Politics

By Bo Erickson and Costas Pitas

June 29 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social on Monday that he would nominate Keith Sonderling, who is acting labor secretary, to take on the role permanently, which would require Senate approval.

“Throughout his career, Keith has proven his dedication to delivering strong results for the Hardworking People of our Country, and I know he will do an incredible job in his new role,” Trump said in the social media post.

Sonderling has been acting labor leader since April after then-Secretary ‌Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned amid allegations of misconduct at the department.

Sonderling has held several roles in the federal government, including in Trump’s first term. Last year, Trump tapped Sonderling from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to be the Labor Department’s chief operating officer.

Sonderling was confirmed for his deputy position by the Republican-controlled Senate in a 53-46 vote.

(Reporting by Costas Pitas and Bo Erickson; Editing by Caitlin Webber)

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By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON, June 29 (Reuters) – The U.S. Education Department said on Monday it was finalizing new federal student loan rules that would tie schools’ federal loan access to the earning power of graduates, marking the Trump administration’s latest pressure on colleges and universities.

“Under the new Student Tuition and Transparency System (STATS) and Earnings Accountability rule, undergraduate programs will be required to demonstrate that their graduates earn more than the typical high school diploma holder, and graduate programs will be required to demonstrate that their graduates earn more than the typical bachelor’s degree holder,” the Education Department said in a statement. 

“If a program fails to show at least this modest financial return on investment for its graduates in two out of three consecutive award years, it will lose eligibility to participate in the federal Direct Loan program,” it said.

The final rule will be published on July 1, the Education Department said, adding that 2027 will be the first year that schools will be held responsible for meeting the earnings thresholds.

“After three years of consistently failing the earnings premium measure, the Department could also terminate eligibility for Title IV of the Higher Education Act (HEA), including Pell Grant eligibility, for all of an institution’s low-earning outcome programs,” the Education Department said.

The finalization of the new set of lending requirements was reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.

President Donald Trump has cracked down on top educational institutions and attempted to freeze federal funding for universities and colleges over a range of issues.

These include pro-Palestinian protests against U.S. ally Israel’s assault on Gaza, transgender policies, climate initiatives and diversity programs.

Trump particularly alleges pro-Palestinian protests at universities were antisemitic and supported extremist groups.

Protesters, including some Jewish groups, say the government wrongly conflates criticism of Israel’s assault on Gaza and its occupation of Palestinian territories with antisemitism and advocacy for Palestinian rights with support for extremism.

Rights advocates have raised concerns about free speech, academic freedom and due process as some colleges have cut down on programs, imposed restrictions on protesters and laid off workers. Judges have in some cases ordered the Trump administration to restore frozen federal funds for universities.

Trump has also gutted the Education Department by reducing its staffing while shifting many of its roles to other agencies.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

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(SRN NEWS) – President Donald Trump is renewing his call to fire the Senate parliamentarian, as the proposed “SAVE America Act” remains his top legislative priority. 

The push comes following a Supreme Court ruling Monday in Watson v. Republican National Committee. The court decided that ballots received after Election Day can still be counted, as long as they were postmarked on or before that day. 

Speaking in the Oval Office, MR. Trump told Townhall the decision was “a little bit surprising” and said it makes passage of the SAVE Act even more urgent. 

“The SAVE Act is even more important,” MR. Trump said. “It’s the right—you have to be a citizen of our country.” 

The president is also weighing options to move the legislation through the Senate. He raised the possibility of eliminating the filibuster or attaching the measure to a reconciliation bill, which would allow it to pass with a simple majority instead of the usual 60 votes. 

“It’s held up in the Senate,” the President told reporters. “If you terminated the filibuster, you just need 50 votes—and you have 53, plus Vice President JD Vance. Or, through reconciliation, you could also do it with 50 votes.” 

The SAVE America Act continues to face an uncertain path in the Senate.  

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By Andrea Shalal

WASHINGTON, June 30 (Reuters) – A year after the Trump administration dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, most Americans still support foreign aid to provide disaster relief, prevent disease outbreaks and improve security, according to a new poll commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation and released Tuesday.

