the edit, vol. 21.

the accountability gap — when rulings have no remedies

On Friday morning, February 20, 2026, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts delivered a 22-page opinion striking down President Trump's sweeping tariffs. The law used to impose them, Roberts wrote, "does not authorize the President to impose tariffs." The ruling was unambiguous: the administration had exceeded its authority. By Friday evening, the president had signed a new executive order imposing a 10% global tariff under different legal authority. The new tariffs take effect Monday, February 24—72 hours after the court ruled the previous ones illegal.

Between these two moments lies a question that reveals how accountability functions when institutional checks encounter executive evasion: what happens to the $133 billion already collected under an authority the Supreme Court has now declared the president never possessed?

the states calculate what families paid

Within hours of the ruling, governors began issuing demands—not on behalf of corporations, but on behalf of households.

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker sent a formal invoice to the White House: $8.68 billion, itemized as $1,700 per household multiplied by the state's 5,105,448 households. The document, marked "Past Due - Delinquent," included a cover period from February 2025 through January 2026. "Your tariff taxes wreaked havoc on farmers, enraged our allies, and sent grocery prices through the roof," Pritzker wrote. "This letter and the attached invoice stand as an official notice that compensation is owed to the people of Illinois, and if you do not comply we will pursue further action."

Nevada Treasurer Zach Conine filed a payment request for $2.1 billion on behalf of the state's 1.2 million households. California Governor Gavin Newsom demanded refunds "with interest": "Time to pay the piper, Donald. These tariffs were nothing more than an illegal cash grab that drove up prices and hurt working families. Every dollar unlawfully taken must be refunded immediately—with interest. Cough up!"

The White House response to Pritzker was instructive. Spokesman Kush Desai issued a statement attacking the governor personally rather than addressing the substance of the demand. On the question of refunds to anyone—companies or consumers—the president was direct: "I guess it has to get litigated for the next two years," he told reporters Friday afternoon. "We'll end up being in court for the next five years."

This is the accountability gap rendered visible: a judicial ruling without a remedy, a violation without restitution, and the immediate implementation of a new mechanism to continue the same policy the court just invalidated.

what american households actually paid

The figures states are demanding reflect what research institutions have calculated families absorbed through higher prices. The nonpartisan Tax Foundation estimated Trump's tariffs amounted to an average tax increase of $1,000 per household in 2025. Yale University's Budget Lab calculated a higher figure: $1,751 per household. These aren't projections—they represent what happened as tariffs imposed in 2025 worked their way through supply chains and onto price tags.

The burden fell disproportionately. Analysis from Yale found that households in the lowest income decile faced costs equivalent to 2.6% of their post-tax income, while those in the top decile faced 0.8%—a burden three times heavier on those least able to absorb it.

The mechanism was straightforward. When the federal government collected $133 billion in tariffs from importing companies, those companies faced a choice: absorb the cost and reduce profits, or pass it through to consumers. A Federal Reserve Bank of New York study released February 12, 2026, found that American companies and consumers bore approximately 90% of the tariff burden. The Kiel Institute for the World Economy calculated an even higher figure: 96% paid by U.S. importers and consumers. The price increases appeared in January's inflation data: household furnishings up 3.8%, furniture up 4%, dishes and flatware up 5%.

Illinois farmers paid more for equipment. California's 60,000 small business exporters faced retaliatory tariffs abroad. Nevada households spent more at grocery stores and hardware stores—what Pritzker's invoice described as costs paid "around the kitchen table." The money moved from family budgets to the U.S. Treasury, collected under an authority the Supreme Court has now determined the president never lawfully possessed.

who gets refunds, who doesn't

The Supreme Court's opinion is notable for what it doesn't address. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing in dissent, pointed out the omission: "The Court says nothing today about whether, and if so how, the Government should go about returning the billions of dollars that it has collected from importers. But that process is likely to be a 'mess,' as was acknowledged at oral argument."

More than 1,800 companies have already filed lawsuits seeking refunds—Costco, Toyota, Goodyear, Alcoa among them. Trade lawyers estimate a timeline of 12 to 18 months minimum, possibly years. The Court of International Trade must establish a refund process for what trade lawyer Joyce Adetutu of Vinson & Elkins called an unprecedented situation: "thousands of importers and tens of billions of dollars at once."

Adetutu warned that "the government is well-positioned to make this as difficult as possible for importers. I can see a world where they push as much responsibility as possible onto the importer." Companies that failed to file protective claims when they paid the tariffs will likely forfeit any refund. The process will be complex, expensive, and prolonged.

But even if companies eventually receive refunds, American households will not. The money families spent on higher-priced furniture, groceries, and consumer goods is gone. When Costco or Toyota receives a tariff refund, there is no mechanism requiring them to identify which customers paid the elevated prices and issue proportional reimbursements. As Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent noted in January, refunds to companies would be "a corporate boondoggle"—he questioned whether "Costco, who's suing the US government, are they going to give the money back to their clients?"

