The Supreme Court's May 18 orders list sets the stage for 33 remaining decisions, including birthright citizenship, Roundup preemption, and campaign finance rulings due by July.
The Supreme Court issued its Monday orders list on May 18, marking a turning point in the 2025-26 term as the justices shift focus toward a dense cluster of consequential rulings [1]. With 31 decisions already issued and 33 remaining, the court enters its most concentrated opinion period of the term. The next opinion release date is set for May 21, with additional release dates continuing through late June and into early July [1].
The orders list arrived at 9:30 a.m. ET, a routine administrative step that clears procedural business before the court turns to its remaining merits docket [1]. No new cases of note were granted certiorari in the list. The pending decisions span a range of high-stakes disputes that were argued during the October 2025 term and are now awaiting resolution.
The cases pending for June and July cover several of the most legally significant disputes on the docket. In the immigration arena, the court is expected to rule in Trump v. Barbara, which concerns the scope of birthright citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment, and in Mullin v. Doe, which addresses the executive branch's authority to terminate Temporary Protected Status designations [1]. On the civil litigation front, Monsanto v. Durnell raises a federal preemption question over state-law failure-to-warn claims tied to the herbicide Roundup [1]. The criminal sentencing context is represented by Rutherford v. United States, a compassionate release case that could reshape how courts apply statutory reduction standards [1]. Two related campaign finance and election-administration disputes, Republican National Committee v. Watson and Watson v. Republican National Committee, present questions about contribution limits and the validity of mail-in ballot receipt deadlines under federal and state law [1].
The remaining 33 decisions represent the court's most consequential output of the term, arriving in a compressed window of roughly six weeks. Rulings in the immigration matters alone carry broad administrative and constitutional implications. The birthright citizenship case, in particular, tests whether executive action can narrow an entitlement grounded in the Fourteenth Amendment, a question with no modern precedent [1]. The campaign finance and election timing cases, decided together or in sequence, could reset ground rules ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
The court's next scheduled opinion session is May 21. Additional sessions will follow at intervals through the end of June, with any remaining decisions expected no later than the first week of July, the court's traditional end-of-term deadline [1].