The Term the Court Stopped Pretending

The Term the Court Stopped Pretending

From Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts by Slate Podcasts

July 11, 2026 · 1h 1m

About this episode

The episode discusses the recent consequential term of the Supreme Court and its implications for Congress and judicial power.

The Supreme Court just wrapped one of its most consequential terms in decades—and Amicus brought together three heavyweight legal experts to break down the damage. Their conversation centers on the biggest themes of the recent term: Congress has been sidelined completely; the Court is the final arbiter of all things; hubris has become the methodology, and the midterms should worry us all.   Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern are joined by civil rights lawyer Sherrilyn Ifill, legal historian Nikolas Bowie, and Supreme Court expert Stephen Vladeck. The panel dissects a term defined by judicial supremacy: the gutting of the Voting Rights Act in Callais and Milligan , the “unitary executive” power grab in Trump v. Slaughter , the birthright citizenship fight that never should have been argued, and a shadow docket that increasingly infects the merits docket. They trace how the court has hollowed out Congress' power to legislate, rewritten the meaning of the Reconstruction Amendments, and applied its own rules with striking inconsistency—all while shrugging off any need to justify itself. The conversation closes with a hard question: What can actually be done about a court…

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