The current US Supreme Court has nine justices, split six to three in favor of the conservative wing, with Chief Justice John Roberts presiding. No seat has turned over since Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson replaced the retired Justice Stephen Breyer in 2022.1Supreme Court of the United States. Current Members The October Term 2025, which began October 6, 2025, and runs through early October 2026, is dominated by challenges to presidential power, a dispute over birthright citizenship, two transgender athlete cases, and a First Amendment fight over conversion therapy.
Who Sits on the Court Right Now
Listed by seniority:
- John G. Roberts Jr., Chief Justice. Appointed by President George W. Bush, commissioned September 29, 2005.
- Clarence Thomas. Appointed by President George H.W. Bush, confirmed October 15, 1991. The most senior associate justice.
- Samuel A. Alito Jr. Appointed by President George W. Bush, commissioned January 31, 2006.
- Sonia Sotomayor. Appointed by President Barack Obama, confirmed August 6, 2009.
- Elena Kagan. Appointed by President Obama, confirmed August 5, 2010.
- Neil M. Gorsuch. Appointed by President Donald Trump, confirmed April 7, 2017.
- Brett M. Kavanaugh. Appointed by President Trump, confirmed October 6, 2018.
- Amy Coney Barrett. Appointed by President Trump, confirmed October 26, 2020.
- Ketanji Brown Jackson. Appointed by President Joe Biden, confirmed April 7, 2022.
Each justice holds a lifetime appointment under Article III, serving during “good Behaviour,” which in practice means they leave only through retirement, resignation, or death.2Supreme Court of the United States. The Court as an Institution A majority Senate vote confirms every nominee.3United States Senate. Supreme Court Nominations 1789-Present
The Six-to-Three Split and Why It Matters
Six justices were nominated by Republican presidents: Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. Three were nominated by Democratic presidents: Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson. The conservative justices tend to favor originalism and textualism, reading the Constitution and statutes based on their original public meaning. The three liberal justices more often read constitutional protections as evolving with contemporary values.
A five-justice majority sets binding precedent. The conservative bloc can therefore lose one of its own on any given case and still control the outcome. The liberal justices can shape results only by pulling at least two votes from the other side; otherwise their work shows up in dissents that frame later litigation and public debate rather than in holdings. That math has driven the Court’s direction on executive power, gun rights, agency authority, and the role of religion in public life over the past several terms.
What the Chief Justice Does
Roberts carries responsibilities well beyond a single vote. He presides over oral arguments, controls the flow of questioning, and speaks first when the justices meet in private conference to discuss and vote. When he votes with the majority he decides who writes the opinion, a power that shapes the reasoning and scope of the ruling. When he dissents, that assignment authority passes to the most senior justice in the majority.4Supreme Court of the United States. Supreme Court 101 – A Student’s Guide
He also heads the Judicial Conference of the United States, the policymaking body for all federal courts, which meets twice a year on administrative issues and judiciary-related legislation.5United States Courts. About the Judicial Conference of the United States Federal law gives the Chief Justice alone the power to designate the eleven district judges who sit on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the secretive body that approves government requests for national security wiretaps and surveillance.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 50 USC 1803 – Designation of Judges Each year he issues a Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary highlighting administrative priorities and challenges.
What the Court Is Deciding This Term
The October Term 2025 docket has an unusual concentration of disputes over presidential power, reflecting a surge of legal challenges to executive actions. Several of the biggest cases remain pending.
Presidential Removal of Agency Heads
In Trump v. Slaughter, argued in December 2025, the Court is considering whether the President can fire members of the Federal Trade Commission at will. A 1914 law limits removal of FTC commissioners to cases of inefficiency, neglect of duty, or misconduct. The case asks directly whether Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, the 1935 precedent that upheld those protections, should be overruled. A ruling against the FTC’s independence could reshape the structure of dozens of federal agencies whose leaders currently enjoy similar removal protections.
Tariffs Under IEEPA (Already Decided)
In Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, decided February 20, 2026, the justices held that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not give the President authority to impose tariffs.7Supreme Court of the United States. Opinions of the Court – 2025 Term The decision struck down a central legal theory behind sweeping tariffs imposed by executive order.
Birthright Citizenship
In Trump v. Barbara, the Court is weighing whether an executive order attempting to deny citizenship to children born on U.S. soil to unauthorized immigrants violates the Fourteenth Amendment. Since the 1898 decision in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the Citizenship Clause has been read to guarantee citizenship to nearly everyone born in the country. The outcome could redefine who qualifies as a citizen at birth.
Transgender Athletes
Two cases ask whether state laws barring transgender girls from competing on girls’ sports teams violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. Little v. Hecox involves an Idaho law; West Virginia v. B.P.J. tests a similar West Virginia policy. Together they will likely produce the Court’s most significant statement yet on how sex-based classifications apply to transgender individuals.
Conversion Therapy and the First Amendment
In Chiles v. Salazar, the Court is reviewing Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy as applied to a counselor’s talk therapy practice. The question is whether the law impermissibly regulates speech based on viewpoint, and what level of First Amendment scrutiny applies. The decision could affect similar bans in roughly twenty states.
Recent Rulings That Set the Stage
Two decisions from the 2023–24 term explain much of the Court’s current direction.
Loper Bright and the End of Chevron Deference
In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, decided June 28, 2024, the Court overruled Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, the 1984 precedent that required courts to defer to federal agencies’ reasonable interpretations of ambiguous statutes. The majority held that the Administrative Procedure Act requires judges to exercise their own independent judgment about what a law means, rather than accepting an agency’s reading because the statute is unclear.8Supreme Court of the United States. Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo Regulated industries and advocacy groups now challenge agency rules with far greater leverage, and agencies like the EPA and SEC face heightened judicial scrutiny of their rulemaking.
Rahimi and Guns After Bruen
In United States v. Rahimi, decided June 21, 2024, the Court ruled 8–1 that Congress can prohibit someone subject to a domestic violence restraining order from possessing firearms, consistent with the Second Amendment. The case tested the framework from the 2022 Bruen decision, which required gun regulations to be consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearms regulation. The majority, written by Chief Justice Roberts, found that disarming individuals a court has deemed credible threats to another person’s safety fits comfortably within that tradition.9Supreme Court of the United States. United States v. Rahimi
The Emergency Docket Is Now a Main Event
Alongside the regular calendar of briefing, oral argument, and signed opinions, the Court handles a growing volume of emergency applications, sometimes called the “shadow docket.” These requests typically ask the Court to block or reinstate a lower court order while litigation continues. A single justice assigned to the relevant federal circuit can act alone or refer the application to the full Court.10Supreme Court of the United States. A Reporter’s Guide to Applications Pending Before the Supreme Court
When the full Court takes up an emergency application, five justices must agree to grant a stay. The applicant generally needs to show that at least four justices would likely vote to hear the case on the merits, that the lower court’s ruling was probably wrong, and that irreparable harm would result without a stay.10Supreme Court of the United States. A Reporter’s Guide to Applications Pending Before the Supreme Court These orders often come with little or no written explanation, which has drawn criticism from legal scholars and some justices.
Use of the emergency docket has expanded dramatically this term. In the first twenty weeks of the second Trump administration, the government filed as many emergency applications as the entire Biden administration filed over four years. The Court has ruled in favor of the administration in the substantial majority of those cases. Several emergency disputes have been elevated to full merits review, including Trump v. Slaughter and cases involving immigration enforcement and the Federal Reserve. The pace is historically unprecedented and has made the emergency docket a central feature of how the Court exercises its power right now.