The poll of 2,022 voters showed Republicans and President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again base were skeptical of foreign aid before getting more details.

Nearly all Americans overestimated by far how much Washington spent on such programs, with over a third thinking they accounted for 20% of the annual U.S. budget.

When told that foreign aid accounted for just 1% of the U.S. budget before 2025 and briefed on what it accomplished, Americans’ support grew to 70% from 54%, the poll showed. Republican support reached 58%, and even MAGA Republicans, defined as those who primarily support Trump over the party, backed aid by 50%, the foundation said.

Trump, who made cutting off foreign aid a cornerstone of his “America First” campaign promises, ordered the closure of USAID when he took office in January 2025.

Well over 10,000 USAID personnel and contractors were fired and thousands of programs were canceled, throwing into turmoil U.S.-funded aid operations on which millions of the world’s poorest people depended. U.S. foreign aid disbursements dropped to $47 billion in fiscal year 2025 from $72 billion a year earlier, U.S. data shows.

Those cuts could result in more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, according to a study published in The Lancet medical journal last year.

The poll, conducted June 12-16 by Echelon Insights, showed that 78% of those surveyed favored maintaining or expanding foreign aid outlays.

“This data is a direct rebuttal to anyone who claims Americans have lost their appetite for the world,” said John Gans, a former Pentagon speechwriter and project lead at The Rockefeller Foundation.

“One year after USAID’s razing, a majority of Americans don’t just want to ensure federal funding to feed the hungry, cure the sick, and respond to crisis around the world — they see good reason to increase it.”

MAGA voters, who started as the most skeptical of any group, showed a 27-point swing toward supporting foreign aid, once they were given more information, the poll showed.

Republicans supported restoring aid to fight the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo by 62% to 24% after getting more data, including experts’ view that U.S. funding cuts were a significant factor in the rapid spread of the disease. MAGA voters supported that view by 52% to 34%.

The Trump administration has responded to the widening outbreak and is seeking more than $1.4 billion in new funds from Congress to help fight it, Reuters reported last week.

The poll, taken on June 12 to June 16, showed that support for foreign aid increased sharply when voters were asked about specific programs, such as disease prevention and peacekeeping, with 80% saying they favored reforms and adding better safeguards, not cancellation.

Only 12% said foreign aid should be cut across the board regardless of impact.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Sonali Paul)

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Colorado’s Democratic primaries on Tuesday will help answer a question the party has increasingly faced nationally: Are voters gravitating toward a younger, more progressive generation of leaders or sticking with established veterans?

That choice is starkly reflected in the fight to represent the state’s 1st Congressional District, where incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette has been in office for as long as her challenger, a 29-year-old democratic socialist named Melat Kiros, has been alive. Likewise in the U.S. Senate race, Sen. John Hickenlooper has spent nearly three times as many years in public office as his challenger, state Sen. Julie Gonzales, who fashions herself as an “insurgent progressive.”

And a similar, if smaller, divide separates the two Democrats competing for the U.S. House in the state’s lone swing district, a seat that will be one of the keys to controlling the chamber in President Donald Trump’s final two years in office.

In the Democratic primary for governor, however, the opposite is the case: Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser and U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet have struggled to meaningfully distinguish their agendas. Instead, the two Democrats have accused each other of pulling punches against Trump.

DeGette has comfortably controlled her House seat in Denver for nearly 30 years, then came Melat Kiros.

In a March Democratic assembly, a process to decide which candidates get on the primary ballot, DeGette barely qualified as Kiros, a first-time candidate, blew past her with more than double the votes.

While the assembly process is far from determinative of who will win Tuesday, it was a jolt for the Democratic establishment and DeGette, who’s been a progressive lawmaker herself.

Then, in New York last week, two democratic socialists and a progressive beat out establishment-backed candidates — two of whom were incumbents — in Democratic primaries for U.S. House, energizing a movement that’s just finding some political purchase.

Similar to the New York races, Kiros has the endorsement of Sen. Bernie Sanders, while DeGette is backed by Colorado’s established Democratic House delegation.

