The Supreme Court has 30 decisions pending, with Watson v. RNC and Trump v. Slaughter poised to reshape mail-ballot rules and presidential removal power.
The Supreme Court has 30 decisions still to issue before the close of its current term, with two cases drawing particular scrutiny from election lawyers and administrative-law practitioners [1]. The first, *Watson v. Republican National Committee*, asks whether states may count mail ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but received afterward. The second, *Trump v. Slaughter*, asks whether a president may fire Federal Trade Commission commissioners without cause, a question that would require overturning *Humphrey's Executor v. United States*, the 1935 precedent that shields independent agency heads from at-will removal [2].
Both cases were argued earlier in the term before the full nine-justice Court in Washington. *Watson* arose from a dispute over state-level mail-ballot receipt deadlines and attracted divided oral-argument questioning, with justices probing the scope of federal electoral authority against state administration of elections [1]. *Trump v. Slaughter* centers on FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, who was removed by President Trump and subsequently challenged the dismissal as unlawful under the statute governing FTC commissioner tenure [2]. During argument, the Court's questioning reportedly signaled sympathy for the administration's position that the Constitution's Article II vesting clause grants the president plenary removal authority over executive officers, including those seated at nominally independent agencies [1].
The stakes in each case extend well beyond the named parties. A ruling for the RNC in *Watson* would invalidate ballot-receipt extensions currently in place in 14 states, with direct implications for the 2026 midterm elections [1]. A ruling for the administration in *Slaughter* would unsettle the structural foundation of the modern administrative state: *Humphrey's Executor* has governed the legal status of multi-member independent commissions for nine decades, and overruling it would expose commissioners at the FTC, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Reserve Board, and comparable bodies to presidential removal at will [2]. Scholars and practitioners have long debated whether *Seila Law LLC v. CFPB* (2020) and *Collins v. Yellen* (2021) set the Court on a trajectory toward that result, and *Slaughter* may supply the answer.
The Court typically issues its remaining opinions on Fridays and in concentrated release windows as the term's end approaches, generally in late June [1]. Litigants in election-administration disputes in the affected states are monitoring *Watson* for any emergency motion practice that might follow, given the proximity to 2026 primary calendars. Administrative-law litigants will similarly watch whether a *Slaughter* ruling addresses the retroactive validity of agency actions taken by commissioners whose tenure is subsequently deemed unlawful [2].