[HN Gopher] US Supreme Court limits federal judges' power to blo...
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US Supreme Court limits federal judges' power to block Trump orders
Author : leotravis10
Score : 255 points
Date : 2025-06-27 17:38 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| cmurf wrote:
| There's no legal reasoning. If there's a D president again, this
| gets reversed early on.
|
| Nationwide injunctions were saught and used by (self-proclaimed)
| conservatives to slow down and stop Biden immigration policies.
| 15155 wrote:
| > this gets reversed early on.
|
| Through what legal avenue?
| bamboozled wrote:
| That's true, they have no power of the Supreme Court like the
| Rs do...oops
| mannyv wrote:
| You need to actually read the decision. There's plenty of legal
| reasoning. You may not agree with it, but your opinion is
| irrelevant.
|
| One thing they didn't talk about was structural: the court
| system is split up into X circuits, and each circuit is
| independent. Normally each circuit uses rulings from other
| circuits as a basis for its judgements, but circuits are pretty
| independent from each other. The Supremes weigh in when the
| circuits conflicted with each other.
|
| The national injunctions issued by the lower court allowed the
| lowest level court to have more authority than an appeals
| court. An appellate court's decision was only binding on its
| circuit. Why would a lower court have more authority than an
| appeals court? That makes no sense.
|
| That's outside of all the reasoning the court used to stop this
| practice.
|
| That said, if an affected individual brought a suit the may be
| able to get an injunction, since the court ruled that universal
| injunctions were inappropriate.
| vharuck wrote:
| >Why would a lower court have more authority than an appeals
| court? That makes no sense.
|
| An appellate court considers the decisions of the courts
| below it, so it makes sense its actions would be restricted
| to those courts. What makes no sense is the newly possible
| situation in which an action violates the U.S. Constitution
| in one district but not another.
| delecti wrote:
| > What makes no sense is the newly possible situation in
| which an action violates the U.S. Constitution in one
| district but not another
|
| That's not new. It's called a circuit split, and generally
| results in the cases being combined when SCOTUS hears them
| to sort out the difference.
| chasd00 wrote:
| >an action violates the U.S. Constitution in one district
| but not another.
|
| aren't those cases the point of the Supreme Court? when
| districts conflict it goes to the Supreme Court.
| Tadpole9181 wrote:
| Distinctly no, this is in the dissent. That requires an
| appeal from the government _and_ for SCOTUS to pick up
| the case in a reasonable time.
|
| Now the government can choose to "lose" in some places
| and let the injunction stand. Then, in all other
| locations in the country, the constitution of the United
| States is quite literally different _in perpetuity_.
|
| And it's not even by-locality, sans cases brought by a
| state government. SCOTUS has defined injunctions as _by-
| litigant_. So now two babies born next to each other in
| the same hospital to visa parents can have different
| naturalization statuses based on if those parents had
| sued in the right district court or not.
| wdb wrote:
| Sounds like you now need to start lawsuits in every state?
| mannyv wrote:
| They need to do two things:
|
| 1. File a suit in every circuit
|
| 2. Request an injunction type that's more appropriate
|
| Given the number of babies being born every day it shouldn't be
| hard to do.
|
| The thing is, the US doesn't issue citizenship papers. So I
| suppose they need to apply for an SSN and get denied (since the
| baby is a non-citizen), which will show immediate harm.
|
| It also begs the question: if that baby is illegal can it be
| deported?
| bluecalm wrote:
| My understanding is that the administration's position is
| that at least one of the parents needs to be a citizen or a
| legal resident. If that's the case the answer to your
| question is: yes - together with the parents.
| PleasureBot wrote:
| I suppose the recourse the Supreme Court is offering is
| that the baby (or more likely the parents) can sue when the
| citizenship is denied. At which point I'd just expect ICE
| to arrest and deport them when they show up to court for
| their lawsuit.
| dontlikeyoueith wrote:
| And if the parents are on valid non-resident visas?
| Suddenly the child has no status?
|
| Moreover, there is literally no mechanism to prove that
| your parents are citizens.
|
| Millions of citizens will be at the whim of whatever racist
| thug decides to hurt them that day.
|
| Welcome to Fascist America.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| I would assume that the child would be registered with
| the embassy that the parents are citizens of and there
| would be an application for a non-resident visa that
| would be fast tracked.
|
| Greenland, Finland, Norway and Sweden all have no concept
| of Jus Soli and as far as I know, kids born to non-
| residents aren't being deported from the hospital.
|
| >Moreover, there is literally no mechanism to prove that
| your parents are citizens.
|
| I would think a birth certificate would work....
| slater wrote:
| >I would think a birth certificate would work....
|
| Remember when the _whole entirety_ of the US right-wing
| lost their goddamned minds for a year or so re: a sitting
| president 's birth certificate?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > I would think a birth certificate would work....
|
| You'd probably be wrong.
|
| > Still, Immigration and Customs Enforcement kept Watson
| imprisoned as a deportable alien for nearly 3 1/2
| years... Watson was correct all along: He was a U.S.
| citizen.
|
| https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
| way/2017/08/01/540903038...
|
| Bonus: They held him long enough the statute of
| limitations to sue expired.
|
| > On Monday, an appeals court ruled that Watson, now 32,
| is not eligible for any of that money -- because while
| his case is "disturbing," the statute of limitations
| actually expired while he was still in ICE custody
| without a lawyer.
|
| Even a passport isn't enough:
|
| https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamedaleaziz/us-
| born-ma...
|
| > A US-born Marine veteran who served in Afghanistan had
| his US passport, a REAL ID driver's license, a military
| ID card, and his US Marine Corps dog tags with him when
| he was arrested by police in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and
| turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which
| held him for three days before his lawyer demanded his
| release, according to the ACLU of Michigan.
|
| https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-ice-
| detained-c...
|
| > In her study, she found that, on average, U.S. citizens
| detained by ICE spent 180 days behind bars.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| > I would think a birth certificate would work....
|
| Many Americans have no birth certificate. My mother, for
| example.
| 20after4 wrote:
| > I would think a birth certificate would work
|
| Without birthright citizenship, a birth certificate no
| longer implies citizenship.
| EasyMark wrote:
| Right but those countries also don't have a 14th
| amendment either
| bluecalm wrote:
| Most of the world doesn't have unconditional birth right
| citizenship. It somehow functions and is not fascist.
| cjk wrote:
| The bit that's fascist is that birthright citizenship is
| guaranteed in the US Constitution, and the current
| administration is openly flouting it.
| Amezarak wrote:
| The debate is over what "subject to the jurisdiction
| thereof" means, it's misleading to simply announce it's
| guaranteed - the whole legal argument is over whether it
| _is_ guaranteed.
| magicalist wrote:
| > _it 's misleading to simply announce it's guaranteed._
|
| Let's not pretend all assertions are equally worth
| entertaining. Maybe it's "misleading" if you're Stephen
| Miller, but every court case where it's ever been heard
| and the legislative record at the time of adopting the
| 14th amendment show that citizenship is guaranteed. The
| Trump administration hasn't even raised it in appeals!
| Amezarak wrote:
| The author of the clause didn't think it applied to the
| children of aliens, so it doesn't seem crazy to me.
|
| > Howard said that the clause "is simply declaratory of
| what I regard as the law of the land already, that every
| person born within the limits of the United States, and
| subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural
| law and national law a citizen of the United States."[30]
| He added that citizenship "will not, of course, include
| persons born in the United States who are foreigners,
| aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or
| foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the
| United States, but will include every other class of
| persons"[30]--a comment which would later raise questions
| as to whether Congress had originally intended that
| U.S.-born children of foreign parents were to be included
| as citizens.[32]
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > The author of the clause...
|
| That'd be a deeply ironic thing to cite as evidence for
| this court.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textualism
|
| "Textualism is a formalist theory in which the
| interpretation of the law is based exclusively on the
| ordinary meaning of the legal text, where no
| consideration is given to non-textual sources, such as
| intention of the law when passed, the problem it was
| intended to remedy, or significant questions regarding
| the justice or rectitude of the law."
|
| Legislative intent didn't save the Voting Rights Act, or
| the EPA.
| magicalist wrote:
| > _He added that citizenship "will not, of course,
| include persons born in the United States who are
| foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of
| ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the
| Government of the United States, but will include every
| other class of persons"_
|
| yes, exactly, if you're born to an ambassador in the US,
| you aren't subject to the jurisdiction.
|
| Meanwhile:
|
| > _The proposition before us, I will say, Mr. President,
| relates simply in that respect to the children begotten
| of Chinese parents in California, and it is proposed to
| declare that they shall be citizens. We have declared
| that by law; now it is proposed to incorporate the same
| provision in the fundamental instrument of the nation. I
| am in favor of doing so. I voted for the proposition to
| declare that the children of all parentage whatever, born
| in California, should be regarded and treated as citizens
| of the United States, entitled to equal civil rights with
| other citizens of the United States. . . . Here is a
| simple declaration that a score or a few score of human
| beings born in the United States shall be regarded as
| citizens of the United States, entitled to civil rights,
| to the right of equal defense, to the right of equal
| punishment for crime with other citizens; and that such a
| provision should be deprecated by any person having or
| claiming to have a high humanity passes all my
| understanding and comprehension._
|
| (the "declared that by law" is referring to the Civil
| Rights Act of 1866 that Howard used as the basis of the
| 14th amendment: "all persons born in the United States
| and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians
| not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the
| United States")
| ejstronge wrote:
| It's curious you don't link to a source even though you
| pasted something that contains references - I suspect you
| know that you are misinterpreting this willfully.
|
| > The author of the clause didn't think it applied to the
| children of aliens, so it doesn't seem crazy to me. >>
| Howard said that the clause "is simply declaratory of
| what I regard as the law of the land already, that every
| person born within the limits of the United States, and
| subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural
| law and national law a citizen of the United States."[30]
| He added that citizenship "will not, of course, include
| persons born in the United States who are foreigners,
| aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or
| foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the
| United States, but will include every other class of
| persons"[30]--a comment which would later raise questions
| as to whether Congress had originally intended that
| U.S.-born children of foreign parents were to be included
| as citizens.[32]
| ceejayoz wrote:
| If these folks aren't subject to our jurisdiction, how
| does one manage to deport them?
| EasyMark wrote:
| as soon as you step foot in the USA you are subject to
| its jurisdiction. Just like if you go to Canada or
| Zimbabwe and break a law there. You would be laughed at
| with much gusto for breaking the law and telling them
| they don't have jurisdiction.
| EasyMark wrote:
| that doesn't matter, they also don't have a 14th
| amendment that is very easy to read and understand, even
| for those with fascistic tendencies.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| >And if the parents are on valid non-resident visas?
| Suddenly the child has no status?
|
| From where would those parents be, that the child
| wouldn't automatically inherit their status?
|
| If the Trump administration limited this policy to those
| people who wouldn't be made stateless, would that soothe
| your gripes?
|
| >Moreover, there is literally no mechanism to prove that
| your parents are citizens.
|
| This isn't all that big of a deal. Supposing one can get
| to the point that they are allowed the opportunity to
| present such evidence (in front of a judge, or even in
| front of an administrative arbiter of some sort who is
| playing fair), then it should be rather trivial to prove
| this in 99.99% of cases to the standard of proof used in
| judicial settings.
| EasyMark wrote:
| but the amendment doesn't say that, it's a very simple
| Amendment at its heart.