A victory by Kiros in Colorado, while far from guaranteed, would work toward cementing the nascent but clear uprising of democratic socialist candidates, which has filled some Democratic leaders with anxiety.

DeGette argues that experience in Congress is needed right now to combat Trump, while Kiros, a former attorney, accuses DeGette of ineffectiveness. Also running is University of Colorado Regent Wanda James, who may split the anti-DeGette vote.

Gonzales, the state senator and self-fashioned “insurgent progressive,” is trying to kick Hickenlooper, the more centrist former governor of Colorado, out of his U.S. Senate seat.

She’s leaning into the same arguments that others used in challenging establishment incumbents, including that Hickenlooper is an “incrementalist.”

Gonzales has said she previously joined the Democratic Socialists of America in 2018, but that her membership has lapsed.

Hickenlooper is favored in the statewide race.

Colorado’s 8th Congressional District is a relatively new district that stretches from the northern suburbs of Denver up through farming country.

Since its creation in 2021, it’s swung from Democratic to GOP control and is held now by Republican Rep. Gabe Evans. With Democrats aiming to take back control of the House and obstruct Trump’s agenda, the race is closely watched.

Party leaders thought a moderate like state Rep. Shannon Bird was best equipped to challenge Evans, but the district is also heavily Hispanic and poorer than much of the rest of the state.

That’s where Bird’s Democratic primary opponent state Rep. Manny Rutinel, who is Latino, has planted a flag, arguing his personal story and more aggressive economic agenda will be more potent against Evans.

Weiser and Bennet are slugging that question out in the governor’s race after struggling to show major differences in their political agendas.

Weiser attacked Bennet for voting for Trump nominees and Bennet lambasted Weiser for not joining state lawsuits against first Trump administration.

“The attorney general says he’s really tough but was completely missing in action in Donald Trump’s first term,” Bennet said in a recent debate.

Weiser accused Bennet of a weak response to the president. But he also says Bennet should remain in the Senate instead of running for governor.

“You’ve made some mistakes; you didn’t stand up the way you should. I know you can shape up, use your seniority,” Weiser told Bennet during a debate. “With all that experience, to throw it away, would be such a waste for Colorado.”

With Colorado a blue state, Tuesday’s Democratic winner will be seen as the favorite to defeat the winner of the GOP primary and take over from term-limited Gov. Jared Polis.

The three main candidates seeking the Republican nomination include state Rep. Scott Bottoms, a farther right state lawmaker. State Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer is considered the more conventional Republican, while Victor Marx is something of a wild card candidate with an eclectic past.

Peters was the Mesa County clerk who was convinced by Trump’s debunked claims of mass fraud in the 2020 election and eventually convicted in a scheme to make a copy of the county’s election computer system.

Candidate Abby Silzell is vying for Peters’ old job and repeating similar claims as she challenges incumbent Bobbie Gross.

Both are Republicans, and Silzell told CPR News that she believes Peter’s conviction was a “miscarriage of justice” and that in the 2020 election there was enough fraud to “affect the outcome.”

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By Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON, June 29 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court refused on Monday to let Donald Trump fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook as it stood firm to preserve the central bank’s cherished independence against an unprecedented challenge by the Republican president.

The court, in a 5-4 ruling, blocked Trump’s bid to become the first president to remove a Fed official since Congress created the central bank in 1913. In his second term as president, Trump has tested the limits of presidential power in numerous other ways as well.

Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts and fellow conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh were in the majority, along with the court’s three liberal justices. Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett dissented.

Roberts, who authored the ruling, said Trump “failed to afford Cook the procedural protections to which she was entitled by statute. Without such protections, she could not properly dispute the charges the president laid against her.”

Canvassing the history of the Federal Reserve System and its predecessor central banks since the founding, including the Bank of North America and the First and Second Banks of the United States, Roberts emphasized that all have featured independence from the president.

“Like the directors of its three predecessors, however, the Federal Reserve’s Governors do not serve at the president’s pleasure – they instead serve staggered 14 year terms, and may be removed only ‘for cause,’” Roberts added.

Trump last August had cited unproven mortgage fraud allegations in trying to oust Cook, the first Black woman to serve as a Fed governor, while she called that a pretext to remove her for monetary policy differences.

