Week in Review

IN THE NEWS

• The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld a district court’s universal preliminary injunction blocking any enforcement of President Donald J. Trump’s executive order purporting to eliminate the birthright citizenship of individuals born to undocumented parents. The court found that the executive order contradicts the “plain language” of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment and that the state plaintiffs were likely to succeed in demonstrating the order’s unconstitutionality. Following the Supreme Court’s recent ruling prohibiting universal injunctions for individual plaintiffs unless necessary to provide them with complete relief to remedy their injuries, the Ninth Circuit determined that complete relief for the state plaintiffs in this case required a universal injunction. Judge Patrick J. Bumatay dissented, finding that the state plaintiffs lacked standing to bring suit, but declined to address the merits or scope of the injunction.
• President Trump signed into law the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act, creating the first comprehensive federal framework for regulating payment stablecoins, or cryptocurrencies backed by traditional currency. The lawpermits only banks and approved nonbank entities to issue stablecoins, requires one-to-one asset backing with liquid reserves such as Treasury bills, and mandates monthly public disclosures, certifications by executive officers, and independent audits. Supporters praised the law for bringing long-awaited clarity to digital asset markets and advancing mainstream adoption of stablecoins. Critics warned, however, that unresolved questions remain about the law’s policy, legal, and commercial implications for the overall banking system.
• The U.S. Supreme Court stayed a district court order enjoining President Trump’s removal of the Democratic appointees of the Consumer Product Safety Commission because the President removed them without cause, as required by statute. The Court relied entirely on its decision earlier this year staying district court orders enjoining the President’s removal of members of two other independent regulatory agencies. In that decision, the Court concluded that the Trump Administration was likely to prevail on its argument that the statutes precluding the President from removing the agency members without cause violated the constitutional separation of powers. Dissenting, Justice Kagan and two other Justices charged that by “once again” staying a district court order to enforce congressional protections against removal without cause, the Court had “destroyed the independence of an independent agency.”
• The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that it will overhaul the national organ donation system after a federal investigation uncovered widespread failures by a major organ procurement organization, Network for Hope. U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., condemned the violations as “disturbing” and stated that the current system must be restructured to uphold the dignity of potential donors. The Health Resources and Services Administrationfound that at least 28 patients may not have been deceased when organ retrieval began, with others showing neurological signs inconsistent with donation. In response, the Service mandated corrective action for Network for Hope and directed the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network to strengthen national safety protocols.
• The U.S. Department of Defense barred waivers that previously allowed people with certain serious medical conditions—including heart failure and schizophrenia—to serve in the military. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who signed the memo barring the waivers, stressed the need for service members who are “physically and mentally capable” of battlefield demands. Military branch secretaries may still provide a waiver for people with less acute conditions—such as a past heart attack or a missing limb—but Hegseth warned that severe illnesses “introduce significant risks on the battlefield.”
• The White House removed a Wall Street Journal reporter from the press pool covering President Trump’s upcoming trip to Scotland, in response to the outlet’s publication of an article detailing the President’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that the reporter would not be allowed in the press pool “due to The Wall Street Journal’s fake and defamatory conduct.” The removal followed a defamation lawsuit filed by President Trump alleging that the article contained unsubstantiated and false claims. Some legal scholars, however, viewed the lawsuit and exclusion of The Wall Street Journal as an attempt to regulate and suppress news organizations in their exercise of free speech.
• The U.S. Department of State opened an investigation into Harvard University’s participation in the Exchange Visitor Program, which provides visas for international students, researchers, and scholars. Secretary of State Marco Rubiosaid the inquiry aims to ensure that participants comply with program rules and do not compromise U.S. national security or foreign policy interests. The investigationfollows continued tensions between Harvard and the Trump Administration, which has revoked Harvard’s federal funding, challenged the school’s accreditation, and attempted to block the enrollment of international students. Harvard reportedlycalled the investigation retaliatory and reportedly said it would continue to comply with regulations and support its international community.
• A federal judge ruled that the Trump Administration illegally removed a public online database detailing how the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) parcels out taxpayer dollars to federal agencies. Judge Emmett Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia held that the takedown violated appropriations laws that require OMB to publish apportionment decisions online within two business days of the decision. Judge Sullivan ordered the site back up but paused enforcement until Thursday morning so that the Justice Department can decide whether to appeal the decision.
• The chief of the Urban Search and Rescue Response System within the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) resigned, citing delays in the agency’s response to catastrophic flooding in Texas earlier this month. The resignation follows a recent Department of Homeland Security (DHS) policy requiring Secretary Kristi Noem’s prior approval for any agency spending exceeding $100,000, a move that has raised concerns about its potential to slow emergency response efforts. Authorization for FEMA’s search and rescue response to the Texas floods took over 72 hours, and some teams arrived a week after flooding began. Although DHS officials defended the response, FEMA recently established the Disaster Funding Adjudication Task Force to streamline lifesaving spending.

