat on the accusation until she believed it could do the most damage.
Kavanaugh said he had not been aware of that.
Turning to the Democrats on the committee, Graham unloaded both barrels: &#8220;If you wanted a FBI investigation, you could have come to us. What you want to do is destroy this guy&#8217;s life, hold this seat open and hope you win in 2020. You&#8217;ve said that, not me.&#8221;
&#8220;You&#8217;ve got nothing to apologize for,&#8221; he said to Kavanaugh.
&#8220;When you see Sotomayor and Kagan, tell them that Lindsey said hello because I voted for them,&#8221; He turned his attention back to the Democrats. &#8220;I would never do to them what you&#8217;ve done to this guy. This is the most unethical sham since I&#8217;ve been in politics. And if you really wanted to know the truth, you sure as hell wouldn&#8217;t have done what you&#8217;ve done to this guy.&#8221;
To Kavanaugh, he asked: &#8220;Are you a gang rapist?&#8221;
&#8220;No.&#8221;
&#8220;I cannot imagine what you and your family have gone through,&#8221; Graham continued.
To the Democrats, he lashed out: &#8220;Boy, you all want power. God, I hope you never get it. I hope the American people can see through this sham. That you knew about it and you held it. You had no intention of protecting Dr. Ford; none.&#8221;
&#8220;She&#8217;s as much of a victim as you are. God, I hate to say it because these have been my friends,&#8221; he said to Kavanaugh. &#8220;But let me tell you, when it comes to this, you&#8217;re looking for a fair process? You came to the wrong town at the wrong time, my friend. Do you consider this a job interview? &#8230; Do you consider that you&#8217;ve been through a job interview?&#8221;
&#8220;I&#8217;ve been through a process of advice and consent under the Constitution, which &#8230;&#8221; Kavanaugh began, but Graham interrupted.
&#8220;Would you say you&#8217;ve been through hell?&#8221;
&#8220;I — I&#8217;ve been through hell and then some,&#8221; Kavanaugh conceded.
&#8220;This is not a job interview,&#8221; Graham said. &#8220;This is hell.&#8221;
&#8220;This — this &#8230;&#8221; Kavanaugh struggled for the right words.
&#8220;This is going to destroy the ability of good people to come forward because of this crap. Your high school yearbook — you have interacted with professional women all your life, not one accusation,&#8221; Graham continued. &#8220;You&#8217;re supposed to be Bill Cosby when you&#8217;re a junior and senior in high school. And all of a sudden, you got over it. It&#8217;s been my understanding that if you drug women and rape them for two years in high school, you probably don&#8217;t stop.&#8221;
&#8220;Here&#8217;s my understanding, if you lived a good life people would recognize it, like the American Bar Association has, the gold standard. His integrity is absolutely unquestioned. He is the very circumspect in his personal conduct, harbors no biases or prejudices. He&#8217;s entirely ethical, is a really decent person. He is warm, friendly, unassuming. He&#8217;s the nicest person — the ABA,&#8221; Graham continued. &#8220;The one thing I can tell you should be proud of — Ashley, you should be proud of this — that you raised a daughter who had the good character to pray for Dr. Ford.&#8221;
Graham then turned his ire on his own party, warning them not to fall prey to the spectacle being put on for them: &#8220;To my Republican colleagues, if you vote no, you&#8217;re legitimizing the most despicable thing I have seen in my time in politics. You want this seat? I hope you never get it.&#8221;
&#8220;I hope you&#8217;re on the Supreme Court, that&#8217;s exactly where you should be,&#8221; he said to Kavanaugh. &#8220;And I hope that the American people will see through this charade. And I wish you well. And I intend to vote for you and I hope everybody who&#8217;s fair-minded will.&#8221;
Graham&#8217;s position — and his outrage — were abundantly clear, but throughout the process he was still able to keep his legendary sense of humor. During one hallway chat with reporters, for example, a protester interrupted the gaggle and called for Kavanaugh to take a polygraph.
&#8220;You&#8217;ve humiliated this guy enough, and there seems to be no bottom for some of you,&#8221; Graham said of Kavanaugh — and the ongoing witch hunt targeting him — a woman behind him interrupted to demand the Supreme Court nominee take a polygraph.
Without turning to acknowledge her, Graham quipped, &#8220;Why don&#8217;t we dunk him in water and see if he floats?&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Never forget Lindsey Graham’s amazing sense of humor—during the heated Kavanaugh confirmation fight:
Protester: Kavanaugh should take a polygraph.
Sen. Lindsey Graham: &#8220;Why don&#8217;t we dunk him in water and see if he floats?&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/ynTRuOavho">pic.twitter.com/ynTRuOavho</a>
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) <a href="https://x.com/SteveGuest/status/2076268089595900108?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 12, 2026</a></blockquote>
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Dr. Christine Blasey Ford And Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh Testify To Senate Judiciary Committee