‘I REFUSED TO BOW’

In a statement on Monday, Cook welcomed the court’s decision, saying it affirms the Fed’s obligation to make policy decisions independently, free from political interference.

“This was never about mortgage documents signed years before I became a Federal Reserve governor. It was an attempt to remove me on a manufactured pretext because I refused to bow to political pressure and continued to set interest rates based only on what would best serve the American people,” Cook said.

The justices denied a request from Trump’s Justice Department to lift a judge’s order barring ​him from immediately firing Cook while her legal challenge to the termination continues to play out in a lower court. Cook denied Trump’s allegations.

The court said its ruling was not deciding the validity of the factual dispute in the case, which can now return to lower courts where action has been stalled while the Supreme Court weighed in.

“It at least remains an open question what precisely happened here, and indeed whether Cook committed ‘gross negligence,’ let alone ‘deceitful and potentially criminal conduct,’ as the president’s letter alleges,” Roberts wrote, adding that Cook must be able to respond to the charges made against her.

‘APPROPRIATE ACTION’

Trump reacted to the decision in a social media post.

“The Cook Lawsuit, having to do with her suitability in sitting on the Board of the Federal Reserve, was sent back by the Supreme Court on a strictly procedural basis, we will take appropriate action immediately to make sure that someone who has committed wrongdoing will not be making vital decisions concerning the Welfare of the United States of America!” Trump wrote.

In another ruling on Monday, the Supreme Court backed Trump’s firing of Rebecca Slaughter, a Democratic Federal Trade Commission member, expanding his powers over the government and overturning its 1935 precedent that had recognized the authority of Congress to protect leaders of certain regulatory agencies from presidential removal at will.

Trump in separate comments on social media called the Slaughter ruling “one of the most important ever given with respect to Presidential Powers.”

Monday’s Cook ruling follows the February 20 decision by the justices in another case with major economic ramifications to strike down most of Trump’s sweeping global tariffs, a ruling that elicited a vitriolic condemnation of the court by the president.

The Fed is the world’s most important central bank, an institution that determines the cost of credit for the United States and beyond and which has been in Trump’s crosshairs since his return to the presidency in January 2025.

Cook’s term in the job was due to run until 2038. She was appointed by Democratic former President Joe Biden in 2022.

Trump’s targeting of Cook and ‌a separate criminal investigation his administration launched in January, but later dropped, against then-Fed Chair Jerome Powell together represented the biggest challenge to the central bank’s independence since its founding.

May 15 was the final day of Powell’s eight years as Fed chair, though he remains a member of its Board of Governors. The U.S. Senate on May 13 voted to confirm Trump’s nominee Kevin Warsh as Powell’s successor, and he was sworn in on May 22.

When the justices in October agreed to hear the case involving Cook, they left her in the post for the time being. The Supreme Court heard arguments in the case in January, with Cook and Powell in attendance.

THE FEDERAL RESERVE ACT

In creating the Fed in 1913, Congress passed a law called the Federal Reserve Act that included provisions to shield the central bank from political interference, requiring governors to be removed by a president only “for cause,” though the law does not define the term nor establish procedures for removal.

While Monday’s ruling did not define exactly what could constitute “cause” under which a president could fire Cook or other board members, Roberts said that the central bank’s history and independence suggested it should be a “substantial threshold.”

“Without such constraints in place, any perceived or alleged misstep (past or present) could provide a ready pretext for a governor’s removal — a fact that he would surely know, and that would surely weigh on him as he decided what to say and how to vote,” Roberts wrote. “Nothing could be more corrosive of the independence that Congress sought to preserve.”

Roberts said that while, short of impeachment, only the president can decide whether to remove a member of the Federal Reserve Board, “that does not mean that he may make that decision for any reason, or no reason.”

“Congress could of course afford the president the power to remove Federal Reserve Governors at will,” Roberts wrote. “Or Congress could exempt the president’s removal of governors for cause from judicial review. But Congress has done neither.”

Trump sought to fire Cook on August 25, 2025, by posting a termination letter on social media citing the allegations disclosed by Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte, a Trump appointee, involving homes owned by her in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Atlanta.

