Supreme Court of the United States
US apex court; six-week run of rulings has reshaped 2026 redistricting, ballots, and campaign finance.
On 25 September 2026 the Court voted 6-3 to let Homeland Security restart bulk SAVE citizenship checks and kept Missouri on its 2022 House map; it hears the voter-roll quiet-period question on 8 December.
Last refreshed: 1 October 2026 · Appears in 3 active topics
After five election rulings in one term, what's left for SCOTUS to rewrite before November?
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US Midterms 2026: Justices keep Missouri on its 2022 mapBackground
the Supreme Court of the United States is the final court on federal law and the Constitution. Its nine justices are nominated by the president, confirmed by the Senate and serve during good behaviour. Besides signed opinions after full argument, it decides emergency applications, often in unsigned orders that need not record how each justice voted.
Its 2025-26 term reset several rules for the midterms. Beside Callais and NRSC v. FEC, it ruled 5-4 in Watson v. RNC on 29 June that Mississippi may count mail ballots arriving up to five business days after polling day, which protects grace periods in 14 states and DC. On 23 June it held 6-3 that Cuban state entities cannot claim sovereign immunity in suits under the Helms-Burton Act.
Its emergency docket now shapes election calendars directly. In People Not Politicians v. Onder on 25 September, its first Missouri order to give reasons, a per curiam opinion held that lower courts should not make Missouri use its 2025 map once voting had begun.
The Court revived bulk citizenship checks
On 25 September the Court granted the Department of Homeland Security a 6-3 stay in DHS v. League of Women Voters, restoring the modified SAVE System, which matches voters against Social Security records in bulk. The majority read a 1996 immigration law as permitting that data sharing despite the Privacy Act. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, dissented. It reversed the course of the litigation below, where a district judge had vacated the system in June and the appeals court in Washington had declined, 2-1, to restore it in early September.
The stay leaves open how the checks may be used before 3 November. A footnote sent the reach of the National Voter Registration Act's 90-day quiet period to Republican National Committee v. Mi Familia Vota, which the Court agreed to hear on 29 June and will argue on 8 December.
The Court cleared the southern redraws
Ruling 6-3 in Louisiana v. Callais on 29 April, the justices removed the Voting Rights Act's requirement of majority-minority congressional districts and overturned Thornburg v. Gingles. Two days earlier it had cleared Texas's PlanC2333 map. On Monday 4 May it issued the Callais judgment forthwith, skipping the usual 32-day remand period.
Orders then carried the doctrine into the 2026 calendar. On 11 May, in Allen v. Caster, the Court vacated the ruling that had required Alabama to keep a second majority-Black district. On 2 June an unsigned stay, over dissents from Justices Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson, let Alabama hold its 11 August primary on the new lines.
The Court ended party coordination caps
On 30 June the Court ruled 6-3 in NRSC v. FEC that federal limits on coordinated spending between parties and their candidates violate the First Amendment, striking them for the rest of the 2026 cycle. The caps had reached $4m in some Senate races. The case had been argued on 9 December 2025.
The ruling changed party behaviour within hours. The National Republican Senatorial Committee told staff on 30 June that it would close its Independent-expenditure unit and route that money into coordinated buys, which qualify for the cheaper broadcast rate. Democratic committees had filed a brief in June urging the justices to keep the limits.