FLASHBACK: The Lindsey Graham Speech That Turned The Tide For Brett Kavanaugh

Judiciary

Donald Trump says he will “immediately” ask the Supreme Court to rehear the birthright citizenship case, calling the ruling a &#8220;miscarriage of justice.&#8221; 
In a Truth Social <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116886461770041376">post</a> on Wednesday, the president wrote, &#8220;I will be asking for a Rehearing by the United States Supreme Court, IMMEDIATELY. This miscarriage of justice will destroy America if they don’t change their absolutely insane decision.&#8221;
The Supreme Court <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/supreme-court-rules-against-trump-in-birthright-citizenship-case">ruled in June</a> that children born in the United States are subject to its jurisdiction and are citizens at birth. “Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights — to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land,&#8217;” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. “We keep that promise today.”
Trump’s <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/08/trump-supreme-court-birthright-citizenship-rehearing.html">executive order</a>, signed on January 20, 2025, aimed to eliminate immediate birthright citizenship for children whose parents are illegal immigrants or who are living in the U.S. on temporary visas. The Supreme Court ruled that birthright citizenship is protected by the 14th Amendment. 

Trump&#8217;s post followed viral images of a <a href="https://x.com/nicksortor/status/2074973721853567201?s=20">billboard</a> near the border advertising &#8220;birth packages in South Texas,&#8221; which directed viewers to the website “<a href="http://havemybabyintexas.com/">havemybabyinTEXAS.com</a>.”
“Signs and Billboards are being put up all over our Southern Border, and Mexico, advertising BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP, with ‘Deliveries starting at $4000,’” Trump said. “Billions of Dollars will be illegally made by this SCAM, with Citizenship going to anyone willing to pay.”
The <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/family/family-of-us-citizens/bringing-parents-to-live-in-the-united-states-as-permanent-residents">law</a> also permits the entire families of these citizens into the nation, something Trump asserted is “not sustainable.” 
The Supreme Court has not granted a rehearing in an argued case since 1965. It has reversed itself on rehearing only once, in a 1957 <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/354/1/">case</a> over the court-martial of two American civilians overseas.
Trump’s move is a long shot, but many on the Right argue it&#8217;s necessary to advance the President&#8217;s immigration agenda. D. John Sauer, the 49th Solicitor General of the United States, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/01/trump-birth-tourism-supreme-court">said</a> that “no one knows for sure” how rampant birth tourism is. The Center for Immigration Studies said that there are 20,000 to 26,000 births by women on tourist visas annually.

