“The court saved the Republican Party from having, you know, particularly contentious abortion decisions being handed down before an election, but left it open for the court to come back to them a year or so later if a Democratic president wins. So it’s a bit of heads, I win, tails, you lose in those cases,” Huq said.

Administrative law

The court’s conservative majority, ruling 6-3 in three of the four cases, couched its decisions as a necessary step to reassert the judiciary’s responsibility to check the executive branch on Congress’ behalf.

In a decision overturning a 40-year-old precedent for courts to defer to agency interpretations of ambiguous laws, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote that federal law bars the justices from “disregarding” their responsibility to decide what the laws mean.

“Courts must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority,” Roberts wrote.

The decision means an uncertain and more difficult path for Congress to shape how the federal government carries out laws on major issues such as the environment, health, immigration and more, lawmakers and legal experts said.

The court’s Democrat-appointed justices have accused the conservative majority of a power grab. Justice Elena Kagan, dissenting in the administrative deference case, accused the majority of “judicial hubris.”

“In one fell swoop, the majority today gives itself exclusive power over every open issue—no matter how expertise-driven or policy-laden—involving the meaning of regulatory law,” Kagan said.

Overall, the decisions will likely mean more court fights over the past and future of administrative rules, according to University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School professor Kermit Roosevelt.

“These decisions work to take power away from the federal administrative agencies and shift power to judges,” Roosevelt said.

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