Pulte wrote on social media on Monday, “As I have repeatedly said, I believe Lisa Cook will be indicted for mortgage fraud.”

U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb in September ruled that Trump’s attempt to remove Cook without notice or a hearing likely violated her right to due process under the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment. The judge also said the allegations made against Cook likely were not a legally sufficient cause to remove her under the Federal Reserve Act as they relate to conduct that occurred before she served in the post.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit declined Trump’s request to put Cobb’s order on hold. 

Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, in a dissenting opinion, said Monday’s ruling had wrongly allowed Cook to remain in her position and exercise “executive power” after being removed by Trump.

Thomas criticized the ruling for expressing concern that a board member was being removed for the first time in the Federal Reserve’s 111-year history, saying “it expresses no such concern that it today upholds an injunction against the president’s removal of an executive officer for the first time in the Constitution’s 237-year history.”

“The court makes many policy arguments for an ‘independent’ banking agency that exercises executive power free from accountability,” Thomas wrote, “but those are ultimately arguments against the Constitution.”

THE WISHES OF POLITICIANS

Trump has heaped pressure on the central bank to cut interest rates more rapidly and more deeply than it has been willing to do as it combats persistent inflation, and lashed out repeatedly at Powell for not complying with his wishes.

The Cook case has ramifications for the Fed’s ability to set interest rates without regard to the wishes of politicians, widely seen as critical to any central bank’s ability to carry out tasks such as keeping inflation under control.

As a Fed governor, Cook helps set U.S. monetary policy with the rest of the central bank’s seven-member board and the heads of the 12 regional Fed banks.

In prior cases, the Supreme Court chipped away at the independence of various federal agencies from presidential control, and could soon overrule a key precedent that has shielded the heads of independent agencies from removal since 1935. 

But the court last year signaled it may view the central bank as an exception, noting in a May 2025 ruling that let Trump remove two Democratic members of federal labor boards that the Fed possesses a unique structure and historical tradition.

PRESIDENTIAL POWER

Both Cook’s case and the fight over tariffs involved the legal fallout from Trump aggressively pushing the limits of presidential power since returning to office in January 2025.

Trump has also used executive authority to quickly transform policies on immigration, military service, federal employment and beyond. To date, the Supreme Court has allowed most of those policies to go ahead despite legal challenges, on a preliminary basis, though the tariffs decision was a major exception.

In the tariffs ruling, the court repudiated a signature piece of Trump’s economic agenda by invalidating his tariffs imposed on nearly every U.S. trading partner under a 1977 law meant for use in national emergencies – also something no other president had done.

Trump reacted furiously to that ruling, saying he was “absolutely ashamed” of some of the justices and called the court’s Republican appointees – including two of his own – who ruled against him “fools” and “lapdogs” for Democrats.

As in other legal disputes, the administration argued for an expansive view of Trump’s power in Cook’s case, saying that so long as the president identifies a cause for removal, that is within his “unreviewable discretion.”

Cook’s lawyers argued that granting him that power would eviscerate the Fed’s independence, disrupt markets and create a roadmap for future presidents to direct monetary policy.

THE POWELL INVESTIGATION

Like Cook, Powell called the administration’s action against him – an investigation involving cost overruns in a project to renovate two historical buildings at the Fed’s Washington headquarters – a pretext aimed at gaining influence over monetary policy. A judge on March 13 blocked subpoenas issued in the Powell investigation by a prosecutor appointed by Trump, agreeing with Powell that the probe was an improper attempt to intimidate the central bank into cutting interest rates. The prosecutor dropped the investigation on April 24.

Trump has publicly called Powell a “numbskull,” a “major loser” and “very incompetent.”

Trump in January nominated Warsh, who previously served on the Fed’s Board of Governors and whose father-in-law is wealthy Trump booster Ron Lauder. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas administered the oath of office for Warsh during his swearing-in ceremony, and fellow conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh was in attendance.

The Justice Department dropped the Powell investigation after Republican Senator Thom Tillis called the inquiry a frivolous assault on the ​Fed’s independence and vowed to block Warsh’s confirmation until ⁠it was ended.