Supreme Court Backs Birthright Citizenship In Blow To Trump

Trump Refuses To Let Birthright Citizenship Fight End

birth tourism

birthright citizenship

Joking with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) at the White House on Monday, President Donald Trump was asked whether Cruz belonged on the Supreme Court.
Trump stated, “In fact, somebody said, ‘Would you ever appoint him to the United States Supreme Court, because he’s a brilliant lawyer, Ted?’ I said, “Well, he’s the only one I can think of that&#8217;s gonna get 100 votes. All Republicans will vote for him. All Democrats will vote for him, because they want to get him the hell out of the Senate!’ If I was having a hard time with getting the votes I would appoint Ted Cruz, I’d get 100%. Guaranteed.”
The truth is no laughing matter.
Although Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito are rock-ribbed originalists and staunchly conservative, Thomas turned 78 in June, and Alito is 76. If Trump wants to preserve the Court&#8217;s conservative stamp, he may need to find replacements for one or both before leaving office. With the GOP holding only 53 Senate seats, the majority could easily evaporate.
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Donald Trump: If I appointed Ted Cruz to the Supreme Court, he&#39;d get 100 votes.
&quot;He&#39;s the ONLY ONE I can think of that&#39;s gonna get 100 votes.&quot;
&quot;ALL Republicans will vote for him. ALL Democrats will vote for him, because they want to get him the hell out of the Senate!&quot; <a href="https://t.co/Y8hvrzp3LS">pic.twitter.com/Y8hvrzp3LS</a>
&mdash; Townhall.com (@townhallcom) <a href="https://x.com/townhallcom/status/2074128308816490598?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 6, 2026</a></blockquote>
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&nbsp;
Cruz, the first Hispanic senator from Texas, graduated from Princeton University before earning his Juris Doctor from Harvard. After serving as a policy advisor in the George W. Bush administration, he was appointed by then-Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott as the state’s solicitor general, a role he held until 2008. Cruz worked in private practice until winning his Senate seat in 2012, then winning reelection in 2018 and 2024.
During his tenure as Solicitor General, Cruz successfully defended the Ten Commandments placed on the Texas State Capitol grounds and successfully defended Texas against reopening the cases of 51 Mexican nationals who were convicted of murder in the United States.
In September 2020, after President Trump named him to a group of potential Supreme Court nominees, Cruz was <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2020/09/14/ted-cruz-supreme-court/">asked</a> by Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo, “Do you want the job?”
“I don’t,” Cruz replied. “It is deeply honoring, it’s humbling to be included in the list … but it’s not the desire of my heart. I want to be in the political fight.”
In 2016, he also <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2016/05/13/cruz-not-interested-us-supreme-court/">dismissed the idea</a>, saying, “That is not a desire of my heart. I am committed to the fight of ensuring we have strong principled constitutionalists on the court, but I believe that I can do a great more good fighting across the political spectrum.”