WHAT WE’RE READING THIS WEEK

•  In its 2025 annual report, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) calculated that congressional and agency actions responding to GAO’s recommendations from 2011 to 2024 produced about $725 billion in savings through canceled contracts, streamlined programs, and increased revenue collections. The report identified 148 new steps—part of 589 matters that are still open—that GAO estimated could trim federal government costs by at least another $100 billion. GAO urged OMB and 24 agencies to run the legally required, annual “portfolio check-ups” on every major IT project meant to spot overruns and shut down duplicate systems. GAO also proposed that Congress clarify the U.S. Department of Energy’s cleanup authority at a Washington state nuclear waste site—a change that could generate billions in additional savings.
• In a recent Brookings Institution series of essays, a group of practitioners and scholars  considered the consequences for public education of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decisions in Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond, A. J. T. v. Osseo Area Schools, and Mahmoud v. Taylor. In his essay, Robert Kim, the executive director of the Education Law Center, described a trend of elevating “religious rights above other constitutional interests.” Suzanne Ecks, a professor at the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin, echoed the sentiment and discussed the potential for increased administrative burdens related to parents’ religious opt-out requests. Derek Black, a professor at the Joseph F. Rice School of Law at the University of South Carolina, expressed about the future of religious charter schools, while other essay authors predicted that opt-outs could deplete funding for rural schools and further erode the separation between public life and private religious institutions.
• In a recent Brookings Institution essay, Stephanie K. Pell, a fellow in governance studies, Josie Stewart, a research and communications assistant in governance studies, and Brooke Tanner, a research analyst, all at Brookings, examined efforts by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to centralize access to personal data held by various federal agencies. Pell, Stewart, and Tanner argued that this initiative, enabled by President Trump’s executive order promoting inter-agency data sharing, expands government surveillance power, potentially violating the Privacy Act of 1974. They explained how DOGE’s actions, framed as advancing efficiency, could result in the aggregation of Social Security numbers, tax returns, health records, and other sensitive information into a single database, raising serious privacy concerns. Pell, Stewart, and Tanner  warned that existing legal safeguards may be insufficient to prevent the federal government from building such a system and that once established, dismantling it could prove difficult.

EDITOR’S CHOICE

• In an essay in The Regulatory Review, José Carlos Laguna de Paz, a professor of law at the University of Valladolid, examined whether European Union regulators should impose a “fair share” tax that would make “big tech” companies—such as Netflix, Google, and Amazon—help finance Europe’s telecom networks. Laguna de Paz noted that liberalization of telecoms since the 1990s delivered widespread, low cost broadband but left carriers divided by national borders and burdened with costly next generation infrastructure investments. He argued that charging big tech companies would fund new infrastructure without violating net neutrality rules because the tax would target financing, not traffic management. Laguna de Paz added that EU officials remain split on whether to adopt the measure and noted that consumers could ultimately bear the cost of future telecom networks.