The U.S. Supreme Court has signaled a willingness to revisit and potentially overturn its own past rulings in the coming months, highlighting how its conservative majority is reconsidering the weight of long-established legal precedents.
On Monday, December 8, 2025, the Court heard a case challenging a 1935 precedent that limited presidential powers. The case concerns the legality of President Donald Trump’s dismissal of Rebecca Slaughter, a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission, from the agency Congress had structured to operate with protections against direct presidential interference. Trump’s Justice Department has urged the Court to overturn the precedent, a move that would expand the president’s authority.
“This is going to be another blockbuster term where we’ll see whether legal precedent—and the principle that courts should be bound by their prior holdings—remains a constraining force at all,” said Wilfred Codrington, a professor at Cardozo Law School in New York.
The Role of Stare Decisis
The principle of stare decisis—Latin for “to stand by things decided”—calls on courts to respect prior rulings when resolving similar cases. It underpins consistency and predictability in U.S. law, though it is not absolute. Courts may overturn prior decisions if they are found to be flawed.
The precedent in question, established in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, held that Congress can insulate certain federal agencies from full presidential control. The Trump administration has described the ruling as “egregiously wrong,” asserting that the Constitution grants the president complete control over the executive branch.
In a related development, the Court is also scheduled to hear arguments regarding a 2001 campaign finance ruling limiting political party spending and a case involving Louisiana’s electoral map, which could overturn a 1986 precedent affecting the creation of Black-majority congressional districts.
A Conservative Court Redefining Precedent
The Court’s recent history reflects a conservative willingness to overturn precedents that conflict with its legal philosophy. In 2022, it overturned Roe v. Wade, ending the constitutional right to abortion. In 2023, it eliminated rulings supporting race-conscious affirmative action policies in college admissions, and last year it discarded a 1984 precedent that gave federal agencies deference in interpreting laws they administer.
“These cases give the conservative justices additional opportunities to overturn precedents from more liberal eras of the Court,” Codrington said.
Justice Louis Brandeis, who served on the Court from 1916 to 1939, described stare decisis as: “In most matters, it is more important that the applicable rule of law be settled than that it be settled right.” Notable historical examples include Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which overturned the “separate but equal” doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).
Debates Over Judicial Philosophy
Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett has defended the Court’s approach, noting that under Chief Justice John Roberts, the Court has demonstrated greater adherence to precedent than under previous conservative chief justices. She stated the Court now overturns roughly one precedent per year, compared with two to three per year under Justices Rehnquist and Burger.
However, law experts argue that the current conservative justices frequently reject constitutional precedent along ideological lines. “The doctrine of stare decisis is changing, and weakening in important ways,” said Michael Gentithes, a law professor at the University of Akron.
The Court’s conservatives, guided by originalist principles, prioritize interpreting the Constitution based on its original meaning rather than prior rulings. Robert Luther III of George Mason University described the Court’s approach as seeking to correct past decisions deemed flawed, including Humphrey’s Executor and certain election law precedents from 1986 and 2001.
“This term is an opportunity to reduce lower court confusion by bringing fading precedents in line with where the law has already returned,” Luther said.
As the Supreme Court addresses these high-profile cases, its conservative majority is reshaping the landscape of U.S. law, challenging decades of established legal precedent and redefining the limits of executive and electoral powers.