| treetalker wrote:
| One upshot may be that the law will be drastically different
| in the several circuits and (unless SCOTUS plans to handle
| everything on the emergency docket -- as it did here) it will
| stay that way so long as SCOTUS lets the issues percolate
| through them (using them as laboratories, as Justice O'Connor
| was fond of saying).
| crooked-v wrote:
| > and get denied
|
| The thing here is that instead of officially denying it, the
| administration will just "coincidentally" slow-walk
| everything indefinitely, then illegally exile the baby to
| Sudan when ICE notices they don't have proof of citizenship.
| mannyv wrote:
| Even a short delay in issuing an SSN may be harm, because
| it can be required for insurance purposes.
|
| The administration isn't going to slow down processing for
| everyone, because actual citizens will have issues as well.
| That will be even more problematic.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Sounds like you now need to start lawsuits in every state?
|
| Every _federal judicial district_ (that 's one per state in
| smaller states, but more in larger states--California has
| four.)
| buckle8017 wrote:
| Doesn't California have two?
|
| North and South?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Central.
|
| https://www.caed.uscourts.gov/caednew/index.cfm/cmecf-e-
| fili...
| buckle8017 wrote:
| Did that change recently, id swear there was only two
| options on.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Not that recently; the change from 2 to 4 was in 1966.
|
| https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/about-
| federal-...
| jimt1234 wrote:
| Well, I'm confident the number will go back to 2 by the
| end of this current presidential term.
| nine_zeros wrote:
| Now, the administration will keep doing illegal things, and every
| individual affected will have to file lawsuits to invalidate the
| illegal thing - after the damage is already done - because
| nothing is preventing the government from doing illegal things.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| Judges were using injunctions to avoid putting their name behind
| a ruling.
|
| They can absolutely still strike down a law or executive branch
| policy.
|
| This forces judges to actually _do their job._ , instead of a
| nationwide injunction while they decide if they want to do their
| job later.
|
| It doesn't actually alter some fabric of our democracy or checks
| and balances, because the judges had already gone beyond what the
| constitution and congress prescribed.
|
| Every issue that any partisan has with this country is because
| one branch isn't doing their job.
|
| The disruptive aspect of this - with concern to the birthright
| case that hasnt been ruled on yet - is just another example of
| this. Judges not doing their job.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| this seems more emphatic than convincing.. Can you rewrite this
| so that it addresses the legal principles at hand, instead of
| repeating "judges dont do their jobs" ?
| yieldcrv wrote:
| I read the ruling, my post is an accurate summary including
| my opinion of the circumstances
| Supermancho wrote:
| > Every issue that any partisan has with this country is
| because one branch isn't doing their job.
|
| It's impractical to rule on a subject before allowing parties
| to formulate coherent prepared arguments. Ruling on
| circumstantial evidence is a temporary stop, leaving the ruling
| up to an appellate which will invalidate it due to it being
| founded on circumstantial evidence. The injunctions were the
| practical way to allows all parties to formulate their case and
| make a legal reasoning for a ruling. Written law has to be
| incremental and narrow for interpretation. Otherwise it's an
| interpretive dance free for all in every case.
|
| You have repeatedly implied that the jobs of Judges are
| something other than what you they are. Ofc you don't think
| they are doing what you think they should be. That's
| inconsequential.
| kurikuri wrote:
| > Judges were using injunctions to avoid putting their name
| behind a ruling.
|
| What? That makes no sense. You can lookup which court and judge
| (or panel of judges) issued the injunctions. I do not
| understand why this non-existent anonymity would motivate a
| judge to issue an injunction.
|
| > They can still strike down a law or executive branch policy.
|
| Federal courts will only look at cases if there is a party with
| standing who engages in a lawsuit. If someone is being deported
| without due process, it will be hard for them to bring suit.
|
| > This forces judges to actually do their job., instead of a
| nationwide injunction while they decide if they want to do
| their job later.
|
| In general there are two reasons why these temporary
| restraining orders which have been issued. The first being that
| not doing so would cause irrevocable (or ridiculously difficult
| to revoke) harm (e.g., deporting people to a foreign jail). The
| second is that the TRO is used to stop something which seems
| illegal on its face (e.g. deporting people to countries from
| which they have never been).
|
| > It doesn't actually alter some fabric of our democracy or
| checks and balances, because the judges had already gone beyond
| what the constitution and congress prescribed.
|
| It does alter the power dynamic of our democracy. Now, the
| executive branch can repeatedly perform illegal acts and only
| needs to stop its behavior in cases which have been decided.
| This checks and balances isn't about stopping each other branch
| in a vacuum, the intent is to stop the government from
| overreaching on its citizenry. By crippling all of the lower
| courts, the Supreme Court has created a bureaucratic bottleneck
| for itself, allowing the executive branch to effectively DDoS
| the judicial system with case after case.
|
| > The disruptive aspect of this - with concern to the
| birthright case that hasnt been ruled on yet - is just another
| example of this. Judges not doing their job.
|
| No, it was the judge telling the executive branch that the
| executive branch must recognize the citizenship of children
| born on US soil. Instead of actually appealing the TRO on
| grounds of the legality of their actions, the executive branch
| has decided to complain about the legality of a court telling
| the executive branch to stop.
|
| Who is supposed to tell the executive branch to stop doing
| something illegal, congress? Part of the point of the executive
| branch was to allow for some expedience, congress is slow. A
| judge is in a perfect position to tell the executive branch to
| stop, they don't need to wait on committee and are not beholden
| to the president. Without the ability, the executive branch can
| quite literally do whatever the president wants.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| How are they not doing their job?
|
| A judge's job is to *judge*. They have basically zero ability
| to gather evidence, that is the responsibility for the parties
| to the case.
|
| Would you have them issue a ruling before being presented with
| evidence? That makes no sense. But at the same time harm can
| come from not issuing a ruling. Thus we have injunctions--if a
| judge feels a case is likely to prevail they can issue an
| injunction prohibiting actions which inflict harm that can't be
| remedied by the resolution of the case.
| drdaeman wrote:
| https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a884_8n59.pdf
|
| Justice Sotomayor dissents:
|
| > Instead, the Government says, it should be able to apply the
| Citizenship Order (whose legality it does not defend) to everyone
| except the plaintiffs who filed this lawsuit.
|
| If that's the case, I'm curious if it could be fixed with a class
| action, so everyone (or everyone born in the US) is a plaintiff?
| If that's legally a thing.
| treetalker wrote:
| It may not be surprising to learn that over the past several
| decades conservative Congresses (through the so-called Class
| Action Fairness Act and its ilk) and Supreme Court decisions
| have all but eliminated class actions.
| bluecalm wrote:
| I don't think class action lawsuit is needed here. It's enough
| for one case to get to SCOTUS and then we will hear their
| opinion about how 14th amendment should be interpreted. It will
| be an interesting case I think both 4-5 against and 5-4 in
| favor of changing the interpretation is possible (with 3-6 and
| 6-3 less likely outcomes).
| axus wrote:
| I'm worried about the trend of civil rights going unprotected
| until after a Supreme Court ruling.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| That's what laws are for. Courts aren't supposed to write
| them.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| The law was written - in the Constitutuon - the judiciary
| interrupts them and the executive branch was suppose to
| enforce it.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| Most law, and most law courts deal with is federal law,
| not constitutional law. A lot of the most contentious
| recent court issues could be addressed with federal laws.
| It's just congress is lazy and doesn't want to go on
| record.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| And where is federal law derived from? What does the
| court weigh against federal law when considering if it's
| enforceable or not?
| georgeecollins wrote:
| Yes, but things like rights listed in the constitution
| have been protected by the supreme court regardless of
| laws. Things like your Miranda rights don't exist because
| of any law, they existed because of a supreme court
| ruling.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Realistically, and this is a serious problem, many
| critical rights in the US only exist because of the court
| going against the voters. Like, say, the legalization of
| interracial marriage.
| drdeca wrote:
| You do kind of need courts to rule that something in fact
| violated a law.
| EasyMark wrote:
| There are supposed to be able to declare them
| Unconstitutional. If it's unconstitutional in district 5,
| why wouldn't it also be unconstitutional in district 10?
| sbohacek wrote:
| The administration does not need to appeal to the supreme
| court. I don't think they would appeal it since it is being
| enforced as desired.
|
| Indeed, this is one of the concerns of the dissenting
| opinions.
| matthewowen wrote:
| The problem (which Sotomayor raises in her dissent, pages 94
| and 95 of the PDF) is that it may never reach the supreme
| court:
|
| > There is a serious question, moreover, whether this Court
| will ever get the chance to rule on the constitutionality of
| a policy like the Citizenship Order. Contra, ante, at 6
| (opinion of KAVANAUGH, J.) ("[T]he losing parties in the
| courts of appeals will regularly come to this Court in
| matters involving major new federal statutes and executive
| actions"). In the ordinary course, parties who prevail in the
| lower courts generally cannot seek review from this Court,
| likely leaving it up to the Government's discretion whether a
| petition will be filed here. These cases prove the point:
| Every court to consider the Citizenship Order's merits has
| found that it is unconstitutional in preliminary rulings.
| Because respondents prevailed on the merits and received
| universal injunctions, they have no reason to file an appeal.
| The Government has no incentive to file a petition here
| either, because the outcome of such an appeal would be
| preordained. The Government recognizes as much, which is why
| its emergency applications challenged only the scope of the
| preliminary injunctions
| bluecalm wrote:
| That's a good point. I was under the impression that the
| current administration thinks it can win a case about 14th
| amendment in case both parents are not legally in US with
| current majority but if they are in fact not appealing it
| would mean they think they would lose.
| Tadpole9181 wrote:
| Wait, doesn't this just... End the constitution as a whole?
| So long as the current executive wants some
| unconstitutional thing, they get that unconstitutional
| thing in every state on their side in perpetuity? The
| constitution is now... per-litigant?
| eschaton wrote:
| That's the end goal. And to take over the other states
| too.
| Tadpole9181 wrote:
| Oh, of course. Because it's federal law, being in a state
| with an injunction isn't actually a protection. A federal
| LEO can detain & relocate you, charging you with
| violating a law in another state where there is no such
| injunction.
|
| This is a whole-sale shredding of the constitution.
| eschaton wrote:
| And everyone needs to recognize and treat it as such, for
| all it's worth.
| ggm wrote:
| So for example, seeking reproductive rights in one state
| which is forbidden in another?
|
| Forgive a possibly silly question but in what sense does
| being "in" Florida mean you are bound by Florida state
| law when you leave? How long did you need to be in
| Florida before you became bound by its law? What if you
| fall pregnant after you left? Can you be in breach
| without ever having been in Florida, and a LEO can
| therefore take you there and charge you?
| EasyMark wrote:
| Note how they fast-tracked Trump's case so he could do
| maximum damage before any test of the 14th, and ignored the
| actual 14th amendment challenges.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| >class action
|
| What you describe is voting
|
| We're in this mess because people are not interested enough,
| educated enough, or engaged enough politically to make their
| position explicit to drive the direction of legislation and
| executive action.
|
| Citizens of The United States have every tool available to to
| work together to shape their communities. The reality is the
| overwhelming majority do not do that, and you can come up with
| a lot of reasons why, which are structural in many cases, but
| the fact remains that the majority of people are not involved
| in the political process at all, have no desire to be an
| actively reject any opportunity to be.
|
| Assuming that citizens would all of a sudden become involved
| because it requires a lawsuit, means that there's the capacity
| to do so, which does not exist, and all we need is a catalyst.