In what is called a criminal referral, Pulte asked the Justice Department last year to open a criminal investigation into Cook and others over alleged mortgage fraud. There has been no indication of any such criminal investigation moving forward.

As Pulte pushed the accusations, Reuters found that his father and stepmother declared the same status as Cook on two homes in two different states. These “homestead exemptions” for residences are meant to give a discount to homeowners on taxes for properties they use as their primary residence. The property tax authority in Ann Arbor told Reuters that Cook had not broken rules for tax breaks on her home despite Pulte’s allegations.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Additional reporting by John Kruzel, Nate Raymond, Katharine Jackson, Daphne Psaledakis and Bhargav Acharya; Editing by Will Dunham)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that states can count ballots that arrive after Election Day, a persistent target of President Donald Trump.

The 5-4 decision rejected a Republican-led attack on laws in more than half the states and the District of Columbia that permit mailed ballots to arrive and be counted some number of days after the election, provided they are postmarked by Election Day. The outcome spares officials the headache of changing their ballot rules just a few months before the 2026 midterm congressional elections.

In just over half those states, the more forgiving deadlines apply only to ballots cast by military and overseas voters.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the court’s majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and the three liberal justices.

Federal laws setting a single Election Day “leave open when those votes must be received,” Barrett wrote.

Congress could change the law, she said. “If varied deadlines for ballot receipt similarly call for a national solution, the American people must choose it through their elected representatives,” Barrett wrote.

The legal challenge was part of Trump’s broader attack on most mail balloting, which he has said breeds fraud despite strong evidence to the contrary and years of experience in numerous states. Trump has repeatedly claimed that his loss to Joe Biden in 2020 resulted from fraud even though more than 60 court decisions and his own attorney general said that argument had no merit.

Trump called the court ruling a “tremendous loss” and renewed his call for Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, which has made it through the House of Representatives but not the Senate.

“There is only one reason to oppose — CHEATING!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

The court heard arguments in March in a case from Mississippi pitting the state against Trump’s Republican administration and the Republican and Libertarian parties. At issue was whether federal law sets a single Election Day that requires ballots to be both cast by voters and received by state officials.

The federal appeals court in New Orleans struck down a Mississippi law allowing ballots to be counted if they arrive within five business days of the election and are postmarked by Election Day.

The outcome is a “sigh of relief” for a lot of election administrators, said Stephen Richer, a Republican and the former top election administrator in Arizona’s Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix.

A ruling in favor of the Republican National Committee “would have created a whole host of administrative challenges for the affected states,” said Richer, who is now a legal fellow at the Cato Institute.

RNC officials did not immediately respond Monday to email and telephone requests for comment.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

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June 29 (Reuters) – The Nasdaq and the NYSE will ring the opening bell from the Oval Office for the first time together to launch Trump’s much-touted government-backed investment program for children next week, White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said on Monday.

“We’re having a big opening bell ceremony next week. They’re doing that to celebrate the accounts to make sure everybody knows it’s time to get an account for your kid, even if it’s not born this year,” Hassett told CNBC in an interview.

U.S. President Donald Trump earlier this year unveiled Trump Accounts, a new tax-deferred investment vehicle for U.S. citizens under 18, which is scheduled to be officially launched on July 4.

Under the scheme, the U.S. Treasury will deposit $1,000 as seed money into an investment account for each child with a valid Social Security number born between 2025 and 2028.

The Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.

(Reporting by Arasu Kannagi Basil in Bengaluru and Hyunsu Yim in Barcelona; Editing by Pooja Desai)

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WASHINGTON, June 29 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court is set to issue the final rulings of its nine-month term on Tuesday, including cases involving President Donald Trump’s bid to limit birthright citizenship, a Republican challenge to campaign finance limits and a dispute involving a crackdown by states on transgender athletes.

(Reporting by John Kruzel; Editing by Will Dunham)

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By Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON, June 29 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court backed on Monday state laws that allow mail-in ballots received after Election Day to be counted, rejecting a Republican-led challenge to a five-day grace period in Mississippi and dealing a setback to President Donald Trump.

