The Supreme Court's 2025-26 term is being shaped by high-stakes cases involving birthright citizenship, voting rights, presidential powers and consequential civil rights cases, even as some of the most anticipated and significant cases have yet to be decided. As the justices make the final sprint to the end of the term in early July, NPR's Throughline episode "How the Supreme Court claimed supreme power" takes stock of how the court evolved from the weakest branch of government to the powerhouse arbiter it is today.
Who Gets Decided For
The episode centers the Supreme Court as an institution that now sits above ordinary people and their lives, with the power to decide questions tied to citizenship, voting, executive authority and civil rights. Those are not abstract legal puzzles; they are the terms under which people are allowed to belong, participate and live under the rules handed down from above. The episode says the court's 2025-26 term has been punctuated by these high-stakes cases, while some of the most anticipated and significant cases remain unresolved as the term heads toward its end in early July.
The episode was originally aired in 2020 and was published June 18, 2026. That framing matters: the court's rise is presented not as a sudden accident, but as a long consolidation of authority. The episode says it takes stock of how the Supreme Court evolved from the weakest branch of government to the powerhouse arbiter it is today, a transformation that places final say in the hands of a small legal elite.
The Apparatus at the Top
The guests in the episode are Larry Kramer, former dean of Stanford Law School and author of The People Themselves: Popular Constitutionalism and Judicial Review; Rachel Shelden, associate professor of History and director of the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center at Penn State University, and author of The Political Supreme Court; and Lucas Powe Jr., professor of Law and Government at the University of Texas. Their presence underscores that the story of judicial power is being narrated through institutions that train, study and legitimize the very hierarchy they describe.
The episode's title, "How the Supreme Court claimed supreme power," lays out the central fact without much disguise: a branch once described as weak has become a powerhouse arbiter. In practice, that means a small group of justices can shape the boundaries of citizenship, voting and presidential power while the people affected wait for decisions to come down from the bench.
What the Term Reveals
The 2025-26 term is described as punctuated by high-stakes cases, which signals a court operating at the center of political life rather than at its margins. Birthright citizenship and voting rights are among the issues named, along with presidential powers and consequential civil rights cases. The episode says some of the most anticipated and significant cases have yet to be decided, leaving the court's authority hanging over the public like a suspended sentence.
The final sprint to the end of the term in early July is the backdrop for this stock-taking. The court's power is not presented as neutral administration; it is the power to determine who counts, who votes, how far executive power reaches and what civil rights survive the next ruling. That is the machinery of hierarchy in plain sight, dressed up as jurisprudence.
The episode originally aired in 2020, and its publication on June 18, 2026, places that earlier account alongside the current term's unresolved cases. The result is a portrait of an institution that has moved from the edge of government to its commanding heights, with the rest of society left to absorb the consequences of decisions made far above it.