This is why state governors are demanding household refunds directly: they recognize that the ordinary refund process, even if it functions, will compensate importers while leaving consumers who absorbed the costs with nothing.

the pattern of institutional evasion

The sequence of events Friday illuminates how executive action can render judicial checks effectively inoperative through immediate evasion and prolonged litigation.

The Supreme Court ruled that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) "does not authorize the President to impose tariffs." Chief Justice Roberts's opinion emphasized that before Trump, "no president had ever used the statute in question to impose any tariffs, let alone tariffs of this magnitude and scope." The decision invalidated the legal foundation for duties that had raised the average U.S. tariff rate to 16.9%—the highest since 1946.

Within hours, the president signed an executive order imposing a 10% global tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, a provision that has never before been invoked in its 52-year history. The effective tariff rate would drop to 9.1% without the IEEPA tariffs, but the new Section 122 duties immediately push it back to 15.4%—nearly where it stood before the court ruled.

Section 122 comes with statutory limits: tariffs cannot exceed 15% and cannot remain in place longer than 150 days without congressional approval. But it also allows the president to act "based on" balance of payments concerns without requiring investigation or procedural steps. Legal scholars have already raised questions about whether current economic conditions—specifically, the absence of a balance-of-payments deficit under the flexible exchange rate system the U.S. has maintained since 1973—provide lawful grounds for invoking Section 122. Bryan Riley of the National Taxpayers Union wrote that "Section 122 was effectively rendered obsolete" when the U.S. abandoned fixed exchange rates.

The 150-day limit means the tariffs expire in July unless Congress extends them—a midterm election year complication. But Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated Friday that the administration's strategy involves not just Section 122 but also enhanced Section 232 (national security) and Section 301 (unfair trade practices) tariffs, which "will result in virtually unchanged tariff revenue in 2026."

The pattern is clear: judicial invalidation triggers not compliance but tactical adjustment. The policy continues under different statutory authority. The billions already collected remain in dispute, subject to what the president himself estimated as "the next five years" of litigation. New collections begin immediately.

what accountability requires

The Supreme Court's decision represents the rare instance where the current court has fully reviewed and rejected a major Trump administration policy. Previous cases involved emergency applications; this was the first to receive full briefing and oral argument. The 6-3 majority included two justices Trump appointed—Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett—joining Chief Justice Roberts and the three liberal justices.

Roberts's opinion invoked Chief Justice John Marshall's 1824 ruling establishing that the authority to impose tariffs is "a branch of the taxing power," which the Constitution assigns to Congress. The separation of powers analysis was straightforward: "When Congress grants the power to impose tariffs, it does so clearly and with careful constraints. It did neither here."

But institutional checks function only when rulings translate into actual remedies. The Supreme Court can declare an action illegal; it cannot easily compel refunds or prevent immediate workarounds through different legal mechanisms. The Court of International Trade can eventually establish a refund process for importing companies; it has no jurisdiction over whether those companies return money to consumers. State governors can demand household refunds; they have no power to compel the federal government to issue them.

What emerges is a system where violations of constitutional authority can be profitable in the interim. Collect $133 billion under disputed authority. Lose in court after collecting the money. Delay refunds through years of litigation. Implement the same policy under different statutory language. The costs borne by households become permanent while the legal question remains technically unresolved.

This is what the Illinois invoice captures when it marks the tariff charges "Past Due - Delinquent." It's an acknowledgment that money unlawfully collected doesn't automatically return to those who paid it—that accountability requires not just a judicial ruling but mechanisms of enforcement that may not exist.

what happens monday

The new 10% tariffs take effect February 24. Americans shopping for furniture, appliances, or groceries will continue paying elevated prices on imported goods—different tariffs under different statutory authority, but the same result at the cash register.

The trade deficit, meanwhile, remains essentially unchanged. It totaled $901 billion in 2025, barely budging despite a year of tariffs that were supposed to rebalance trade. The tariffs redistributed costs—from importers to consumers, from higher-income to lower-income households—but achieved neither their stated economic objective nor their legal justification.

For the families whose governors sent invoices to the White House, the ruling changes little in practical terms. The $1,700 Illinois households paid, the costs Nevada families absorbed, the elevated prices California consumers faced—none of that returns. The Supreme Court determined the tariffs were illegal. The question of what happens to money collected illegally will be, as the president said, litigated for years.

Meanwhile, new tariffs begin. Different statute, same outcome. The accountability gap persists: judicial authority to invalidate, but limited power to remedy. Executive capacity to evade, and years to litigate before any refund might materialize. And households that paid the price in 2025 facing the same costs in 2026, regardless of what the Supreme Court ruled.

The pattern is now established. What remains uncertain is whether the July expiration of Section 122 tariffs will face the same cycle—another legal challenge, another prolonged fight, another immediate workaround—or whether at some point, the gap between judicial checks and actual accountability will narrow. The answer will depend less on legal reasoning than on institutional will: courts' capacity to enforce remedies, Congress's willingness to restrict executive maneuvering, and the political calculus of continuing a policy that the Supreme Court has declared unlawful and that economists have demonstrated falls heaviest on those least able to bear it.

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