The Supreme Court is ready to kick off the “Trump term,” with the justices on Monday opening a session in which they will grapple squarely with questions about President Trump’s aggressive first-year agenda and the limits of executive power.

Cases about presidential firing powers and tariffs are already on the docket, and other cases about immigration and spending powers are speeding their way to the court.

Those join what was already shaping up to be a monumental term for the justices, with three cases that could determine the scope of transgender rights and a voting rights dispute that could see the court deliver a final word on whether the Constitution is color-blind or demands special consideration for historically oppressed minorities.

The justices have been dealing with Trump executive actions over the last nine months in preliminary rulings, and the president has done exceptionally well on what’s known as the emergency docket.

But now the cases will be firmly before the court, fully briefed and argued, and ready for rulings that will shape the contours of the American presidency for decades to come.

“This is the Trump term,” said Josh Blackman, professor at South Texas College of Law. “So many of the Trump cases that came to the Court on the emergency docket will now need to be resolved on the merits docket.”

The first major test comes on Nov. 5, when the court takes up a case challenging Mr. Trump’s wide-ranging tariffs.

The president says he’s acting with authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which allows him to impose customs and duties. He says that includes tariffs, but lower courts have questioned that, saying the word “tariff” doesn’t appear anywhere in the law.

A president’s power to fire at will is also on the line in a pair of cases.

One, scheduled for oral arguments in January, will test whether Mr. Trump’s attempt to fire a member of the Federal Reserve Board for cause was valid. The other could overturn a 90-year-old precedent and grant Mr. Trump wide-ranging latitude to fire members of independent agencies for disagreeing with his policies.

The justices have already ruled in emergency docket cases, allowing him to carry out firings of members at the National Labor Relations Board, the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Federal Trade Commission. But those were interim rulings that froze things in place while the cases developed in lower courts.

Now the justices have agreed to hear the FTC firing case in full.

In a 1935 case known as Humphrey’s Executor, the court ruled that then-President Franklin Roosevelt broke the law by firing an FTC member over policy differences.

Mr. Trump has also asked the justices to overturn a court decision blocking his attempt to limit birthright citizenship for babies born to illegal immigrants. And a series of immigration arrest and deportation cases and federal spending cases are also winding their way to the justices’ docket.

“It is fair to say that litigation over the administration’s executive orders is going to be a major part of this term,” said Daniel Sullivan, a partner at Holwell Shuster & Goldberg LLP and a former clerk to the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

Carolyn Shapiro, a professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law, said the justices will firm up the rest of the term’s calendar in several months, which will show just how Trump-centric the term will be.

“We don’t know what all of those cases will look like,” said Ms. Shapiro. “Usually, I would think by December — maybe the very beginning of January — is usually when they are done granting cases that will be argued during the term.”

Transgender and voting rights

The court’s 2025-2026 term kicks off Monday with lower-profile oral arguments for a case involving defendants’ ability to discuss their case with their lawyers and another involving judicial rules for dismissing complaints.

The first transgender case begins Tuesday: A Christian licensed counselor is challenging Colorado’s rules forbidding “conversion therapy” for transgender minors, saying it violates her free speech rights.

Next week the court will hear the voting rights case, which grew out of Louisiana’s attempt to draw congressional maps. Its first map after the 2020 census only included one majority-Black district out of six.

Prodded by Black voters, a federal court ruled that was too skimpy, given the state’s population, which is 34% Black. The court said that violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which courts have cited to prod states to maximize Black voting power.

Louisiana redrew its lines to create two majority-Black districts, which is the current map. Non-Black voters in the state then challenged the map, saying the Legislature was too focused on race.

The case came to the high court last term, but the justices delayed a ruling and ordered a rehearing this term — and specifically ordered all sides to file briefs on whether focusing so heavily on minority voting power violates the 14th or 15th Amendments to the Constitution.

Depending on how the case plays out, it could directly challenge a key part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, known as Section 2. That part pushes states to maximize minorities’ voting power as a way of making up for past oppression.

Justice Clarence Thomas, the court’s senior jurist and one of its two Black members, said it’s impossible to square the favored treatment of minority voters required by the Voting Rights Act with the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

When the court announced it would rehear the case, he urged his colleagues to settle the matter — and side with the Constitution.

“I am hopeful that this court will soon realize that the conflict its Section 2 jurisprudence has sown with the Constitution is too severe to ignore,” Justice Thomas wrote.

The justices have another election-related case in a challenge to campaign finance limits.

Current law limits how much political committees can directly coordinate with candidates’ campaigns for office. The National Republican Senatorial Committee says that’s a violation of the First Amendment.

The court has a death penalty case on its docket in which it will weigh the factors that judges can consider in deciding when a convict’s IQ is so low that carrying out an execution would violate the Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

In addition to the conversion therapy case, the high court will review Idaho and West Virginia laws barring transgender athletes from competing outside of their biological sex.

Lower courts have blocked the laws, arguing they discriminate against transgender athletes, violating the Equal Protection Clause.

Roughly two dozen states have laws restricting transgender athletes’ participation in girls’ sports.

Decisions in the cases are expected by the end of June, when the justices wrap up their in-person work for the 2025-2026 term.

• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.

• Alex Swoyer can be reached at aswoyer@washingtontimes.com.