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Ask the Editor-in-Chief: SCOTUS Blows Up Another Precedent + More — 6/29/26
Ron Filipkowski and Capitol Hill correspondent Pablo Manríquez take subscriber questions on the week's biggest stories
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This week’s Ask the Editor in Chief, featuring MeidasTouch DC correspondent Pablo Manríquez and of course Editor in Chief Ron Filipkowski, ran through five questions submitted by the Meidas+ Substack community. The most pressing topic revolved Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. Slaughter, which just gutted nearly a century of precedent governing how independent federal agencies operate. We’ll get into the details in a bit.
But first, thank you to everyone who submitted questions for this week’s episode! To have your questions considered for next week, look out for Ron’s call-to-action in his daily news bulletins! Also, a quick apology for the video quality in this week’s episode. There were some technical difficulties on Pablo’s end, but despite some visual and sync issues, the audio is crystal clear.
Read below for a full recap of this episode and watch above! Let’s dive in.
The SCOTUS Decision You Need to Pay Attention To
Until this week, the law was simple. When a president appoints someone to a federal commission, like the FTC, the FCC, and dozens of similar bodies, that person serves out a fixed term, regardless of who wins the next election. The whole point was continuity. Bipartisanship. Stability. A Federal Trade Commission that doesn’t get hollowed out and rebuilt from scratch every four years depending on who’s in the White House. That arrangement has held since the 1930s.
It’s gone now. The Supreme Court ruled that a president can fire commissioners for no reason at all, at any time, even though Congress created and funds these agencies. The Court’s logic is a bit of a shrug. Sure, Congress gets to build the house, but apparently it has no say over who gets thrown out of it. Fittingly, this was a top priority of Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation.
The practical effect is going to be immediate and ugly. Expect a purge. Every remaining Biden-era appointee across roughly two dozen federal agencies is now exposed, and Trump is expected to clean house within weeks, replacing them with the usual assortment of partisan loyalists and unqualified hacks. The one notable exception is the Federal Reserve, which appears to be shielded mostly because of how it’s funded and a specific “for cause” removal clause baked into its founding statute, not because anyone on the Court seems to have a coherent unifying theory here.
There’s a bitter irony, though, and that’s that this ruling cuts both ways. The next time Democrats hold the White House, they now have the same authority to walk in and fire every single Trump-era appointee on day one. It’s not exactly the system anyone would design on purpose. Wholesale purges every time the presidency changes hands is closer to how Mexico’s spoils system used to function than how a stable democracy should operate, but it’s the system this Court just handed everyone. Given the chaos and lawlessness this administration has unleashed, there’s an argument that Democrats should be taking detailed notes on exactly how to use these new tools the moment they’re back in power.
The Housing Bill Nobody’s Allowed to Celebrate
A bipartisan housing bill, one that sailed through both chambers of Congress with overwhelming support, including from a healthy chunk of Republicans, is now sitting on Trump’s desk, and he’s doing the Trump thing, AKA nothing. Once a bill reaches the president, a ten-day clock starts. He can sign it, veto it, or just ignore it and let it become law automatically. Given his complaints tying the bill to demands over the SAVE Act, the expectation is that he’ll let it sit and stew before making a dramatic, last-minute spectacle out of vetoing it. But we will see.
The real test will be whether the same Republicans who voted for this thing when it cost them nothing politically will suddenly find a reason to abandon it now that Trump has decided to throw a tantrum over it. Spinelessness, as always, is a renewable resource on Capitol Hill.
The National Design Studio
Then there’s the so-called National Design Studio, a name so blandly bureaucratic it almost disguises how alarming it actually is. The agency that used to run secure, nonpartisan federal websites and safeguard data like Social Security numbers, voter registration files, and passport applications was gutted by Elon Musk’s DOGE operation. In its place, Trump created a new outfit and installed the former CEO of Airbnb, a guy who switched parties to go all-in on Trump in 2024 and was pushed out of his own company’s leadership as a result, to run it.
What’s actually happening under the hood is the troubling part. Passport data, once controlled exclusively by the State Department, has reportedly been pulled out of the agency’s hands and routed instead through the White House. The same is true of data tied to Trump’s prescription drug accounts and the new investment accounts created for children. Sensitive personal information that used to sit with the relevant federal agency now apparently flows through a political entity instead. There’s no confirmed evidence yet that any of this data has leaked to outside parties, but the structural problem is glaring on its face. Apolitical White House now has direct, exclusive access to deeply personal data on millions of Americans, bypassing the privacy protections Congress built specifically to prevent this. Real oversight here is basically nonexistent until Democrats control a chamber of Congress and can actually hold hearings.
Vote-by-Mail Under Siege
Another executive order aimed squarely at vote-by-mail also came up. The order directs the Postmaster General to withhold mail-in ballots from any state that refuses to hand over its voter registration data to the federal government, despite the fact that running elections has been a state and local function since the Constitution was written, with virtually no federal role whatsoever. Predictably, states across the political spectrum, red and blue alike, told the administration to get lost and refused to comply. A federal district court in Massachusetts has already blocked the order, saying the Postal Service has no business picking and choosing which legal mail it delivers based on political convenience. The administration is appealing, so the fight isn’t over, but the ruling itself is about as airtight as they come. Meanwhile, in today’s SCOTUS decisions, the Court ruled that states can count mail-in ballots that are postmarked on or before Election Day, even if they arrive afterward. This is a big win for voting rights and a huge blow to Trump’s attempt to suppress the vote
Fixing Social Security with an Unlikely Pairing
Senators Bernie Moreno and Elizabeth Warren, about as far apart ideologically as two senators can get, have teamed up on a proposal to lift the income cap on Social Security taxes. Right now, earnings above roughly $184,000 are exempt from the Social Security tax entirely, meaning the wealthiest earners pay a dramatically smaller share of their income into the system than everyone else. Removing that cap would reportedly extend the system’s solvency by an entire 25 years and raise roughly $3 trillion, while affecting only the top sliver of earners. It’s a rare moment of obvious, common-sense math cutting through Washington’s usual paralysis, even if it’s hard to imagine it surviving contact with the rest of Congress.
Watch Ron and Pablo answer and discuss all five questions below, and thanks again for your submissions.
Ask the Editor is an exclusive series for Meidas+ subscribers on Substack. New episodes drop weekly.+
We are so grateful for your support of MeidasTouch and the Meidas+ Substack. If you are enjoying this bonus content, please consider helping us spread the word. You can even gift memberships if you are able. Your support makes our work possible. We sincerely could not do this without you.
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