The Brennan Center filed a friend-of-the-court brief Monday supporting four companies challenging Trump’s use of an emergency powers law to impose worldwide tariffs. The president’s actions contradict the law’s actual purpose, which was to prevent presidents from misusing emergency powers to address ongoing problems. Allowing the president to expand his authority beyond what Congress has provided could do untold “damage to the constitutional separation of powers, and to our democracy more broadly,” Elizabeth Goitein writes. Read more

More than 200 federal lawsuits have been filed against the Trump administration’s actions so far, and most have won initial victories. The cases against high-profile efforts to shut down or remove the heads of independent agencies and freeze federal funds without congressional approval paint a picture of an administration seeking to usurp Congress’s constitutional authority. “By ignoring the checks and balances designed to keep him accountable to Congress, the president is threatening to become exactly what the framers feared: an all-powerful and unconstrained executive who operates more like a king than the head of a constitutional democracy,” Samuel Breidbart and Lauren Miller Karalunas write. Read more

The arrest of a Wisconsin trial court judge last month for allegedly blocking an arrest by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents has raised concerns about judicial independence. Tension between immigration authorities and judges has grown since the Trump administration rolled back Biden-era reforms that had limited the widely criticized practice of courthouse immigration arrests. These restrictions should be reinstated, Alicia Bannon writes in State Court Report, “but it’s also worth noting that there are steps states can take to mitigate the threat of ICE arrests — and also protect judges and court staff.” Read more

Six months after the 2024 election, candidate Jefferson Griffin has finally conceded in his race for a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court. His concession follows a federal court ruling that rejected his bid to challenge election rules and toss potentially thousands of ballots cast by overseas voters. Erin Geiger Smith recaps the case in State Court Report and underscores that the federal court’s decision reaffirms “a North Star of election law: You can’t change the rules after an election.” Read more

However, Justin Lam notes in another State Court Report piece, North Carolina voters must contend with a new threat. A recent state appeals court ruling allowing partisans to take power over the state’s election boards “could affect voter access for elections as early as this fall.” Read more

Last week, the Brennan Center and Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute urged the Department of Homeland Security to abandon its proposal to collect social media identifiers from more than 3 million people who apply for immigration benefits each year, along with their family members. There’s no evidence that social media screening helps effectively vet people, and the proposal risks chilling the First Amendment rights of those impacted, many of whom are U.S. citizens and legal residents. Read more

• Douglas Keith on immigration arrests in state courthouses // CNN
• Lawrence Norden on voting machine accuracy // DESERT SUN
• Marina Pino on changes to New York’s public campaign financing program // ALBANY TIMES UNION
• Hernandez Stroud on takeover order for NYC’s Rikers Island jail // NY1