SCOTUS, US judiciary, DOJ, and Justice September 2026-

1-3 October
The Supreme Court will hear a major climate change case involving a devastating Colorado wildfire
(AP) … The case is part of a wave of climate change litigation across the country and the world, with billions of dollars at stake. On Monday, the first day of the Supreme Court’s new term, the justices will hear the Boulder case that could decide the fate of others like it.
The city and county of Boulder first sued two oil companies in 2018, years before the fire. They argued that Suncor Energy and ExxonMobil had violated state law by deceiving the public about their contributions to climate change and sought unspecified damages to help cover the cost of worsening disasters.
… Climate change was considered a factor in the 2021 Marshall Fire…, after the county’s suit was originally filed. The total damage was estimated at $2 billion. It was the costliest wildfire in Colorado history.
Trump’s Supreme Court grievance grows as new term looms
The president regularly rails at the justices, who may soon referee fights between him and a Democratic Congress.
BY JOSH GERSTEIN
(Politico) … Trump is lashing out at the court more often on social media, not only bemoaning his most recent losses but linking them together to fuel a sense that the justices are a lost cause
When the court voted 7-2 last month to block Trump’s proposed new limits on mail-in voting, he said he viewed the defeat as just one in a series of Supreme Court affronts.
… Trump was particularly steamed at his three appointees — Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — for the occasions on which he believes they betrayed him.
… Fights over Trump’s controversial pet projects, like a potential Kennedy Center renovation and the construction of a triumphal arch near Arlington National Cemetery, are simmering in the lower courts and could make their way to the justices in the next year.
Perhaps even more critical for Trump, depending on the outcome of next month’s midterms, are potential showdowns with congressional Democrats who are vowing to conduct aggressive oversight of the administration — subpoenaing witnesses, demanding documents and threatening legal consequences for non-compliance. Those battles have historically been a slog in the courts, but could also wind up before the justices.

Justice Alito confirms he is considering retirement
The conservative Supreme Court justice said in a CBS News interview that he’ll revisit the issue next year.
(Politico) Alito’s interview, the first in a number of expected appearances to coincide with the release of a book about his judicial philosophy, raises the possibility that Trump, whose judicial picks shifted the Supreme Court to the right, may get an opportunity to nominate a fourth justice.
The president, who expressed regret in a recent interview about several nominees who ruled against his administration on some issues, would have a harder time getting a fourth pick through the Senate if Democrats win control in the midterms.

14-15 September
Trump slams his own Supreme Court appointees over mail ballot ruling
“These are not the people I interviewed,” the president fumed on social media, portraying the ruling as a personal betrayal.
(WaPo) President Donald Trump on Tuesday blasted the Supreme Court justices he appointed after they ruled against him on mail ballots, tariffs and birthright citizenship, portraying their decisions as a personal betrayal. … Although Trump blamed all three of his appointees for ruling against him, the court’s ruling did not specify a vote count, leaving some question about precisely how many justices were in the majority.

Supreme Court Rejects Trump’s Restrictions on Voting by Mail
The ruling is a major loss for the Trump administration, which wanted to dramatically change how Americans vote by mail in the midterm elections.
(NYT) The Supreme Court on Monday blocked a Trump administration plan to dramatically change how Americans vote by mail in the lead-up to the midterm elections, a major loss for President Trump, who has long claimed without evidence that fraud is rampant in mail voting.
The ruling was a resounding win for Democratic-led states and voting rights groups, which had argued that the plan was unconstitutional and an existential threat to the democratic process.
… Monday’s order was the second time in less than a month that the Supreme Court had weighed in on Trump’s mail-in ballot restrictions. In late August, the justices said President Trump could proceed with implementing his executive order. The challengers, they said, could not demonstrate sufficient harm because the voting rules had not yet taken effect. At the time, the justices cautioned that their order was preliminary and not a final decision about whether the president’s order “will necessarily be lawful.” The majority added: “On that score, time will tell.” In August, it was the three liberal justices in the dissent with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warning of “chaos and uncertainty” in the upcoming election. For more coverage of the court’s initial handling of the case
… Only two justices noted their dissent from the order blocking Trump’s restrictions. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, two of the court’s most conservative justices, said they would have granted the administration’s request to allow the new rules to take effect.
In his nearly eight-page dissent, Justice Samuel Alito cited the Postal Service’s broad authority to regulate the mail. He said the administration’s new rules appear similar to other requirements for sending mail such as listing a recipient’s address and affixing stamps. In siding with the administration, he said the government has “a strong interest in enforcing the rule, and implementing it will also ‘enhance the visibility of Federal Ballot Mail’ in order to better detect election fraud.” Justice Alito acknowledged the states’ practical concerns about implementing the rules so close to the midterm elections. “I take that problem very seriously, but it is not enough to convince me to deny the application,” he wrote, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas.
The court’s brief order blocking the Trump administration’s mail-in ballot restrictions included little reasoning, stating only that the government is “unlikely to succeed on the merits” of its challenge to a lower-court ruling. But Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh provided some explanation for his decision to join the majority citing the fast-approaching November election. In a one-paragraph concurrence, the justice said there is “at least a fair prospect” that the Postal Service has the authority to eventually carry out the new rules. But he said applying those rules in the 2026 election would be “arbitrary and capricious” because state and local election officials “do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule before the elections.”