|
| If the number of possible catalysts that have already happened
| in the last decade we're not sufficient then nothing short of a
| literal terminator Skynet scenario is going to cause people to
| take action and I'm increasingly doubtful that even that would
| do it.
|
| Based on my observation from my work position, people are ready
| to just roll over onto their backs and have robots slice them
| from the belly up, because it's easier than actually doing
| something that would prevent it.
| hakunin wrote:
| I think this often gets confused. Voting a president in
| doesn't give them a blank mandate to do whatever they want,
| such as break the law. And knowingly doing things that might
| not get approved by courts, but veiling it in a "novel legal
| theory" disguise is still breaking the law. Just because slow
| and thorough processes need to take place to adjudicate these
| actions doesn't mean that these actions aren't worth
| adjudicating. So while voting is important, keeping the
| voted-in president accountable is important too.
| jfengel wrote:
| According to the Supreme Court, that's _exactly_ what it
| does. The President simply _isn 't_ accountable.
|
| I would not have thought that this is what the Constitution
| says, but the Supreme Court is the final arbiter of what
| the Constitution says. That's not in the Constitution,
| either, but they've appropriated that job for two
| centuries, so we let them get away with it. The "it's not
| illegal if the President does it" part is new, though
| they've been leading up to it for decades, so it's not
| really surprising.
| timr wrote:
| Or, more charitably: the Supreme Court has says that the
| president has this authority, in this specific area, and
| your characterization of this as "breaking the law" is
| not correct.
|
| Edit: _actually_ , even that is overstating it. This is
| an extremely narrow ruling that is mainly about the
| powers of federal judges. It's the sort of ruling that
| the "other side" will trumpet as settled law when they're
| the ones in power again.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Less charitably, the Supreme Court has said that _this_
| president has this authority.
|
| Forgive student loans? No authority!
|
| End birthright citizenship? Well, he's the boss!
| timr wrote:
| That's nice rhetoric, but they're not the same issue at
| all.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Yes, there's always some reason it's different when Dems
| are President with this crew.
|
| You're right, though, it is different; birthright
| citizenship is spelled out, very clearly, _in the
| Constitution_. It 's an even _plainer_ wrong.
|
| It's Calvinball.
| timr wrote:
| There's nothing in the ruling that says it only applies
| to Republican administrations.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Of course there isn't.
|
| There's no written rule that the boss's son is gonna get
| the cushy VP slot, but everyone knows it.
|
| Where was SCOTUS when
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_O%27Connor issued all
| his nationwide injunctions?
| timr wrote:
| Well, that's very cynical and maybe you'll be right, but
| for now the California AG agrees with me. Per a quote in
| the WSJ [1]:
|
| > California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a co-plaintiff,
| looked for a silver lining: Red states, which sought
| universal injunctions to stymie Biden administration
| policies, would encounter obstacles pursuing that
| strategy under a future Democratic president, he said.
|
| Call me a crazy, glass-half-full centrist, but I prefer
| to look at this as a clawing back of extremely broad
| powers from rather partisan judges. It's been maddening
| that circuit court judges in a few hyper-partisan
| districts basically push every decision to the Supreme
| Court.
|
| [1] https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/scotus-birthright-
| citizenshi...
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a co-plaintiff,
| looked for a silver lining...
|
| Sure, and Susan Collins thinks Trump "learned his lesson"
| with his first impeachment. Looking for the silver lining
| is what we sometimes call "cope". He lost. As a
| politician, he's obliged to put some spin on it.
|
| > It's been rather maddening that circuit court judges
| basically push every decision to the Supreme Court.
|
| It is. This sort of thing should've died before ever
| becoming an EO, and at every level of the judiciary as
| clearly unconstitutional. That it didn't is a big
| problem.
| timr wrote:
| Well, if we're predicting the future, here's mine: since
| they're already basically telegraphing it (and also
| because it's pretty clear-cut), I predict that they'll
| overturn the whole thing in a future case, and then the
| _left_ will be crowing about how mean-ol Mr. Trump was
| taught a lesson in capital-D Democracy by our powerful
| system of government.
| TimorousBestie wrote:
| There's also nothing in the ruling that binds the Supreme
| Court to uphold it when and if there's another Democratic
| administration.
|
| No, stare decisis is not binding. Nor does it still
| exist.
| timr wrote:
| > No, stare decisis is not binding. Nor does it still
| exist.
|
| If it was not binding, did it _ever_ exist?
|
| _Anyway_ , there's nothing that binds any Supreme Court
| to do anything at all. This argument terminates in noise.
| It's just partisan fretting.
| TimorousBestie wrote:
| > There's nothing that binds any Supreme Court to do
| anything at all.
|
| We agree. So your remark about "nothing in the ruling
| says. . ." was actually irrelevant to the broader point.
| From a lacuna in a decision we can conclude nothing.
| timr wrote:
| We agree that if you assume a world where there's no
| precedent at all, then our system of government doesn't
| work.
|
| Beyond that, no. We also don't agree that that world is
| the one that we live in.
| xienze wrote:
| The second amendment is "very clearly" spelled out in the
| Constitution yet many roadblocks to gun ownership are
| thrown up in various states and people STILL make tired
| arguments about how the amendment "should" be
| interpreted. For example, the old argument that the
| founding fathers could have never conceived of AR-15s and
| thus their legality under the second amendment is
| debatable.
|
| Likewise, in 1868 the writers of the fourteenth amendment
| probably couldn't conceive of rapid international travel
| and the possibility that pregnant women could just show
| up weeks before their due date and their newborn child
| should "obviously" be an American citizen.
|
| The amendment was quite obviously targeted at Native
| Americans and slaves, not any and all pregnant women the
| world over who manage to reach the US before giving
| birth. But as you're noticing, there's multiple ways
| people can interpret laws. It's rarely as cut and dry as
| "this is obviously against the law!!!"
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Likewise, in 1868 the writers of the fourteenth
| amendment probably couldn't conceive of rapid
| international travel and the possibility that pregnant
| women could just show up weeks before their due date and
| their newborn child should "obviously" be an American
| citizen.
|
| This is a better point than you realize, and in the
| opposite direction you intend.
|
| Immigration in the 1800s was a... cursory process. Not
| only would those kids be citizens, but their parents
| would have had little trouble staying around.
|
| We had very few rules beyond "don't be Chinese" until
| 1891. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_18
| 91?wprov=...
| xienze wrote:
| So is your argument that the writers of the amendment
| intended for American citizenship to be a contest wherein
| women the world over should compete to drop anchor babies
| on US soil?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I argue it's the logical conclusion for an era of
| "basically anyone can come here if they want", yes.
|
| "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses
| yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your
| teeming shore."
| xienze wrote:
| Poems are not domestic policy, so spare me that tired
| argument.
|
| And immigration was not a free for all, despite what you
| may think. We had racial quotas, for one. Limits on how
| many immigrants we would accept, an expectation that
| immigrants were processed at designated intakes, and
| (perish the thought), actual periods of time where we
| said "we've taken in a lot of immigrants, we need to slow
| down for a while to let things settle."
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Again, until 1882-1891, reasons other than "you're
| Chinese" didn't exist in US immigration.
|
| We didn't even bar felons or people with contagious
| diseases before that act. Pregnancy certainly wasn't
| disqualifying.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1882
|
| > It imposed a head tax on non-citizens of the United
| States who came to American ports and restricted certain
| classes of people from immigrating to America, including
| criminals, the insane, or "any person unable to take care
| of him or herself." The act created what is recognized as
| the first federal immigration bureaucracy and laid the
| foundation for more regulations on immigration, such as
| the Immigration Act of 1891.
|
| The quotas you describe didn't come until the 1920s. Well
| after the amendment.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924?wpr
| ov=...
| lelandbatey wrote:
| Indeed, how terrible! Those kids who then grow up in
| other countries outside the US will eventually be adults
| who have to pay taxes without sucking up any physical
| resources of said United States, whatever will we do
| about this huge drain on our resources? </sarcasm>
|
| Why am I supposed to be mad about people doing this,
| exactly? Because of hazy "rules are rules" talk?
| watwut wrote:
| That is actually what is going on and how right wing
| justices think.
| teraflop wrote:
| The Supreme Court has pointedly _not_ ruled or said that
| the president has the authority to redefine birthright
| citizenship. What they have actually done is to put very
| stringent requirements on _how_ the president 's
| authority can be challenged in lower courts.
|
| And notably, exactly the same Republican-nominated
| Supreme Court judges did not do anything to interfere
| with exactly the same legal process (nationwide
| injunctions) when they were aimed at a Democratic
| president. See, e.g. Biden's student loan forgiveness
| executive order.
| timr wrote:
| > The Supreme Court has pointedly not ruled or said that
| the president has the authority to redefine birthright
| citizenship.
|
| Yep, agreed. I already added an edit saying exactly the
| same thing.
| tiahura wrote:
| Because they weren't challenged on that basis.
| burkaman wrote:
| I think that comment is referring to Trump v. United
| States, where the court said that a president cannot be
| held accountable for using a Constitutional authority to
| break the law. It is very literally "a blank mandate to
| break the law".
|
| For example, a president is granted authority to command
| the military and issue pardons. They have absolute
| immunity for any act performed using these authorities,
| including illegal acts such as assassinating or deporting
| a political opponent or accepting bribes in return for
| pardons. This is not a matter of opinion or a
| controversial interpretation, these consequences were
| discussed during the case and in the opinion, and the
| court accepted them.
| Amezarak wrote:
| This was also discussed in the Constitutional Convention,
| where the participants decided the impeachment process,
| and failing that, four-year terms, were a sufficient
| remedy.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Surely the President could simply prevent congresspeople
| from voting to impeach via various means.
| Amezarak wrote:
| Sure, that was a concern: a sufficiently large faction of
| Senators might combine to protect a bad President, or
| destroy a good one unjustly.
|
| > Mr. MADISON, objected to a trial of the President by
| the Senate, especially as he was to be impeached by the
| other branch of the Legislature, and for any act which
| might be called a misdemeanor. The President under these
| circumstances was made improperly dependent. He would
| prefer the Supreme Court for the trial of impeachments,
| or rather a tribunal of which that should form a part.
|
| > Mr. PINKNEY disapproved of making the Senate the Court
| of impeachments, as rendering the President too dependent
| on the Legislature. If he opposes a favorite law, the two
| Houses will combine agst. him, and under the influence of
| heat and faction throw him out of office.
|
| Ultimately it was decided that "in four years he can be
| turned out", so it was not worth addressing further.
| Indeed some argued that the President should not be
| impeachable at all because of this.
|
| > Mr. KING expressed his apprehensions that an extreme
| caution in favor of liberty might enervate the Government
| we were forming. He wished the House to recur to the
| primitive axiom that the three great departments of
| Govts. should be separate & independent: that the
| Executive & Judiciary should be so as well as the
| Legislative: that the Executive should be so equally with
| the Judiciary. Would this be the case, if the Executive
| should be impeachable? It had been said that the
| Judiciary would be impeachable. But it should have been
| remembered at the same time that the Judiciary hold their
| places not for a limited time, but during good behaviour.
