With Congress in the hands of the president's party, the federal courts have become the place where almost every act of this administration is tested. Several hundred lawsuits have been filed against it since January 2025. Trial judges have stopped many of its orders; the Supreme Court has let some of those orders proceed and struck down others. The administration says judges are governing in its place. Its opponents say the courts are the last institution still able to tell this president no.
The wider conflict and each side's full account: America's conflict over presidential power.
Where it stands · September 2026
In September 2026 the Supreme Court allowed construction of the president's White House ballroom to continue. A US judge blocked the administration's latest bid to limit birthright citizenship. The Missouri Supreme Court blocked a US House map backed by the president and ordered it put to a vote. The Supreme Court blocked the administration's mail ballot restrictions before the midterms, allowed use of a voter citizenship database, and lifted limits on third-country deportations.
What the dispute is about
How far one judge reaches. Any of some seven hundred federal trial judges can suspend a national policy, and plaintiffs choose where to sue. In 2025 the Supreme Court narrowed that power; judges have since used class actions and suits by states to similar effect.
What a president may do alone. Tariffs by emergency decree, ending citizenship by birth, dismissing officials whom the law protects, withholding money Congress voted: each rests on a claim that the constitution or an old statute gives the president the power, and each has gone to the Supreme Court.
Whether rulings are obeyed. Courts command no force. The system works only if the government complies when it loses. It says it does. Several judges have found that it did not.