Pam Bondi Swears In Kash Patel As FBI Director

Why Donald Trump Says Ted Cruz Would Be Easiest Supreme Court Nominee

Congress

Executive

SCOTUS

Ted Cruz

Every Supreme Court term produces headlines. This one produced structural change — the kind that will shape how power works in Washington, D.C., in statehouses, and in your own community for years to come.
Start with the case that mattered most: Trump v. Slaughter. For 90 years, Congress could shield the heads of “independent” agencies — the Federal Trade Commission, and by extension dozens of similar bodies — from being fired by the president except for cause. The Court ended that, ruling that if an official exercises the president’s executive power, the president can remove him. In practice, that means voters who elect a president now have more say over the sprawling bureaucracy that regulates everything from consumer products to labor disputes, rather than leaving that power with unelected commissioners serving staggered terms.
A companion case, Trump v. Cook, carved out an exception for the Federal Reserve — Fed governors can be fired only for cause, a 5-4 compromise that Justice Barrett, in dissent, called out as arbitrary and going beyond what the Court needed to decide the case.
Women’s sports had one of their best days ever at the Court. In cases out of West Virginia and Idaho, all nine justices agreed that Title IX — the law that opened the door to girls’ athletics in the first place — doesn’t force states to let biological males compete on girls’ teams. A narrower 6-3 majority held that constitutional equal protection likewise allows states to protect female athletes. That means the 27 states that already protect single-sex sports are on solid legal ground, and cases are already wending their way to the Supreme Court asking whether equal protection and Title IX actually require the other 23 states to do so.
The Second Amendment kept winning, too. In Wolford v. Lopez, the Court struck down a Hawaii law that weaponized trespass law against concealed-carry permit holders: Instead of assuming that a valid permit holder could enter a business with his weapon unless told otherwise, Hawaii required businesses to explicitly invite him in first. The Court said that the law effectively criminalized ordinary daily life for lawful gun owners — a ruling that should also doom copycat laws in California and other blue states. In a separate case, the justices unanimously held that the government can’t strip someone’s gun rights merely because he’s an occasional marijuana user, absent any sign he’s actually dangerous.
The First Amendment had an outstanding term as well. The Court struck down Colorado’s ban on “conversion therapy” counseling, ruling that a state can’t let therapists affirm a client’s gender identity while banning them from helping a client move the other direction — that’s the government picking sides on a viewpoint, not regulating conduct.
Elsewhere, the Court protected a New Jersey pregnancy center’s right to keep its donor list private from a hostile state subpoena, and struck down limits on how much political parties can coordinate spending with their own candidates. The campaign finance ruling is the latest in a series of cases reaffirming that free speech includes the right to political speech, and it will likely shift fundraising and election spending back to the parties and away from outside groups and Super PACs.
The term also delivered a landmark election law decision: Louisiana v. Callais. The Court held that a Voting Rights Act lawsuit can’t succeed just by pointing to a correlation between race and party in a district — plaintiffs now need real evidence of intentional discrimination. The Court put that reasoning to work almost immediately in an emergency order reinstating Alabama’s congressional map, an order that invoked the “colorblind Constitution” — language borrowed from the first Justice Harlan’s dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson, and now, for the first time, adopted by a majority. In practice, this makes it harder to scurrilously repackage partisan gerrymandering claims with racial language. One disappointment: the Court left in place the counting of late-arriving mail ballots, though it noted Congress could set a firmer national rule if it chose to.
Immigration cases mostly went the government’s way, with the Court reading several statutes in commonsense, textualist terms — including a ruling that someone who is stopped at the border hasn’t yet “arrived in” the country, reaffirming that courts can’t second-guess the president’s determination not to exempt Haitian and Syrian immigrants from removal, and another making it easier to remove green-card holders who commit serious crimes. The exception was the birthright citizenship case, where the majority applied the traditional, broad meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause to cover the U.S.-born children of both illegal immigrants and temporary visitors. As an originalist matter, it was a difficult case, with both sides grappling with the historical evidence. Justice Thomas’s 91-page dissent masterfully presented a narrower view of the Clause, but even the dissenters concluded that the president’s executive order likely went further than the Constitution permits.
On the business side, the Court made it harder for trial lawyers to drag oil companies into friendly state courts over decades-old wartime production, ruling that those suits belong in federal court — a real check on the climate-litigation industry that’s grown up around this kind of lawsuit.
Not every case broke along predictable lines. In a dispute over the president’s tariff powers, originalist justices ended up on both sides — a useful reminder that originalism is a method, not a rubber stamp, and methods sometimes produce results conservatives don’t love.
The term produced a few decisions that disappointed the president or conservatives, but, taken as a whole, it stands as one of the most significant terms in memory for bringing the Court back to an originalist understanding of the Constitution. Presidential removal power, women’s sports, the First and Second Amendments, immigration enforcement, climate and election litigation abuse — the Court engaged all of it and got the lion’s share right. That’s not a disappointing term. That’s a historic one.
***
Carrie Severino is the president of the Judicial Crisis Network. Follow her on X <a href="https://www.twitter.com/@JCNSeverino">@JCNSeverino</a>