| It is necessary therefore that a forum should be
| established for trying misbehaviour. Was the Executive to
| hold his place during good behaviour? The Executive was
| to hold his place for a limited term like the members of
| the Legislature: Like them particularly the Senate whose
| members would continue in appointmt the same term of 6
| years he would periodically be tried for his behaviour by
| his electors, who would continue or discontinue him in
| trust according to the manner in which he had discharged
| it. Like them therefore, he ought to be subject to no
| intermediate trial, by impeachment. He ought not to be
| impeachable unless he held his office during good
| behaviour, a tenure which would be most agreeable to him;
| provided an independent and effectual forum could be
| devised. But under no circumstances ought he to be
| impeachable by the Legislature. This would be destructive
| of his independence and of the principles of the
| Constitution. He relied on the vigor of the Executive as
| a great security for the public liberties.
| tiahura wrote:
| Incorrect. Congress has a multitude of means to check the
| president.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| >According to the Supreme Court, that's exactly what it
| does. The President simply isn't accountable.
|
| The president absolutely is accountable. The problem is
| the Congress for their own reasons refuse to hold it to
| account. The Congress could remove any president in less
| than 24 hours with simple majority for no reason
| whatsoever.
| cmurf wrote:
| Except voting this person to the presidency has given just
| over 1000 convicted criminals a pardon, as promised in
| advance. It's an unlimited and irreversible power.
|
| The Court has long considered that the president has a duty
| to follow the law, but also that the Court can't compel the
| president to follow the law. That is a political question.
| Congress alone can stop a president by impeaching and
| removing them from office. Not only can't the Court
| initiate impeachments, impeachment is unreviewable by the
| Court.
|
| If there's a servile Congress, it means voters can elect a
| law breaker as president. They are going to get a president
| who breaks the law.
|
| And this is what's happening. People voted for an abuser, a
| rapist, a felon, a conspiracy theorist who lies about the
| outcome of elections, lies that VPOTUS can and should
| overturn them, and even sent a mob to have that VPOTUS
| assassinated for refusing to comply with that illegal
| order. Then boasted he'd pardon all those criminals who
| were in his service. And despite all of this, people voted
| for him again.
|
| The people got exactly what they voted for.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Also, any time anyone actually brings up any details about
| Presidential elections you'll quick get many people rushing
| to explain how the people do not in fact directly elect the
| President and how this is such an incredibly brilliant
| idea.
| ada1981 wrote:
| There is some compelling research from Princeton that for
| 90%+ of the American voting population, there opinions have
| zero impact on federal policy. It's all lobby driven money.
|
| "The preferences of the average American appear to have only
| a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact
| upon public policy."
|
| https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba
|
| And they actively vote _against_ the will of their
| constituents 35% of the time.
| http://promarket.org/2017/06/16/study-politicians-vote-
| will-...
| rayiner wrote:
| That's not quite an accurate description of the Princeton
| Study. What the study actually shows, if I'm thinking of
| the correct one, is that for the most part average
| americans agree with the elite. The results of the study
| are driven by the fact that when elites and average
| americans disagree, the politicians tend to side with the
| elites.
|
| A prime example of this is the immigration system.
| https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/29/podcasts/the-
| daily/electi... ("On the Ballot: An Immigration System Most
| Americans Never Wanted"). Americans never asked to import
| tens of millions of people from the third world. When
| Congress reformed the immigration system in 1965, they
| promised that wouldn't happen. But for decades, there's
| been a coalition of pro-foreigner liberals and pro-cheap-
| labor conservatives that have facilitated massive
| immigration that average americans never asked for.
|
| Trump, ironically, is a reaction to the very thing the
| Princeton study identified.
| Retric wrote:
| > is that for the most part average americans agree with
| the elite. The results of the study are driven by the
| fact that when elites and average americans disagree, the
| politicians tend to side with the elites.
|
| The case when everyone agrees doesn't tell you anything.
| It's only when people disagree that you can find who has
| actual power and in this case the general public has
| effectively zero actual meaningful power day to day.
|
| Systematic voter suppression plus gerrymandering etc may
| win you rigged elections, but ultimately voting isn't
| about the system in place it's avoidance unrest. We're
| entering uncharted territory with how strongly people
| disagree with what the government is doing, which is
| where the general public actually has a say, namely by
| destroying the existing power structures rather than
| voting. It's not even a question of insurrection, not
| having kids plus 60's style dropping out at scale is
| ruinous.
| rayiner wrote:
| > The case when everyone agrees doesn't tell you
| anything. It's only when people disagree that you can
| find who has actual power and in this case the general
| public has effectively zero actual meaningful power day
| to day.
|
| It does tell you something. For example, if people mostly
| disagreed with the elites, but the elites got their way
| anyway, that would be a different situation.
|
| > We're entering uncharted territory with how strongly
| people disagree with what the government is doing
|
| You're overestimating how much people care about any of
| this stuff. I'm in a blue state and I hear almost nothing
| about it other than from some overly empathetic people on
| facebook. The "protests" recently were tepid and nearly
| all elderly liberals with nothing better to do.
|
| A big chunk of the country really wants mass
| deportations, and for the most part, folks in the broader
| left don't care much to oppose it.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| I vote but have little influence because I won't join a party
| and live in a state with closed primaries where the real
| selection process is carried out. If the remaining 30 closed
| states cared about civic engagement they'd switch to one of
| the established open primary models.
| shams93 wrote:
| There is also the damage done by the Supreme Court ending the
| Voting Rights Act, had the act been in place in 2024, Kamalah
| would have won by a landslide. Millions of minority voters
| were targeted for disenfranchisement in 2024.
| EasyMark wrote:
| between that one and citizen's united the GOP takeover was
| assured.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| What people don't want to admit is that this is exactly what
| more then half the people wanted. Because of the way the
| electoral college works as far as the President,
| gerrymandering with the House and 2 seats per state in the
| Senate, more people voting who disagree wouldn't do any good.
|
| You can't shape your community to overcome the power of the
| federal government.
| tshaddox wrote:
| > this is exactly what more then half the people wanted
|
| Donald Trump received only 49.8% of votes in the 2024
| United States presidential election.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| You're really pulling at straws. Despite that Michelle
| Obama says, this is exactly "who we are" and who we have
| always been from slavery, to Jim Crow, to the dog
| whistles of Reagan to Willie Horton, to "Obama is a
| secret Muslim who wants to bring Sharia law", to "the
| Haitians are eating our pets", to the segregated proms
| that have happened in the rural south as late as the
| early 2000s.
|
| This is what the American people voted for.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| What *meaningful* action would you have people take?
|
| Remember, force is out of the question because it will
| provide justification for the oppression and make people more
| willing to accept it.
| esseph wrote:
| Force is _never_ out of the question.
|
| The illusion some want you to believe, is that it is.
| tshaddox wrote:
| It's so silly to blame the American people though,
| considering the vastly greater resources required to
| politically organize millions of people to counter the what a
| handful of people in the executive branch or a couple dozen
| people in the legislative branch can do with a flick of the
| wrist.
| root_axis wrote:
| Voting and engagement is not the issue. Trump would have won
| even if all eligible voters voted.
|
| https://www.npr.org/2025/06/26/nx-s1-5447450/trump-2024-elec.
| ..
|
| The problem is that Dems are just culturally irrelevant. Most
| people don't care about issues, policy or the economy, they
| just want to cheer for a team and will justify everything
| their team does regardless of efficacy or outcome. Trump is
| the fun underdog team that everyone is talking about, the
| Dems are the boring party-pooper team we all love to hate.
| During covid, that boring became a source of needed
| stability, but after boring stewarded us through the crisis,
| nobody wanted to be associated with them again.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| It could be fixed for the class with a class action. But the
| courts have also don't their damndest to make that hard too.
| Requiring a class action means that courts have the additional
| opportunity to say "nope that's not a valid class" (WalMart v
| Dukes being a rather famous example).
| BryantD wrote:
| CASA Inc. in Maryland is in fact refiling its broader lawsuit
| as a class action case, and has asked for a wider injunction on
| that basis. So we'll see.
| chriscrisby wrote:
| It's ridiculous that any President (whether he's from your
| favorite team or not) has to appease 300+ judges is ridiculous.
| There will always be biased judges who will only rule to
| obstruct.
| somanyphotons wrote:
| > has to appease 300+ judges is ridiculous
|
| They don't, they appeal straight up to the 9 judges that they
| actually have to appease
| croes wrote:
| So why didn't it happen to such extent before?
| monocularvision wrote:
| It absolutely did. The Biden administration was hit with so
| many nationwide injunctions that they also requested that the
| SC limit them.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Limiting and doing away with them aren't the same thing.
|
| I'd love to see higher requirements for issuing them, and
| an expedited appeals process to review them. I'd like to
| see protections against judge shopping (as endorsed by both
| Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer:
| https://www.texastribune.org/2024/04/11/judge-shopping-
| texas...) We know SCOTUS can move very fast when they feel
| like it.
| JacobGoodson wrote:
| trump estimation so far: 81-103 biden estimation: 14-28
|
| You are incorrect.
| ejstronge wrote:
| >trump estimation so far: 81-103 biden estimation: 14-28
| >You are incorrect.
|
| You are clearly partisan. The GP says nothing about the
| number, but is instead the impact.
|
| You should also consider normalizing the number of
| injunctions to the number of executive orders per term.
| vizzier wrote:
| Two reasons I'd guess: Trump has signed as many EOs as biden
| did in his entire presidency already [1]. Presumably when
| your executive order contradicts existing law you're more
| likely to be hit by an injunction.
|
| [1] https://www.federalregister.gov/presidential-
| documents/execu...
| sjsdaiuasgdia wrote:
| If you don't do a bunch of illegal shit that violates people's
| rights, you don't end up in court as much. It's not that hard
| to figure out.
| quotemstr wrote:
| And one guy gets to decide what's legal?
| sjsdaiuasgdia wrote:
| "It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial
| department to say what the law is."
|
| - Marbury vs Madison, 1803
| chasd00 wrote:
| "judicial department", not one person.
| redczar wrote:
| What was issued was a temporary restriction from
| implementing the executive order until the matter is
| decided. No one issued an order declaring the executive
| order illegal.
| arp242 wrote:
| Yes, this is literally the entire job description of a
| judge: to "judge" if someone broke the law. Details on what
| judges have jurisdiction over differ (in some countries
| they can't rule on constitutional matters), but this is
| basically how it works everywhere. You have appeals
| processes and whatnot to deal with mistakes. This is civics
| 101 separation of powers stuff.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| You mean like the President? The President of the United
| States of America whom is deciding that parts of our
| constitution, our founding legal document isn't actually
| legally binding?
| redczar wrote:
| An injunction is not a judgment. It is temporary. A new rule or
| law is passed. It might be unconstitutional or otherwise not
| enforceable. Until this can be sorted out sometimes the
| law/rule is blocked until it is sorted out. Since the law/rule
| was not in place before the suit it is sometimes ok to
| temporarily block the rule until it's legality can be
| determined. One goes by the principle of causing least harm.
|
| It causes the least harm to block the birthright executive
| order until it's legality can be determined. Therefore it
| should be blocked nationwide.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| Those 300 judges are only a temporary check. They get to say
| 'hold on, we're going to put this on pause while we make sure
| it's constitutional'. The 9 people that determine what are
| legal can then unpause that pause at any time if it is not
| based on sound thought.
|
| Do you feel that temporary checks (that can be easily reversed)
| to ensure the government is behaving in a constitutional way
| are ridiculous?
| gsibble wrote:
| And the final check today but the Supreme Court said those
| judges were wrong and don't get to do that anymore.
| redczar wrote:
| And they are wrong to do so. Right now a child born in one
| district in the U.S. will have birthright citizenship while
| children in every other district won't. This is an
| inherently stupid state of affairs.
