After the Supreme Court tariff opinion, Learning Resources v. Trump (Feb. 20, 2026), and President Trump’s rebuttal press conference, I believe I know what lesson we are being forced to relearn about our Constitution and democracy, especially in the context of the upcoming 2026 midterm elections: SCOTUS gave us a constitutional tutorial on the separation of powers in our democracy.
In the Supreme Court’s 6-3 tariff opinion in Learning Resources, with two of Trump’s appointees (Gorsuch and Coney Barrett) voting with the majority, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Gorsuch gave a crash course on the checks and balances of democratic government, a lesson more than relevant to the 2026 midterm elections.
President Trump had argued that tariffs are not taxes and that he has the absolute right under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose those tariffs at any rate against any nation on earth. The Republican-controlled Congress did not object to this usurpation of its powers. Rather, it willingly went along with it. The High Court, a coequal branch of our government, gave a resounding constitutional “NO” to the president’s position. In the process, it began a much-needed education about our Constitution, and how the powers established by it are distributed in this time of Trump, with a Republican-controlled Congress.
The Chief Justice correctly held that in our legal system, under the Constitution’s separation of powers, tariffs are taxes, and that the power to impose taxes belongs to Congress. He pointed out that in the 50-year history of IEEPA, no president had previously used IEEPA to impose tariffs. He went on to point out that the statute never mentions tariffs. More importantly, Roberts made a clear pronouncement of the separation of constitutional powers between the Congress and the Executive. He warned that allowing the executive branch to use IEEPA for tariffs would replace “longstanding executive-legislative collaboration with ‘unchecked presidential policymaking’.” In doing this, the Chief Justice and the majority clearly ensured that it is the court’s, and not the president’s, duty to define the legal limits of presidential power.
In writing his concurrence, Justice Gorsuch echoed and supported this correct constitutional view of our system of government by issuing the following warning: “Under the Constitution, once the court reads a statute as granting the executive branch a given power, that power becomes nearly impossible for Congress to retrieve… The result… is the continued and permanent accretion of power in the hands of one man. This is no recipe for a republic.”
The justices’ warnings point directly to Congress being unwilling to exercise its oversight powers and check presidential overreach. This, of course, is in the hands of the voters regarding which party they put in control of Congress.
Trying to keep up with the Trump news cycle and his habitual violations of the Constitution he took an oath to protect is close to impossible. Nevertheless, it’s critical that voters understand that they will not only be voting for members of Congress in November, but will also be involved in a referendum on whether Congress will exercise its constitutional role as a check on presidential power.
It has become clear that a large number of voters neither understand our constitutional system nor appreciate the rights it affords them. An Annenberg Public Policy Center poll found that only 47% of respondents were able to name all three branches of government (legislative, executive, judicial), while 25% could not name any of the three branches of government.
It’s important to understand that Santa Barbara and Central Coast voters are not immune from this lack of constitutional understanding.
Local discussions about the U.S. Constitution in recent years indicate a deeply polarized and often misunderstood view of this founding document. Indeed, news outlets often find themselves needing to clarify common misconceptions, such as the fact that the Constitution does not explicitly guarantee the right to vote but rather prohibits discrimination in voting. Perhaps more importantly, however, is research highlighting that roughly 24% of Democrats and 31% of Republicans nationwide feel democracy is no longer a viable system.
To completely understand what we are facing with the 2026 elections, consider Trump’s responses to the Supreme Court’s ruling. He attacked the justices of the Supreme Court who voted against him by calling them “fools and lap dogs” and suggested that they had bowed to foreign influence. And, when asked if, after the court’s ruling in Learning Resources, he planned to work with Congress, he said, “I don’t have to… I have the right to do tariffs.”
He then went on to impose an across-the-board 10%, later raised to 15%, tariff on products from all countries under a 1974 trade law, using a rarely used provision that can only stay in effect for 150 days after which it must be approved by Congress. This, of course, will lead to more litigation at the end of the 150 days.
Through all of this, there have been crickets from the vast majority of Republican members of the House and Senate. What voters will decide in November is whether constitutional order will be restored by creating a Congress that will challenge, object to, and do the required oversight over Trump’s continued avoidance of the president’s responsibility to protect the Constitution of the United States.