US-JUSTICE-SUPREME-COURT-GROUP-PHOTO

The Supreme Court Term That Handed Originalists One Of Their Best Years Yet

Election Laws

executive power

Louisiana v. Callais

Trump v. Cook

Trump v. Slaughter

Wolford v. Lopez

Dismantling The Disastrous ‘Birthright Citizenship’ Decision

Samuel Alito

Yesterday, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld birthright citizenship, which was a legal abomination. But that does not mean that America is doomed to a future of open immigration.
To understand what we can and should do, we have to understand what went wrong with immigration in the United States.
The answer is not Supreme Court decisions. What went wrong with immigration in the United States was the elected branches of government: legislative and executive policy.
Over the decades, our legislators and presidents have let in tens of millions of people who should not be in the country. That needs to stop, and some of it needs to be reversed.
So let&#8217;s start with a question: if we want to understand America&#8217;s immigration policy, where exactly do you think it broke down?
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ben-shapiro-show-ep-2457?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-981859" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner.avif" alt="" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner.avif 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/10/ben-banner-768x128.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
The percentage of immigrants of the total U.S. population from 1850 to essentially 1930 was well north of 10%, quite high.
Very few people think about immigration in that period as breaking America. It obviously created significant social problems, but nobody tends to think of that period in American life between 1850 and 1930 as a time that wrecked what America was.
And then the share of immigrants in the U.S. population dropped sharply between 1930 and essentially 1970. Then it spiked again.
If you look at the immigrant share of the U.S. population, it was 9.7% in 1850. In 1890, it rose to almost 15%. People don&#8217;t tend to think of this as a bad time for America because of immigration. Yes, there were social concerns, but overall, in retrospect, we don&#8217;t see this as a time when America was “being hollowed out.”
From 1930 onward, that percentage declined sharply from well north of 10% to 4.7% in 1970. And now it has spiked up again to roughly 14% as of 2022.
So what changed? We tend to think of immigration as a massive problem, but we didn’t think of immigration as a massive problem in 1900 when the percentage was about the same.
We need a quick history lesson here on the nature of American immigration. What changed is the nature of American immigration, not the sheer number.
America is a land of people who came to settle an unsettled wilderness, and they came from Europe, in large measure. There were no welfare programs. They didn&#8217;t come here to take advantage of existing welfare programs.
In 1850, the top five foreign-born populations were Ireland, Germany, the U.K., Canada, and France.
Move forward to 1880, and you can see that the pattern remains the same, except for massive Chinese immigration to the West Coast. But even that massive Chinese immigration to the West Coast was not in the top five in terms of foreign-born population. In 1880, when a substantial percentage of Americans were immigrants, the top five foreign-born populations were Germany, Ireland, the U.K., Canada, and Sweden.
Move forward again: 1910. In 1910, the top five foreign-born populations were Germany, Russia, Ireland, Italy, and the U.K. — still mostly European immigrants.
Move forward to 1990: Things have shifted quite a bit. It turns out that number one with a bullet is Mexico. A huge, huge percentage of immigrants were now coming from Mexico. In 1990, 4.26 million immigrants were from Mexico. The next highest number was 910,000 people from the Philippines.
You may notice that neither of those countries is European.
740,000 from Canada, 740,000 from Cuba. Germany clocked in at a very low number five.
So the source of the immigration had radically shifted.
Now move forward to 2022. What you can see is that the entire country was blanketed with immigrants from India, China, the Philippines, El Salvador, and Mexico. In 2022, the top five foreign-born populations by country of origin were: 10.6 million immigrants from Mexico, 2.83 million immigrants from India, 2.23 million from China, 2.01 million from the Philippines, and 1.42 million from El Salvador.
That is a giant shift in the nature of the places people are coming from. To pretend that gigantic numbers of Mexican immigrants are going to be the same as gigantic numbers of German, Irish, or British immigrants is silly. The same thing for India, the same thing for China.
That is not a case against any individual immigrant. It is just a fact. When you import large numbers of people from cultures that don&#8217;t cohere with the core culture of the United States — which is an English/Protestant culture from the beginning — then it&#8217;s going to be harder to integrate those people.
Add to that the fact that from the very beginning, our immigration programs were rooted in the idea that there was no welfare; you came here for the adventure. You came here because you wanted a better life, not because you wanted welfare benefits.
Once you add welfare benefits on top, the kinds of people who are coming here change.
This is the difference between opening a Michelin-star bakery — where your clientele is going to be a certain type of person — and opening a donut shop, and you put in the window “free donut”: there will be a different type of person who shows up to the donut shop.
If you look at the history of American immigration, you can see why there was a gigantic wave of immigration and then a dip: congressional action.
It is not as though Congress has not acted before. In 1882, Congress passed what was called the Chinese Exclusion Act. In 1880, China was the number one source of immigration, raising concerns in Congress. Thus, in 1882, they passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which actually barred Chinese laborers from entering the United States for 10 years and was later extended to bar Chinese immigrants from naturalization entirely.