| Nevermark wrote:
| Unfortunately, the US seems to be rapidly sliding into a
| combination of effectively/mostly one-party rule, oligarchy,
| corporatocracy, and to a lesser but visible extent, theocracy.
|
| With the US Supreme Court strongly tilted toward all four, its an
| extremely difficult hole to climb out of.
|
| I don't see a dictatorship (anytime soon). Not out of any
| abundance of optimism, but simply that all four of those
| constituencies and the Supreme Court's dominant wing itself, are
| highly aligned with each other, and would all lose out if it goes
| that far.
| standardUser wrote:
| This is essentially an ad hoc Constitutional Convention being
| carried out by 6 people, 3 of whom were hand-picked by the
| sitting president and another of whom is arguably the most
| corrupt Supreme Court Justice in our history. Nothing is off the
| table. Anyone who thinks the Constitution can protect them should
| think again.
| calculatte wrote:
| So it's better to have an ad hoc Constitutional Convention
| being carried out by any random activist judge appointed by any
| of the previous political opposition? People sure are high and
| mighty when their opponent subverts the constitution, but are
| ridiculously silent when their own party burns the
| constitution.
| kergonath wrote:
| No. It's better to have a court that does its job. Reasonable
| people can accept a decision even if they disagree if the
| reasoning is not solid than "lol we can so suck it up".
|
| And yes, anything close to a majority nominated by the
| sitting president is a constitutional crisis, in a regime
| where one is supposed to check the other.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| The courts only have so much power because congress is
| dysfunctional and kicks every issue to the courts so they
| don't have to be accountable to voters.
| kergonath wrote:
| Well yeah. That is a problem as well. The whole US
| government is a steaming mess right now, just because we
| cannot mention everything that's wrong every post does
| not mean that we should not discuss any specific example.
|
| Yes, congress also abdicated its power. At the moment you
| have an executive branch ignoring law, precedent, and
| court orders, the legislative branch that is subservient
| to the executive and a judiciary in a state of civil war.
| None of that is right. None of the top-level institutions
| are working as they should.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| The Supreme Court has literally been usurping power from
| Congress by refusing to read the laws they've passed as
| written, kicking them back or neutering them knowing that
| Congress is locked down.
|
| And in this case they're refusing to do their actual job,
| which is defending the constitutional foundation of our
| country.
| perching_aix wrote:
| The "i like bagels -> oh so you hate croissants, huh?"
| framing strikes again.
|
| This is what things going to shit looks like. You may be
| completely justified in acting the way you are, it just so
| happens that that's of very little help. Spiraling is pretty
| tough to prevent at that point.
|
| And yes, very obviously people have an easier time
| understanding things when they're better aligned with their
| thinking.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > ad hoc Constitutional Convention being carried out by any
| random activist judge appointed by any of the previous
| political opposition?
|
| yes because the admin can appeal to a higher court; it at
| least pauses it so it can be more thoroughly evaluated as to
| its constitutionality
| sbuttgereit wrote:
| [flagged]
| standardUser wrote:
| I'm talking more broadly about this court and its decisions,
| of which this decision is one of many that are obliterating
| precedent and directly empowering the sitting president.
| redczar wrote:
| Want to ban nationwide injunctions against student debt
| relief? Sure, I can agree with that. Want to ban nationwide
| injunctions against ACA enforcement or some other similar
| type thing? I have no problem either way.
|
| Banning a nationwide injunction against birthright
| citizenship is inherently different. It's a fundamental
| constitutional right we are talking about. Banning birthright
| citizenship should not be allowed to be enforced until SCOTIS
| decides the matter.
| 20after4 wrote:
| It's amazing how much people love unlimited authority as long
| as they perceive that they are on the winning team.
| redczar wrote:
| According to Justice Barrett a child born tomorrow in one
| district in the United States will not have U.S. citizenship but
| a child born in another one will. Will ICE deport the
| "noncitizens" born in one district while being prevented from
| doing so in districts that happen to have a judge that issues an
| injunction?
|
| This ruling is idiotic even if you are generally opposed to
| nationwide injunctions. Birthright citizenship is a fundamental
| and clear cut right. Any attempts to overturn that must meet a
| high burden of justification. Temporarily suspending such
| attempts until the matter can firmly be decided causes the least
| amount of harm and should be allowed.
| mannyv wrote:
| The answer is "yes."
|
| That's literally how the court system works. Each circuit has
| different rules until things are unified by the Supremes.
|
| Just because you haven't paid attention doesn't mean it's
| idiotic. It allows the judicial system to see what real effects
| are before having to make a decision.
|
| If someone is going to be deported they can file a case and
| stop the deportation. It mostly works that way now, and there's
| no real reason to change it.
| czbot wrote:
| Before today's ruling nationwide injunctions were granted.
| Not sure how you can now claim "that's how the court system
| works" when nationwide injunctions were fine before today's
| ruling.
|
| A President can now issue blatantly unconstitutional
| executive orders and the burden for obtaining relief will
| rest on each individual person (or small class of people).
| Prior to today rules/laws that caused harm could be
| temporarily prevented from being enforced while the matter is
| litigated. Now parties that will be harmed are much more
| likely to be harmed before the matter is resolved. This is a
| sad state of affairs.
|
| If the next President issues an order confiscating guns from
| people the champions of today's ruling will want nationwide
| relief while the matter is litigated.
|
| _If someone is going to be deported they can file a case and
| stop the deportation._
|
| And you accuse OP of not paying attention!
| eschaton wrote:
| Also, just because you did pay attention doesn't mean it's
| _not_ idiotic. The patchwork of interpretations and
| requirement to sue is a guarantee of unequal treatment under
| the law, which is exactly what autocrats want.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Quite difficult to file a lawsuit from a prison in El
| Salvador.
| EasyMark wrote:
| It ain't no cakewalk from a torture prison in Sudan either.
| jimt1234 wrote:
| > Birthright citizenship is a fundamental and clear cut right.
|
| That's pre-2025 thinking. Now, in 2025, there are no clear cut
| rights, other than, maybe, gun ownership.
| sega_sai wrote:
| Interesting paragraph from dissenting opinion:
|
| "No right is safe in the new legal regime the court creates.
| Today, the threat is to birthright citizenship. Tomorrow, a
| different administration may try to seize firearms from law-
| abiding citizens or prevent people of certain faiths from
| gathering to worship. The majority holds that, absent cumbersome
| class-action litigation, courts cannot completely enjoin even
| such plainly unlawful policies unless doing so is necessary to
| afford the formal parties complete relief. That holding renders
| constitutional guarantees meaningful in name only for any
| individuals who are not parties to a lawsuit. Because I will not
| be complicit in so grave an attack on our system of law, I
| dissent."
| rawgabbit wrote:
| What about children born to those on work Visas such as H1B. Does
| this apply to them?
| stevenwoo wrote:
| Citizen or immigration status does not matter, it depends if
| they are in a state with the case being litigated in federal
| court or if they live one of the twenty eight states that did
| not join the case. The Trump admin can make up whatever rule
| they want for the other twenty eight states. The Supreme Court
| just narrowed the specifity of injunctions to solely the
| litigants which opens up a huge can of worms in American legal
| system.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Federal judges' can't block EOs indefinitely. The WH can appeal
| to a circuit court, and so on up to the Supreme Court. But it
| does prevent the Admin from implementing an unconstitutional EO
| while they wait to be challenged in all states/districts.
|
| I'm not particularly happy about nationwide injunctions, but this
| is much worse if you have a president who is not shy to "break
| the law now and fight it in court later". And now that Trump has
| shown the way, you can be sure future presidents will follow.
|
| Another terrible outcome is that you then have federal orders
| applied differently from state to state (or more accurately,
| federal district to district). If you're in Nevada you won't get
| citizenship, but in Oregon you will.
|
| This is right up there with the Presidential Immunity in terms of
| terrible decisions by this SCOTUS.
| peddling-brink wrote:
| This is up there with Citizens United. This road is dark.
| Tadpole9181 wrote:
| > If you're in Nevada you won't get citizenship, but in Oregon
| you will.
|
| They're 100% coming for Obergfell and it's clear now how.
| They'll arrest a legal US citizen who has naturalized
| citizenship from illegal parents, born in a state that received
| an injunction but residing in a state that has not.
|
| The representative of that person will say that they by being a
| citizen in the other state, they _must_ be respected as a
| citizen in the other. They will cite Obergfell.
|
| The SCOTUS will revoke their ruling on Obergfell and say, no,
| you are not a citizen just because there's an injunction in
| that other state.
|
| The astute reader may notice that this is literally a replay of
| Dread Scott.
| jmyeet wrote:
| Decisions by courts are often enjoined based on a balancing test
| as well as the likelihood that the issue will succeed or not.
|
| So, deporting people to a third-country (another decision SCOTUS
| allowed this term) has a simple balancing test: stay here and be
| fine or possibly deport a Chinese citizen to El Salvador, which
| could cause incredible harm. So even ignoring th elikelihood of
| how the issue is decided, the balancing test favors enjoining
| third-party deportation.
|
| So in this case, we had a universal injunction against an
| executive order removing birthright citizenship. This fails on
| two fronts:
|
| 1. As justices noted, it's highly unlikely that the order will be
| held up as constitutional. There is case law on this. The
| language of the 14th amendment is clear. The exact issue was
| discussed at the time. This has no hope in a non-corrupt court of
| succeeding.
|
| 2. Given other decisions, bona fide US citizens could be deported
| to CECOT and detained indefinitely with no due process. So it
| should be stayed because of the potential harm.
|
| What SCOTUS did today was say the order revoking birthright
| citizenship was unlikely to succeed but it allows the
| administration to proceed anyway while hte issue is litigated in
| the courts, which could take years.
|
| That's how corrupt this court is.
|
| People have been fed this propaganda that Supreme Court justices
| are apolitical legal scholars who come down from their tower to
| issue judgements and keep things in check. It couldn't be further
| from the truth. Supreme Court justices are political appointees
| that dress up their political positions in legalese.
|
| Example 1: this court invented the "major questions doctrine"
| whereby the court decides a matter is large enough that the court
| gets to override both the administrative and legislative
| branches.
|
| Example 2: they also invented the "historical traditions
| doctrine", which is used selectively. For example, abortion was
| completely legal 200+ years ago. Ben Franklin even published at-
| home instructions on how to perform an abortion [1].
|
| Example 3: in the wake of the Civil War there was huge violence
| not from the freed slaves but from white people towards former
| slaves, most notably with the Colfax massacre. The Supreme Court
| went on a white supremacist tear during Reconstruction, notably
| gutting the federal government's ability to prosecute hate crimes
| like Colfax [2].
|
| Example 4: The Tiney court in the 1850s made what is perhaps one
| of the worst decisions ever made (ie Dred Scott), arguing from a
| legal and constitutional perspective that black people weren't
| "people".
|
| Example 5: the Roberts court decided that moeny equals speech,
| gutting any legislation around campaign spending, which is a big
| part of how we got here.
|
| Example 6: the presidential immunity decision will go down in
| history as one of the 10 or even 5 worst decisions ever made. It
| completely invented far-reaching immunity that essentially made
| the president a king, in a country that was founded on the very
| idea of rejecting monarchs.
|
| Example 7: in 1984, the Supreme Court decided that in any areas
| of ambiguity in legislation, trial courts should defer to the
| agency empowered by Congress to enforce that legislation. This is
| the so-called "Chevron deference".
