The Supreme Court is gearing up for a significant conclusion to its year.

After the Thanksgiving break, the justices will reconvene to deliberate on several pivotal issues, including President Trump’s attempts to transform independent agencies, a significant case concerning campaign finance, and a legal battle involving pregnancy centers and New Jersey’s Democratic attorney general.

Here are four noteworthy cases to keep an eye on over the next couple of weeks.

Trump’s FTC firing

During his second term, President Trump has aimed to dismantle the established autonomy of certain federal agencies, seeking to dismiss their leaders without justification.

This initiative will reach a critical point on December 8, when the Supreme Court will hear arguments regarding the president’s endeavor to remove a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) member.

It arguably marks the most significant challenge yet to the court’s 90-year-old precedent, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, that upheld restrictions on the president’s ability to fire FTC commissioners and paved the way for similar for-cause firing protections at other agencies. 

Trump has largely lost in lower courts, which have ruled they remain bound by that decision. But the White House has always believed the real fight is at the Supreme Court, which holds the power to overturn its precedent. 

Several conservative justices have signaled an openness to doing so, criticizing the removal restrictions as a possible infringement of the president’s constitutional authority over the executive branch. 

Solicitor General D. John Sauer, the Trump administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer, will argue the case himself, a sign of how the administration views its importance.

Campaign finance

The following day, a major campaign finance battle heads to the Supreme Court. 

The justices will consider striking down federal restrictions on political parties’ spending in coordination with their candidates, known as “coordinated party expenditure limits.” 

Republicans’ Senate and House campaign arms, then-Sen. JD Vance and former Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) challenge the limits under the First Amendment’s free speech protections. They appealed to the justices after losing in lower courts. 

“A political party exists to get its candidates elected. It is therefore only natural that a party would want to consult with its candidate before expressing support for his election,” they wrote in court filings. 

Federal law allows donors to contribute more to a political party than an individual candidate. The provision’s defenders warn that if parties have no restrictions on steering dollars to a specific campaign, donors could effectively launder bribes to candidates by merely sending money through their political party. 

The Supreme Court rejected a First Amendment challenge to coordinated party expenditure limits before, ruling they were permissible to prevent corruption. 

But Republicans say subsequent high court decisions require a rigorous showing that the restrictions are narrowly tailored to protect against corruption. The law doesn’t clear that hurdle, they argue. 

The challenge is supported by the Trump administration, which abandoned defending the provision and now agrees it is unconstitutional. 

It left the Democratic National Committee to defend it. Prominent Democratic election attorney Marc Elias will take the lectern for the party.  

The high court also appointed Roman Martinez, who leads law firm Latham & Watkins’ Supreme Court practice, to defend the provision.  

Pregnancy center subpoena

This Tuesday, the Supreme Court will consider a First Amendment case that touches on abortion. 

First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, which runs five faith-based pregnancy centers in the state, is attempting to quash a subpoena from New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin (D) under the First Amendment. 

The centers do not provide abortions. Its health services are privately funded and provided free to patients. 

Platkin’s subpoena demanded First Choice turn over donors’ names, their contact information and materials used to solicit contributions. Platkin’s office has said it’s part of an investigation into whether First Choice engaged in unlawful, “deceptive” practices. 

Tuesday’s argument does not implicate the constitutional right to abortion, which the Supreme Court’s conservative majority overturned three years ago. 

Instead, it revolves around First Choice’s free speech claims. 

Lower judges rejected the group’s efforts to bring its First Amendment challenge in federal court, finding it was unripe because the claims can instead be brought in state court. 

First Choice calls that a “Catch-22.” If the state judge rejects the free speech defense, the group says it would be barred from filing a lawsuit in federal court under the longstanding legal principle that prevents a party from relitigating an issue. 

The centers are represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal powerhouse that has regularly emerged successful at the Supreme Court. 

They are supported by the Trump administration, Mike Pence’s advocacy group, nearly three dozen Republican members of Congress, the Chamber of Commerce, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and 19 Republican state attorneys general, among others. 

Platkin’s office says the battle really turns on whether First Choice showed its First Amendment rights have been chilled by the subpoena, emphasizing there’s no court order yet demanding donor names be turned over. 

“Petitioner faces penalties for nonproduction only if a New Jersey state court issues an order requiring the production of documents—and even then, only if Petitioner is held in contempt for failing to comply with that judicial order,” Platkin’s office wrote in court filings. 

A smaller group submitted outside briefs supporting Platkin, including 20 Democratic state attorneys general and the National Association of Counties. 

Street preacher’s free speech fight

The campaign finance and pregnancy center cases aren’t the only free speech battles at the Supreme Court this session. 

A street preacher in Mississippi will take his effort to raise First Amendment claims to the justices at arguments Wednesday. 

Gabriel Olivier, an evangelical Christian, uses loudspeakers and signs to protest the message “that everyone sins.” He called women “Jezebels” and “whores” and men “sissies” as they walked by, court records show. 

Brandon, Miss., officials arrested him under a city ordinance that criminalizes certain demonstrations near a public amphitheater outside of a designated protest area. Olivier was found guilty, and he paid a $304 fine. 

While on probation, Olivier brought a federal civil rights lawsuit, saying the ordinance violates his First Amendment free speech rights. 

Olivier appealed to the justices after lower courts rejected his lawsuit.  

The Supreme Court’s decision will turn on how they interpret the court’s 1994 decision, which held that a defendant must show their conviction was somehow invalidated to sue local officials for damages under the civil rights statute Olivier invoked. 

But Olivier’s lawyers distinguish his case by noting he’s not seeking damages, and instead wants forward-looking relief that would prevent officials from using the law to arrest him if he returns to the amphitheater sidewalk. 

“If a federal court issued prospective relief, it wouldn’t change anything about his prior conviction or punishment,” his lawyers wrote.