>> So we're down to the final days of a hugely consequential Supreme Court term.

Today the court weighed in on 2 high-profile firings from earlier in President Trump's second term and 2 conservative justices sided with liberals on a mail-in voting case.

Joining us to talk about those cases and preview what's to come tomorrow is Carolyn Shapiro, co-director of the Institute on the Supreme Court of the United States at the Chicago can't College of Law.

Bishop, you're also clerked for former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.

Welcome back.

Caroline, thanks.

Thanks for having Grant So what did the Supreme Court decide today in the mail in voting case?

So this is a case called Watson versus Republican National Committee.

In this case, the RNC sued the state of Mississippi over that mail-in it's law that allowed for >> the state to accept ballots that were mailed by Election Day postmarked by Election Day, but received for up to 5 days after the RNC said that violates the law that Congress passed designating a particular day as Election Day.

And the Supreme Court rejected interpretation of the federal statute.

I think it did wisely.

We've been incredibly chaotic.

many weeks or months out from the midterm to suddenly requires states that allow mail-in balloting to to arrive after Election Day.

may say, well, that's illegal.

And the statute really doesn't say anything one way or the other about mail in ballots.

It does appropriately.

I think it indicate that you can't vote after Election Day, if votes are in the mailbox, if that's what your state allows, they can be received after Election What might this mean for other states that have mail-in balloting?

That's well.

Well, it's I think they're all breathing a sigh of relief.

I mean, there there are states that have mail-in ballots, but they require them to be received by Election Day.

So different states are different.

And that's part of the system that we have states are primarily responsible for elections.

So this means that states don't have to change anything.

Had the case come out the other way.

Lots of states might have to change something.

And it also would have, I think called in to question early voting because of this emphasis on Election Day itself.

But the way court interpreted the statute, I don't think that's likely to be a problem.

>> The court also made a ruling on the firing of an FTC commissioner in the Trump versus Slaughter case.

Give us the background on that case, Carolyn.

So the fired a number of executive branch officials who work for or her commissioners or board members of multi member agencies.

So the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission is one of those are 5 commissioners.

No more than 3 are supposed to be from any one party and they are they are appointed for a term of years.

I think it's 5 years and are staggered.

So when president, new president comes in, he may be able to appoint some new commissioners but not replace all of them and they are not supposed to be removed except for what's called cause, which means essentially not doing your job dishonesty, that kind of thing.

President Trump said no, no, I have the right to fire anybody.

I want.

And that is what happened in this case.

The Supreme Court said, yeah, he's right.

And in so doing overruled a 90 year-old precedent squarely overruled it at the case called Humphrey's Executor and it expressly upheld the statute creating the FTC against exactly the same challenge Congress has created numerous agencies modeled on the FTC, which is one of the earliest ones, their operations, their constitutionality are all in significant doubt.

And I would expect we're going to see a firing spree by Donald Trump.

Yeah, I think that's where a lot of folks are concerned.

Now that is that the president has this power, that a lot of those agencies, those commissions, that sports could start to turn over.

>> But the court made a separate decision regarding the firing of Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve governor.

What justices decide there.

So they're the court said, well, the Federal Reserve is different.

>> There are good reasons for Congress to make the central bank independent of politics in a way that they don't seem to think it's appropriate for other types of of agencies.

It is, in fact, a very confusing set of opinions.

If for the 2 justices who joined the majority in both, which is the chief Justice Justice Kavanaugh that the 2 opinions really don't can't be reconciled are both written by the chief justice, the and part of the reason they really can't be reconciled is because he relies on history so differently in the 2 cases to say in one case.

Well, this is the way Congress has done this from up for a long time.

That's in the F the case and on the other hand saying, well, even though Congress has done this for a long time based some conversations and debates that were had over a slightly different issue.

Back in 17 89, I think they're not.

They're not allowed to do it.

So disruption to our government is just beside the point.

>> Are there other avenues that Trump can use to replace Cook or what is to happen with her?

Yes.

So what the court said is she she can be.

She he cast can only fire her for cause.

What he had said is I'm firing for cause because there is there's reason to believe you committed mortgage fraud.

She never had the opportunity to say no, that's not true.

Even though the statute itself requires her to be given that opportunity.

So basically what's going back down.

There's going to be a process.

I presume where Donald Trump says this is why I'm firing you because she'll have the ability to say I didn't do that or that's not reasonable.

Cause.

And then court will probably help probably say, yes, you're still fired.

And then there will be an adjudication about whether it court can even evaluate that determination on the merits.

And if so, whether his decision stands.

>> One of these decisions from this term tell us about the court's taking into account these and others.

The court's view of executive power quite a few of executive power is extraordinary.

I think the framers would be frankly, shocked by it.

They are giving the president.

>> Increasing amounts of an reviewable power.

We see that in in the slaughter case today, the FTC case, we saw that in the immigration cases last week we were seeing that we saw that certainly saw that in the immunity case from persons, United States.

So I I think they have a kind of unlimited belief that the president is the embodiment of the country.

In some sense, it will be interesting to see if they behave the same way.

If there's a Democratic president in the future because they've also given themselves a lot of tools to say, well, actually, in this case, the president is overreaching.

We don't think the statute allows the president to do this particular thing in particularly in context with the president is trying regulate.

We think back to Biden's efforts to forgive student loans, for example.

And briefly, we've got about 15 seconds.

Left decision is expected tomorrow in the challenge to birthright citizenship.

>> What are the arguments there?

>> Well, the arguments there are what does the 14th Amendment mean?

What it says, which is that if you're born here, you're a citizen or is there a way of reading something very broad into what was otherwise an extremely narrow exception, word subject to the jurisdiction thereof.

I think that the court will