|
| More than 40 years passed through 7 presidents (4 Republican and
| 3 Democrat) where both parties at different times controlled
| Congress. Congress declined to legislate away Chevron deference
| despite having ample opportunity to do so. Moreso, they
| intentionally wrote legislation _with Chevron deference in mind_
| yet this court decided to reverse Chevron. Yet on other cases,
| the court has deferred to Congress 's inaction as intent.
|
| Fun fact: Chevron v Natural Resources Defense Council was
| previously known as Natural Resources Defense Council v. Gorsuch
| [3]. That's not a coincidence. The suit involved Reagan's head of
| dthe EPA, Anna Gorsuch, mother of current Supreme Court justice
| Neil Gorsuch, who was humiliated and ultimately fired from the
| EPA while trying to destroy it from within.
|
| [1]: https://www.npr.org/2022/05/18/1099542962/abortion-ben-
| frank...
|
| [2]: https://www.theroot.com/what-was-the-colfax-
| massacre-1790897...
|
| [3]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_Resources_Defense_Coun...
| acoustics wrote:
| Comparatively, how vulnerable is America to an executive gone
| wild compared to its peer countries?
|
| The US has a three-tiered judiciary that moves slowly, Congress
| has a very high threshold for impeachment and removal (and a slow
| process), and the order of succession is basically locked in for
| four years. The people are not easily moved to action, and it's
| doubtful how much they could realistically accomplish.
|
| Universal injunctions were a Band-Aid fix, one of the very few
| avenues our system permitted for there to be _any_ rapid
| institutional response to illegal and immediately harmful policy.
| But that is no more.
|
| As an exercise, what happens if a president issues a "throw
| enemies in the woodchipper" executive order? How many hours or
| days would it take the other branches of government to legally
| nullify the order? (What they can do in practice is another
| question.)
|
| It's an extreme example, but a future admin could use the current
| admin's reasoning to unilaterally confiscate guns and force you
| to be a plaintiff in federal court to get relief.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| The three branch system allows any two to gang up on the third.
| Parliamentary systems don't have any checks like this and trend
| towards unitary authoritarians.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| No. The three branch system allows any two to gang up legally
| against the third. But, as we are seeing, all the actual
| power relies with the executive. They can simply ignore the
| actions of the other two.
| pjc50 wrote:
| What actually happened is that all four branches were held
| by Republicans, so none of them is going to hold any of the
| others accountable.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| If the collective elected government agrees on policy, is
| that not democracy working well?
| jltsiren wrote:
| In modern parliamentary systems, political leaders are not in
| direct control of the executive branch. Politicians may issue
| priorities and guidance, but career civil servants run the
| show. Department heads serve fixed terms that are independent
| of the election cycle, and they cannot be removed without a
| criminal conviction. If politicians want major changes, they
| can change the law. And in many countries, the
| constitutionality of proposed legislation must be established
| in advance.
|
| The descent to authoritarianism usually begins with a party
| gaining enough power that it can override the checks and
| balances. Which often involves rewriting the constitution.
| gmueckl wrote:
| The US constitution is outdated. There is a whole host of
| historical experience around totalitarian subversion of
| democratic constitutions of similar design to the US one. That
| experience has never been used to update the way the US works.
| In other words, the manual to overturn the system from the
| inside has been out there for a long time.
| v5v3 wrote:
| >Comparatively, how vulnerable is America to an executive gone
| wild compared to its peer countries?
|
| In the USA, some judges are elected, hearings can be televised,
| fragmented laws nationwide, court filings often public.
|
| In UK the opening of the judicial year happens in a church
| service (i.e. biblical punishment is common), many judges are
| freemasons,court filings not public, courts control what gets
| to media, the court below supreme court can, and routinely do,
| block cases from getting to supreme court. And More. In short
| UK judiciary is institutionally corrupt with the elected and
| unelected the one and the same but press won't say it.
| vizzier wrote:
| I feel your points are valid but don't really express enough
| detail. The supreme court in the UK though named the same
| doesn't really hold anywhere near as much power for the
| following reasons:
|
| 1) There is no written constitution, the supreme court in the
| UK is only there to interpret existing laws as written not to
| interpret differences between "tiers" of law
|
| 2) The UK has a system that can pass new laws, generally by
| simple majority so any decision rendered about existing law
| can be made obsolete generally fairly quickly (In contrast to
| the current intransigence of the current US system where it
| is hard to pass primary legislation and virtually impossible
| to modify the constitution)
|
| 3) the court was only established in 2009, and evidently we
| haven't done much to empower it
|
| A better comparison country might be places like Canada or
| Australia who do have a written (and harder to modify)
| constitution.
| v5v3 wrote:
| The UK is all about 'appearencea' hence why they came up
| with 'justice must not just be done but be seen to be done'
|
| With ref to your point 1 and 2 , they are not needed. HRA
| 1998 covers that.
|
| Point 3 - the supreme court was previously within the House
| of Lords and the one day they got their own building.
|
| The primary and secondary legislation, and leading case law
| is fine in the UK. Its just that the Judges know what are
| really there for and routinely falsify the outcomes.
|
| No one sees the case files, no one sees the transcript,
| only the judges judgement is published and that we all have
| to pretend is never anything other than perfect...
| v5v3 wrote:
| >I feel your points are valid but don't really express
| enough detail.
|
| I run a non profit trying to change this, can talk about
| it for hours. Volunteers welcome!
| philistine wrote:
| You have multiple international agencies thinking of exactly
| those questions. Here's just one who calls the US a flawed
| democracy:
|
| https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/democracy...
| mannyv wrote:
| The President of the United States has a tremendous amount of
| authority, more than most people apparently realize.
|
| As an example, the whole COVID shutdown of the USA was a
| completely unprecedented and probably illegal action. The civil
| rights fanatics and liberals were like "meh." So it's already
| happened, really.
| acoustics wrote:
| In that case there seemed to be bipartisan consensus--the
| liberals and civil rights fanatics seemed to largely agree
| with President Trump's shutdown policies.
| chasd00 wrote:
| The most depressing thing COVID made clear is even in the
| "land of the free and home of the brave" people will just do
| what they're told by the authorities.
| slater wrote:
| Instead of listening to some randos on the internet who
| "did my own research"?
| bobsomers wrote:
| What if those people consider what they're being told by
| the authorities, understand that it makes sense, and choose
| to take that action because it's important for the public
| good?
|
| Why are people who prioritized public health during a
| temporary pandemic "sheep", but the President's supporters
| who demonstrate exceptionally cult-like behavior, "free
| thinking individuals"?
|
| You can't have it both ways.
| speakfreely wrote:
| > Why are people who prioritized public health during a
| temporary pandemic "sheep", but the President's
| supporters who demonstrate exceptionally cult-like
| behavior, "free thinking individuals"?
|
| You nailed it. Both extremes are sheep.
| msgodel wrote:
| That ship sailed almost 100 years ago. If you really don't like
| it you should be campaigning for secession.
|
| Remember: federal power is delegated from the states, not the
| other way around.
| mariodiana wrote:
| My understanding is that your characterization is true of the
| Articles of Confederation, but not true of the Constitution.
| The federal government's power is delegated from the people.
|
| At the top of the Articles, it's pretty clear that the
| delegates of the states have come together to establish a
| league of states. At the top of the Constitution, it's
| explicitly stated that "We the People [...] do ordain and
| establish."
| msgodel wrote:
| Individuals can't (practically) secede. And it is done via
| the states, for example the state governments choose
| senators. Right now this is done via popularity contests in
| every state but there's nothing in the constitution or
| federal law requiring that.
| vel0city wrote:
| > Individuals can't (practically) secede
|
| Neither can states, either practically or legally.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_v._White
| msgodel wrote:
| Yeah that's completely meaningless as far as _the
| possibility_ of secession is concerned. All it means is
| that if you secede and reenter then all the legislation
| you did as a separate state is void which is completely
| reasonable.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| > The people are not easily moved to action
|
| They tried to steal an election four years ago by sabotaging
| the vote certification.
| Tadpole9181 wrote:
| And _an attempted, violent coup of legislator!_ How is this
| part so easily forgotten!?
| yongjik wrote:
| [flagged]
| AngryData wrote:
| So what do you want 2A supporters to do exactly? Start shooting
| government officials? Because I guarantee you would call them
| nut job terrorists if they did.
| yongjik wrote:
| Yeah it's as if having your citizens armed is a bad idea,
| because there's very little chance it could be actually
| useful in a real life scenario while the society slowly
| slides into tyranny.
| krapp wrote:
| To be fair, that is exactly what 2A supporters have claimed
| they're willing, ready and able to do, and what the 2A is
| intended to allow. Every single time there's a mass shooting
| or other such event, they're the first to start lecturing
| people on how that violence a price worth paying to have an
| armed populace around keeping the government in check, and
| that the threat of popular violence is _the only thing_
| keeping the government in check. An armed society is a civil
| society, and what not.
|
| So yeah. Do a "water the tree of liberty with the blood of
| tyrants," already. The gun people were more than willing when
| they thought a Democrat was stealing their votes or Bill
| Gates was putting microchips in vaccines.
| paulvnickerson wrote:
| This had to happen. The state of affairs prior to this ruling is
| that any of 700 district judges could unilaterally block the
| president from exercising his authority under the constitution
| pending a review, including matters of national security, based
| on their own subjective politics. It broke the proper functioning
| of the government. This restores a proper functioning balance of
| powers.
| stefan_ wrote:
| Thats why the government can just skip ahead and call the
| Supreme Court, and then the Supreme Court lifts it because
| apparently being unable to do illegal things is Irreparable
| Harm (actually makes a mockery of the concept of course).
|
| In the meantime, when I sue John Doe and get an injunction,
| they are enjoined from their conduct everywhere; but when I sue
| the government, it should only apply to me? Makes no sense.
| vkou wrote:
| The state of affairs is that:
|
| 1. The executive is doing something illegal to hundreds of
| thousands of people.
|
| 2. Dozens and hundreds of people sue them.
|
| 3. The executive loses in court.
|
| 4. The executive does not appeal to the supreme court the cases
| it lost.
|
| 5. Thus, _no binding precedent that stops the illegal action_
| in #1 is set.
|
| This is actual lawless lunacy, and this _enshrines_ it as SOP
| going forward. Is this the country you want to live in? Do you
| think this is how it should run?
|
| Here's a wild idea. If the executive disagrees with the federal
| courts on the merits of whether or not its decisions are
| illegal, it can appeal up to SCOTUS, and win a case on its
| merits. _It can 't do that because even under this SCOTUS,
| their case has no merits._
|
| > exercising his authority under the constitution pending a
| review
|
| That is the entire bloody point of checks and balances. You are
| cheer-leading the complete destruction of them. The government,
| when challenged on the legality of what its doing, _needs to
| win their case in court, because the courts are the final
| arbiters of written law_.
| umbra07 wrote:
| > The state of affairs is that:
|
| Yes, this has been going on for decades at various levels of
| government.
|
| It's very common when it comes to gun rights. The government
| (local/state and federal) will frequently avoid appealing if
| they think they might then lose the case, setting a wide
| precedent for millions of people.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| But the difference is that now the government can continue
| to enforce its policy against anyone who has not sued.
| firesteelrain wrote:
| I get the concern, but this ruling doesn't stop courts from
| checking illegal executive action. It just says injunctions
| should only apply to the actual parties in the case.