By 1910, there was an incredible uptick in immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. So the Immigration Act of 1917 was passed, creating a barred zone extending from the Middle East to Southeast Asia, from which no immigrants were permitted, and instituting literacy tests for people entering the country.
In 1921, the Emergency Quota Act was the first federal law to set numerical limits on immigration. The goal was to keep people coming in at very low levels from countries we had already allowed entry.
In 1924, the National Origins Act, the Immigration Act, tightened it still further, intentionally barring immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, and banning virtually all immigration from Asia. You see a giant drop in the share of immigrants in the American population between then and essentially 1965.
And then something seminal happened: the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, which radically changed the nature of immigration in the United States. We went from a bunch of European immigrants to a bunch of immigrants from places like El Salvador, Mexico, China, and the Philippines, etc.
That act was pushed by Senator Ted Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson and repealed the quota system entirely. That meant a radical uptick of immigrants from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and South America. It had a no-discrimination clause that said no person could be discriminated against in the issuance of any visa because of race, sex, nationality, place of birth, or residence.
Previously, we had two types of visas: permanent and temporary. We had limits on temporary visas. But that was jettisoned under the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act.
It also created a seven-tiered preference system designed to reunify families of U.S. citizens and legal residents. This created massive illegal immigration because there was a cap that was placed on Western Hemisphere immigration, but there was no guest worker program. Instead, people started crossing the border en masse and just staying.
Add on top of that the gigantic welfare systems that were created by LBJ&#8217;s Great Society programs and the accessibility of those welfare systems to illegal immigrants, and you get the free donut shop, where you have people coming across the border because the benefits here are great. You&#8217;ll not just get a better job; you will also have access to American systems.
Everyone wants to get in; the United States is a great place.
But you will draw a different type of clientele depending on whether you&#8217;re the free donut shop or the Michelin-star restaurant.
When you change the math, when you pay people, when you give them free money so they don&#8217;t have to integrate, they don&#8217;t have to assimilate by nature, and you change the system pretending that all cultures are equally capable of mass migration to the United States, you end up with the current system of immigration in the United States.
You&#8217;ll notice that throughout this litany of immigration history, the vast majority of this action is either bad congressional or presidential action — such as Joe Biden opening the border and widely refusing to enforce immigration law — or judicial actions that are likely reversible at the Supreme Court level today.
So what is the solution? 
Number one, you can enforce immigration law; it is the job of the executive branch. You don&#8217;t need an invalidation of birthright citizenship in order to enforce immigration laws. It is illegal to immigrate illegally.
Number two, you can get rid of the possibility of government dependency for illegal immigrants: the job of the legislature and the judiciary.
Number three, start by enforcing immigration laws. Our enforcement mechanisms on temporary visas need to be significantly stronger. When it comes to visa tests for permanent visas, we&#8217;d have to screen more carefully.
You&#8217;d have to share our values, come from a system that shares them, and be able to prove it. If you&#8217;re coming from a place where you can&#8217;t prove it, you shouldn&#8217;t get in. You have to show that you&#8217;re going to be of net economic benefit to the United States, that you&#8217;re not going to be a welfare draw.
When it comes to temporary visas, we would boot people as soon as the temporary visa has expired; we would actually follow up, which we don&#8217;t do right now. We would shut the border. We would start deporting people who are in the country illegally and are welfare-dependent or are engaged in illegal activity of any sort.
We can crack down on birth tourism, which was the key issue with regard to birthright citizenship. We can criminalize people who come to the U.S. through birth tourism networks.
Then there&#8217;s welfare. If you&#8217;re going to come in and be on welfare, you should not be able to come in. If you&#8217;re on welfare, you should be in line to get the boot again. We do not require congressional action here.
The worst thing you can do is black-pill, because that removes responsibility from the executive and the legislature, saying, “The judiciary blew it for us; there’s nothing we can do. I guess we&#8217;re screwed now.”
That&#8217;s not helpful.
But the most important thing is that the Supreme Court&#8217;s ruling yesterday did not change the existing state of the law. They simply didn&#8217;t do the right thing — which sucks, it&#8217;s a blown opportunity — but the answers are still there.
For conservatives and Republicans, immigration remains a winning issue because it is not that Democrats are so in love with the concept of birthright citizenship; it is that they are in favor of open borders.
Congress can do something, and congressional and executive policy can do something.
Democrats are celebrating because they want birthright citizenship to be the basis of mass migration.
But there’s a lot we can do about it.

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