It’s interesting to look back at the first year of the 119th Congress and Donald Trump’s second term in the White House to see whether government actions added up to a net positive or negative for liberty. Was 2025 a good year for the Constitution? How did the Republican trifecta in the Swamp stack up?
As Liberty Nation News recently reported, Congress had an embarrassingly record-breaking slow year, seeing just 38 bills signed into law. But while the legislative branch dithered and fought, the executive and judiciary were quite busy. President Trump signed 225 executive orders in 2025, and the Supreme Court delivered decisions in 66 cases. Not all of these clearly register as a win or loss for the Constitution – but many of them advanced statist control, scaled back the government’s power, or boosted individual liberty.
Justice for the Constitution?
The Supreme Court championed state sovereignty over federal control in multiple cases, from delivering a win to San Francisco over the EPA to ruling that if a plaintiff amended a suit so that it removes any federal law component, the case must be sent back to state-level courts. Perhaps the biggest story in this category, though, was US v. Skrmetti, in which the Court ruled a Tennessee state law prohibiting medical professionals from providing hormone therapy or puberty-delaying drugs for transgender minors doesn’t violate the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
In Trump v. CASA, the Supreme Court held that lower federal courts, which represent just one region in the nation, couldn’t issue universal injunctions blocking action nationwide. This seems like a win for the Constitution, because it means a single region can’t dictate policy for the entire nation.
Religious liberty came up multiple times as well. On the one hand, the High Court ruled in Catholic Charities Bureau, Inc. v. Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Comm’n that the plaintiff organization did still qualify for religious tax exemption even though it offered services to non-Catholics. On the other hand, though, it also ruled in Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond that religiously affiliated schools can’t receive public money. The ruling defunds religious private schools, but it also upholds the idea that the government should neither establish nor prohibit religious practices. Is that a win for the Constitution because it stays true to the First Amendment, or a loss because it has the practical effect of promoting secular state schools through tax funding? That one’s likely a matter of perspective.
In Mahmoud v. Taylor, the Court ruled that forcing public-school students to receive instruction, including “LGBTQ+inclusive” material, even when parents wanted to exempt their children from such lessons, likely violated the parents’ rights.
The Supreme Court also took action in Trump v. American Federation of Government Employees, allowing for the large-scale layoffs of federal workers. That’s a win for the Trump administration’s attempts to shrink the overall size of the US government – and a smaller government belongs solidly in the win column for individual liberty over statist control as well as the authority of states to regulate themselves.
Then there’s Bondi v. VanDerStock, in which the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Trump administration’s argument that DIY firearm kits that supply partially completed pistol frames or rifle receivers requiring some machining still counted under the Gun Control Act (GCA) of 1968 as firearms. This 7-2 decision was criticized as an affront to the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms uninfringed, as was the ATF rule it defended. Also, it was a strange position for the Trump administration to take, given its stated stance on gun rights overall. To be fair, neither the Court nor the ATF argued that the GCA itself was constitutional, just that the kits should be covered by it. In any case, it was definitely a very anti-Second Amendment position, which is a loss for lovers of the Constitution and individual liberty.
The Presidential Perspective
When it comes to executive orders, President Trump certainly hasn’t held back, and several advanced the cause of liberty. Consider the February order directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to find and plan for the removal of any executive policies that infringe upon Second Amendment rights. Since then, the administration has taken some downright historic actions when it comes to removing such infringements.
But there have been some mixed signals as well. In the Bondi v. VanDerStock case, the ATF under Trump is pushing to expand the GCA definition of a firearm – despite relaxing its iron grip in other areas. As well, the DOJ defended in court the National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934 when gun rights advocates sued to have it declared unconstitutional – after Trump championed the bill that effectively pulled the NFA’s taxing teeth. Why the conflicting stance here? Who knows – but the administration’s executive actions have been mostly pro-liberty while its position in court in these cases has been the opposite.
President Trump has, however, also claimed for himself considerable power using executive orders, like declaring fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction, labeling groups as transnational terrorist organizations, and applying tariffs across the globe to influence trade and other policies. Do these advance the constitutional separation of powers, or do they constitute executive overreach, as his political opponents suggest? Again, that may well be a matter of perspective.
Lazy Legislators?
Looking at what laws might be constitutional wins or losses is easy this year, simply because there have been so few – and most of them just rename stuff. Still, it only takes one big bill – beautiful or otherwise – to shift the paradigm for years to come.
The biggest, of course, is President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. It was a long time coming, and it went through many changes, but on July 4, 2025, the president signed this into law, fulfilling what was probably his biggest goal for the first year of his second term. You can argue about whether it will grow or shrink the deficit and inflation over the years, but its tax cuts – including the removal of the NFA’s fees – represent a boon to liberty both through deregulation and by allowing taxpayers to keep more of their paychecks.