|
| Nationwide injunctions were never clearly authorized by
| statute, and letting any one of 700 district judges block a
| federal policy everywhere created chaos and forum shopping.
|
| If a policy is truly unconstitutional, the proper path is a
| class action or taking it up to the Supreme Court
|
| Not giving individual judges a veto over national law.
| vkou wrote:
| > Not giving individual judges a veto over national law.
|
| It's not a veto, it's a delay until appeal. If the lower
| court is wrong, SCOTUS has never had any issue with
| settling the question.
|
| The fact that the government _isn 't_ appealing means that
| they know they can't win on appeal, and what they are doing
| is illegal.
| firesteelrain wrote:
| Right, it's a delay, not a final veto. But when that
| delay applies nationwide, it functions like a veto until
| SCOTUS steps in, which can take months or years
|
| If the executive avoids appeals to dodge precedent,
| that's a separate (and valid) concern. But the solution
| isn't to stretch injunction power beyond its legal limits
|
| It is about who gets to block national policy for
| everyone, based on one local case. That kind of sweeping
| relief was never authorized by Congress
| lostapathy wrote:
| > It just says injunctions should only apply to the actual
| parties in the case.
|
| So every person wronged by the government should sue
| individually?
| firesteelrain wrote:
| Not necessarily. That's where class actions come in
|
| The point is that relief should be tied to proper
| procedure, not handed out universally by default. One
| judge shouldn't decide national policy based on one
| plaintiff unless the case is structured to justify it
| majormajor wrote:
| > Nationwide injunctions were never clearly authorized by
| statute, and letting any one of 700 district judges block a
| federal policy everywhere created chaos and forum shopping.
|
| What chaos that would be worse than the chaos of
| jurisdictional fracturing they're asking for here and the
| possibility to not let cases escalate to courts with
| supposed national jurisdiction? Rulings were stayed _all
| the time_.
|
| The existence of a national injunction seems _built in_ to
| the job of a federal judge since federal law is
| definitionally national. Voiding it only locally, or only
| in regard to specific plaintiffs, seems like a huge wishful
| reach.
| firesteelrain wrote:
| But, we did get conflicting nationwide rulings from
| different district courts, which encouraged forum
| shopping and rushed litigation. Federal law is national,
| but relief in equity has always been limited to the
| parties before the court unless a class is certified
|
| > The existence of a national injunction seems built in
| to the job of a federal judge since federal law is
| definitionally national
|
| That's a clever line.
|
| See, there is a difference between saying "this law is
| unconstitutional" and saying "this law is blocked for
| everyone, everywhere."
| majormajor wrote:
| >But, we did get conflicting nationwide rulings from
| different district courts, which encouraged forum
| shopping and rushed litigation.
|
| And... who was suffering for it, exactly? How was it
| hurting me?
|
| > That's a clever line. > > See, there is a difference
| between saying "this law is unconstitutional" and saying
| "this law is blocked for everyone, everywhere."
|
| "This law is only blocked for these people" is the _less_
| "clever", more "obvious" situation in your mind? No,
| that's a clever hack that same sneaky bastard came up
| with to justify removing further obstacles for the
| executive to increase its own power.
|
| But it seems to fly against the face of history. Federal
| law has been in the business of _preempting_ local
| authority for centuries. Now we want to unwind that and
| let jurisdictions opt-out case-by-case?
| firesteelrain wrote:
| Whether you were personally hurt isn't the point.
| Conflicting nationwide rulings from different judges
| created legal chaos and undermined consistency
|
| Courts can still block unlawful policies, but broad
| relief should come through class actions
|
| This ruling doesn't undo federal supremacy. It just puts
| guardrails around how relief is issued
| majormajor wrote:
| This ruling opens the door for _more_ inconsistency.
| Things can dead-end in a fractured state much more easily
| now.
|
| Without you telling me any specific harms of the "chaos
| and inconsistency", and how you think they will be
| reduced now, then I can only consider the harms of the
| _new_ potentials for inconsistency which is "the
| excecutive intentionally does not appeal when they lose
| to small groups because they want to be able to continue
| to overreach nationally."
|
| What are the _concrete examples_ of chaotic things that
| caused issues that you don 't think could happen now?
| firesteelrain wrote:
| These come to mind:
|
| 1. In 2017, one district court blocked Trump's travel ban
| nationwide, while others upheld it. That led to confusion
| at airports and legal whiplash
|
| 2. In 2019, one judge blocked the public charge
| immigration rule nationwide, while others allowed it. The
| rule ended up applying in some States and not others
|
| 3. Multiple district courts issued conflicting nationwide
| injunctions on Title IX guidance for transgender students
| during the Obama and Trump years
|
| Those are just some
|
| Inconsistency is still possible. But the alternative was
| worse
|
| What we had was a race to the most favorable courtroom
|
| The fix isn't unlimited injunctions. It's reform and not
| stretching judicial power beyond what the law allows
| majormajor wrote:
| And what happened next in those cases?
|
| Was the inconsistency resolved?
|
| What makes you think "reform" is going to happen here?
| Have you read much of the material pushing for increased
| executive power on the right? It's very clear that the
| goal is solely to remove impediments to stretch
| _executive_ power to the point that executive power
| _decides_ what the law allows.
| acoustics wrote:
| In this case, the president does not have the authority under
| the constitution to purport to invalidate the citizenship of
| natural-born citizens. It is the executive that broke the
| proper functioning of the government.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| I know words are just words, but trying to re-interpret
| "subject to the jurisdiction" is such a ridiculous over-
| reach.
|
| Enjoy the chaos though, because some later administration as
| a revenge will very likely strip the rights of folks who
| can't show a naturalization certificate in the same way.
| EasyMark wrote:
| I really don't understand why they didn't turn the case into
| a 14th amendment case. I guess they wanted to provide more
| slack and time for their benefactor and political ally
| (SCOTUS conservatives <--> Trump)
| tshaddox wrote:
| I'm personally much less worried about genuine national
| security matters getting temporarily blocked than I am about
| general authoritarianism from the President ( _any_ President).
| Given the impotence of Congress, what checks on executive power
| are we left with?
| ReptileMan wrote:
| Prayer mostly. Or actually fixing the congress.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Trump did once note an additional option.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/10/us/politics/donald-
| trump-...
| sorcerer-mar wrote:
| Liberals really should arm themselves before these people
| finally classify "disagreeing with daddy" as a mental
| disorder. [0] It is obviously hilarious to think the
| "conservatives" and "2A enthusiasts" would possibly help
| defend lefties' right to bear arms at this point, as
| they've shown themselves to be utterly devoid of actual
| values.
|
| People across the political spectrum have an obscene
| amount of faith in "can't happen here" beliefs being an
| actual impediment to authoritarianism.
|
| [0]: https://davidson.house.gov/2025/5/rep-warren-
| davidson-introd...
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| If you're not armed yet, you're already behind the curve.
| No one is going to protect you except you and potentially
| your sphere/community.
| bdangubic wrote:
| unless you can arm yourself with a nuke, "arming"
| yourself for a fight against US government is laughable
| :)
| ndiddy wrote:
| Worked pretty well for the Vietnamese and the Afghans
| tshaddox wrote:
| It didn't though. It was really really bad for them.
| majormajor wrote:
| Even beyond the lives lost on the side of the anti-US
| fighters in those places, who wants to bet on if the US
| would give up and walk away and just let any random local
| armed community _in its own territory_ ignore it?
|
| Will you see eventual retreat, or will you see eventual
| overwhelming force? The US didn't want to bulldoze these
| other countries and jail or kill everyone and set up a
| new state; very different than how the US would handle
| more Wacos.
| majormajor wrote:
| Using private weapons to fight against the government to
| protect your rights is a laughably-low-probability-of-
| success scenario. Even when insurrections or rebellions
| succeed they often end up... not so great.
|
| We have seen what you get when you have an armed
| populace. Highly armed cops. Highly armed federal agents.
| Military equipment for civilian forces. All necessary in
| order to compete in the arms race against the "bad guys."
| All cheered for by conservatives, of course!
|
| All that make it that much more easy to start cracking
| down. Maybe as a first step, issuing pardons for the
| rebels on _your_ side while increasing the use of force
| against those protesting you.
|
| Guns are not defensive tools. If you have a gun, but the
| government shoots first, you still lose.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Appeal to Theil to talk to the king.
| moogly wrote:
| I don't think you understand what the word "balance" means.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| "balance" is when the people you agree with get more power
| than they should right?
| Almondsetat wrote:
| Any judge in the country based on their own subjective politics
| can also create a precedent by ruling a certain way, and that
| single precedent might be used even a hundred years later. So
| by the same logic, this also should go away since it means any
| judge anywhere at any time can basically sediment history with
| their opinion
| williamdclt wrote:
| Many people do think this should go away yes. Common law VS
| statutory law is a constant debate
| Almondsetat wrote:
| Arguing for or against common law wasn't the point
| (personally I'm not a fan of it). The point is that the
| same reasoning calls for the abolition of common law, so GP
| should take that into consideration
| tzs wrote:
| > Any judge in the country based on their own subjective
| politics can also create a precedent by ruling a certain way,
| and that single precedent might be used even a hundred years
| later.
|
| District courts do not create precedent. Precedent comes from
| appellate courts.
| aaomidi wrote:
| The balance of powers have been broken for over a century at
| this point with ever increasing "emergency" declarations that
| don't go away, giving the executive branch immense power.
| root_axis wrote:
| > _The state of affairs prior to this ruling is that any of 700
| district judges could unilaterally block the president from
| exercising his authority under the constitution pending a
| review_
|
| This ruling does not "restore" a functioning balance, it
| damages it. This has never been a problem in the past because
| previous administrations (regardless of politics) didn't take
| illegal actions daily. Framing it as "politics" is disingenuous
| as many of the judges ruling against Trump were appointed by
| him.
|
| The system was working as intended to check an executive acting
| outside of the law, but once again, the supreme court continues
| to empower the executive.
| tw04 wrote:
| When the Supreme Court has multiple members who have and
| continue to openly break the law themselves, they have a
| vested interest in keeping a party in power who is also
| openly corrupt.
| jayd16 wrote:
| > based on their own subjective politics.
|
| You mean like under their own judgement?
| jonstewart wrote:
| Judges have never been able to make rulings based on their own
| subjective politics. They must justify their rulings under the
| law.
|
| I could extend some merit to the idea that injunctions should
| be limited in complex cases where case law is thin and the law
| is less than clear. When executive orders are clearly
| unconstitutional, however, I do not then see any reason for
| limits.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| >They must justify their rulings under the law.
|
| The law that states that growing wheat on your own land is
| interstate commerce.
| LocalH wrote:
| Up there in the top five worst legal decisions ever made in
| the US
| raincom wrote:
| Judges make use of reasonableness, superset of rationality,
| all the time. The issue is what is reasonable to 30% is not
| reasonable to another 25%. As long as there is a political
| backing for their reasonable decisions, they are fine. One
| can call it subjective or political. That's why judges do
| judge and provide good reasons that can be defendable by 20%
| of those who vote and have political sway.
| pjc50 wrote:
| You're just stating that the President, and his federal
| government, should be above the rule of law again.
| Amezarak wrote:
| It's astonishing how many people fail to address the legal
| argument in the SCOTUS opinion, disregard the legal question
| altogether, and apparently want the courts to decide how things
| "should" be, regardless of legality.
|
| IANAL but I read SCOTUS opinions regularly and this one is hard
| to argue with. If things should be different then we need
| legislative/constitutional changes.