The justices in a 5-4 ruling overturned a lower court’s decision that had deemed Mississippi’s law inconsistent with U.S. statutes that set the timing of federal elections – for the presidency, Senate and House of Representatives. Trump last year vowed to end the use of mail-in ballots nationwide before this November’s congressional elections, when his fellow Republicans are seeking to retain control of Congress.

The court has a 6-3 conservative majority. Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts and fellow conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court’s three liberals in the majority. Barrett wrote the opinion.

Conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh dissented from the decision.

Mississippi’s law permits mail-in ballots to be counted if they were postmarked on or before Election Day but received up to five business days after a federal election. Absentee voting by mail in Mississippi is limited to a few categories of voters including people age 65 and above, the disabled and those living away from home. 

About 30 states and the District of Columbia accept at least some ballots that are postmarked on or before Election Day but received afterward.

The Republican National Committee, the Mississippi Republican Party and other plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in 2024 seeking to invalidate Mississippi’s law.

Trump’s administration backed the challenge. Restricting mail-in ballots would stand to disproportionately benefit Republicans given that Democratic voters traditionally have been more likely to use mail-in ballots than Republican voters.

After the ruling, Trump again called on Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, a partisan federal elections bill that would require photo identification to vote and proof of citizenship to register to vote. Republicans have been unable to overcome Democratic opposition in the U.S. Senate, where 60 votes are required to advance most legislation in the 100-seat chamber. Republicans hold a 53-47 Senate majority.

“In light of the tremendous loss in the Supreme Court today concerning Voter’s Rights, and the fact that ‘people’s’ votes are allowed to be counted LONG AFTER an Election is over, it is more important than ever to pass THE SAVE AMERICA ACT,” Trump wrote.

Trump added, “There is only one reason to oppose — CHEATING!”

Democrats have accused Trump of seeking measures that would make it harder for people to vote, especially groups that tend to favor Democratic candidates

A SKEPTICAL VIEW

Republicans have taken a skeptical view toward mail-in ballots. Trump has sought to cast doubt on the security of these ballots, although evidence of voter fraud is rare. Trump issued an executive order in March to restrict mail-in ballots nationwide, but a federal judge in Boston on June 25 blocked its implementation.

Trump has continued to make false claims of widespread voting fraud in the 2020 presidential election that he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

During the first year of the COVID pandemic, the Republican-controlled Mississippi legislature in 2020 passed the law on mail-in voting on a bipartisan basis. 

The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2024 ruled in favor of the Republican challengers. It declared that the measure was preempted by federal laws setting Election Day for federal elections as the “day by which ballots must be both cast by voters and received by state officials.” 

Federal law “does not permit the state of Mississippi to extend the period for voting by one day, five days or 100 days,” the 5th Circuit stated.

The 5th Circuit did not immediately block Mississippi’s procedures, but instead sent the case back to a trial judge for further review. The litigation was placed on hold pending the Supreme Court’s consideration. 

During Supreme Court arguments in the case in March, some of the conservative justices expressed concerns that permissive mail-in ballot practices could cause the appearance of voter fraud. Some of the liberal justices said the arguments made by the challengers also would jeopardize the widespread practice of early voting prior to Election Day. 

Though the 5th Circuit’s action applied only in the three states where the regional federal appeals court has jurisdiction — Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas — it called into question the voting practices in the other states with similar mail-in ballot policies.

The 5th Circuit’s decision would “override countless state laws from the past 165 years and largely require citizens to vote in person, on Election Day, in their home districts, without the secret-ballot system,” Mississippi said in its appeal. 

OTHER ELECTION-RELATED DECISIONS

Acting in other election-related cases, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority in April gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, blocking an electoral map that had given Louisiana a second Black-majority U.S. ​congressional district.

The ruling makes it harder for minorities to challenge electoral maps as racially discriminatory under the 1965 civil rights law and represented a victory for Louisiana Republicans and Trump’s administration.

That decision prompted several Republican-led states to pursue redrawn electoral maps ahead of the midterms in an effort to put at risk U.S. House seats considered safely Democratic-held.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Additional reporting by Nolan McCaskill and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Will Dunham)

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