| magicalist wrote:
| > _If things should be different then we need legislative
| /constitutional changes_
|
| lol, yes, like birthright citizenship written plainly into
| the constitution.
|
| What good are your further legislative/constitutional changes
| worth if the executive can just ignore them except for the
| single individuals who file suit?
| 827a wrote:
| The ruling today very explicitly and clearly does not touch
| the birthright citizenship issue.
| EasyMark wrote:
| The only reason the avoided is to avoid countering Trump,
| it's dead obvious that Trump is forbidden by law to do
| what he's doing. It's going to take months to years for a
| real 14th amendment case to reach them, meanwhile he's
| shipping people off to "3rd nations" to imprison them
| there in the worst conditions imaginable and indefinitely
| with no court process or trial. Why should an illegal
| immigrant go to prison, potentially for the rest of their
| life just because they illegally crossed the border?
| 827a wrote:
| The judicial still has significant tools to stop an
| executive branch that is clearly acting illegally. So
| does the legislative. If these branches don't leverage
| those tools, or those tools don't work, we have bigger
| problems.
|
| Guess what: You're living in the world of bigger
| problems.
| EasyMark wrote:
| It's hard to argue for since the 14th amendment is very easy
| to understand, and it's easy to understand why Trump is
| overstepping his authority
| BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
| In practice we've had the opposite problem, plain and simple.
| everforward wrote:
| From my reading and understanding, they still can, it just
| involves an _immense_ amount more paperwork. The ruling is
| basically that judges can only provide injunctions for the
| named party in a case, not universal injunctions. So instead of
| one injunction, each person impacted by the EO will have to
| file for their own injunction. Which will likely be granted due
| to similar injunctions already granted.
|
| So it reads to me like we've ended up in a similar spot, but
| with the requirement that an insane amount of paperwork
| happens.
| peddling-brink wrote:
| Not all people affected by an EO have an equal opportunity to
| generate that paperwork. Going to court or getting involved
| in the legal system have costs, of both time and money. Not
| something all people have enough of to spare.
| malcolmgreaves wrote:
| No it's not the same spot at all. No one will file
| injunctions. There is also the possibility that another's
| court case for the same reason won't be decided the same way.
|
| What this means is that it's now ok for the orange man to
| break the law. Rule of law will only be upheld in very
| limited circumstances in very limited areas.
| elAhmo wrote:
| Not a single decision so far was related to national security.
| The checks and balances exist and they are/were working, and
| this is an attempt to circumvent that.
| NPC82 wrote:
| But don't forget the emergency narrative: "We're being
| invaded!" and "Governors (bureaucrats, etc.) aren't doing
| what I want them to do it's now an emergency!". This is not
| only how our dictatorial executive overreaches, but also how
| its supporters justify the means in their minds.
| EasyMark wrote:
| but instead of a few cases, now there will be dozens of cases
| because now each state/district has to fight Trump's
| authoritarian tendencies, and in the meantime he can imprison
| (just for starters) illegal immigrants in "3rd countries" known
| for torture and the worst prison conditions impossible, and
| seemingly he prefers to do that.
| Salgat wrote:
| Mind you this simply meant that, if important enough to
| temporarily block, an appeal would be needed to ensure that
| what the President was doing was legal, which is entirely
| reasonable. This was simply an extra legal check on the
| president to keep the president inline with the law.
| OneDeuxTriSeiGo wrote:
| I may be mistaken but this is under the assumption that the
| government chooses to appeal their losses in these lower
| courts. So if the govt gets to choose between just not
| appealing and not having to deal with these injunctions or
| appealing and risking an injunction, why would they appeal in
| most cases?
| tmountain wrote:
| This implies that executive orders should be the status quo,
| which deviates from the design of the American system of
| government. The courts should not be routinely blocking the
| president because the president should not be routinely ruling
| by executive order. This change paves the way for additional
| power concentrated in the executive branch which is already far
| too powerful. It is the next step towards an authoritarian
| regime and no good will come from this ruling.
| nradov wrote:
| Having a strong federal government in the first place
| deviates from the design of the American system of
| government. We ought to eviscerate federal government power
| and devolve most executive power back to the several States.
| That would make national politics far less contentious.
| krapp wrote:
| We tried that. It was called the Continential Congress, and
| it was a spectacular failure.
|
| If you want the US to be a loose confederation of 50
| sovereign nations, fine. Just hope you live in California,
| New York or Texas, because every other state is going to
| devolve into the American equivalent of Eastern Europe.
| majormajor wrote:
| It stretches credibility to claim that the "proper functioning
| of the government" is broken _today_ requiring a change by
| something that is ... quite old.
|
| (I think there's a MUCH stronger argument to be made that the
| proper function of the US government has been broken by
| Presidents changing thing by executive order because nobody has
| enough votes to do much in the Senate. It seems like "nobody
| has the votes to make big changes" should be an indicator that
| _not making big changes_ is the proper result.)
|
| The status quo would be "issue a ruling, it may or may not get
| put on hold while the government appeals, eventually it gets to
| the Supreme Court if necessary." Seemed to be working.
| Republicans obviously have used this to challenge stuff
| themselves.
|
| It is unclear why there is a need for giving the government an
| escape hatch to let them say "sure, we lost this one case,
| we'll stop enforcing things against these few people, we just
| won't appeal and will continue to do whatever we want
| nationally instead."
| tshaddox wrote:
| > It seems like "nobody has the votes to make big changes"
| should be an indicator that not making big changes is the
| proper result.
|
| "Nobody has the votes" seems like a weird way to put it,
| because is implies that everyone wants to make changes, they
| just can't agree which changes to make. On the contrary, I
| think the issue is that most congresspeople _do not_ want to
| make changes. Changes are scary. If your name is associated
| with a change, and that change becomes unpopular, it might
| threaten your reelection!
| majormajor wrote:
| > "Nobody has the votes" seems like a weird way to put it,
| because is implies that everyone wants to make changes,
| they just can't agree which changes to make. On the
| contrary, I think the issue is that most congresspeople do
| not want to make changes. Changes are scary. If your name
| is associated with a change, and that change becomes
| unpopular, it might threaten your reelection!
|
| The split in Congress is driven by the split in the people
| and the people DO want actions taken. Just - different
| actions for each faction.
|
| If there was only one fairly unified party of voters in the
| country and a Congressman was refusing to vote to do what
| the voters wanted them to do, they'd get voted out.
|
| "Not doing anything to be careful" is a bug enabled by the
| population being split.
| tshaddox wrote:
| I disagree. The trouble with your explanation is that
| there are plenty of issues which have had clear broad
| bipartisan support for decades. This is mostly stuff that
| doesn't even come up in mainstream political discourse
| and isn't even clearly associated with a particular
| party. It's basic stuff like consumer protection (e.g.
| predatory loans, telemarketing), government integrity
| (e.g. lobbying, term limits), and more.
| laughing_man wrote:
| Agreed. The system simply cannot work if any district judge
| anywhere can veto the president's policies.
|
| In theory it's just an injunction, but the reality is this kind
| of stuff takes forever to get hashed out in the courts, and
| Trump will be well out of office before it gets settled.
|
| I have no problem with SCOTUS injunctions, but there are too
| many district courts for this to work.
|
| The way things were heading the president was going to be
| forced to start ignoring injunctions, and he would have been
| right to do so. The Roberts court had to make this ruling for
| the government to function.
| Rapzid wrote:
| He would have been wrong to do so.
| laughing_man wrote:
| Not at all. The president has to protect the powers of his
| office, and when the courts overstep he doesn't have an
| obligation to give them deference.
| convolvatron wrote:
| only under the assumption that the governments job is to
| contravene the law of the land - which up until pretty
| recently no one believed including the government
| laughing_man wrote:
| You're proceeding with the assumption the government would
| lose in court, which is not the case in the vast majority
| of these injunctions.
| diek00 wrote:
| I would bet if the democrats did this, the collective right's
| head would explode. I love how selective Trump is with
| following the constitution and its amendments, his supporters
| as well. They will die on their sword for 2A, but 1A when it
| suits their agenda and all others are just loosely worded
| suggestions
| consumer451 wrote:
| How is it that the country appears to have been functioning
| pretty well for quite some time, until now? What has changed?
| pedalpete wrote:
| I agree with you, but for a different reason, assuming I am
| even understanding what is happening here, I'm not American.
|
| My reading is that under the previous system, a single district
| could prevent an order federally, even if every other district
| judge agreed with the new order.
|
| I don't see why a single district should be able to influence
| the entire country. I would understand that they could limit
| powers in their district, and potentially challenge laws at a
| state level, and then federally.
|
| Let's look at how this could have impacted a topic that gets my
| attention in the US, gun laws.
|
| I'm definitely left, so let's say a president came in and made
| some order about changing gun laws and made it harder to get a
| gun.
|
| It seems to me, that if that were to occur, a single judge in a
| gun-loving district could block the order universally for all
| the other states?
|
| That doesn't seem right. It does make sense that they could say
| that law doesn't apply to our district, and we will challenge
| that law being applied to our state and if the state agrees,
| they could then challenge the law federally.
|
| I'm obviously making up a ton of stuff about a system that I
| don't understand.
| underlipton wrote:
| >I don't see why a single district should be able to
| influence the entire country.
|
| Should a single person be able to pull a fire alarm? Or do we
| need building-wide consensus first?
| vannevar wrote:
| >The state of affairs prior to this ruling is that any of 700
| district judges could unilaterally block the president from
| exercising his authority under the constitution pending a
| review, including matters of national security, based on their
| own subjective politics.
|
| It would be more accurate to say that prior to this ruling, any
| of 700 district judges could unilaterally block the president
| from _exceeding_ his authority under the constitution pending a
| review, including matters of national security, based on their
| own subjective view of the law. It may differ in other
| countries, but under the US Constitution, the judicial branch
| ultimately decides the limits of executive authority, not the
| President.
|
| If it's truly a matter of national security, the President
| could always file emergency appeal and it would almost
| certainly be granted. If it's such a dire and immediate
| emergency that even those few hours were critical, it's
| doubtful that any President would feel obligated to obey the
| injunction anyway.
|
| Far from preventing the proper functioning of government, this
| was one of the few remaining guardrails _maintaining_ the
| proper functioning of government under unprecedented
| circumstances.
| pyinstallwoes wrote:
| Your premise is false, exceeding is not the limit, because
| the limit is at the behest of any of the judges; given a
| judge exceeds their rational, then they exceed their rational
| ability to limit the executive branches power
| dayofthedaleks wrote:
| This is functionally equivalent to the Enabling Act of 1933. [0]
|
| [0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933
| macawfish wrote:
| Only eerily not legislated
| tshaddox wrote:
| Our legislature willingly gave up its power quite a while
| ago.
| 827a wrote:
| You only need a basic understanding of the ruling today and the
| Enabling Act to understand how untrue this is, to the point
| that the comparison must have been made in bad faith.
| acoustics wrote:
| The majority seems too trusting that the government will appeal
| its losses.
|
| Strategically, the government could enact a policy affecting a
| million people, be sued, lose, provide relief to the named
| plaintiffs, and then not appeal the decision. The upper courts
| never get the opportunity to make binding precedent, the lower
| courts do not get to extend relief to non-plaintiffs, and the
| government gets to enforce its illegal policies on the vast
| majority of people who did not (likely could not) sue.
| DarknessFalls wrote:
| This administration does not really care about the rule of law.
| It cares to some degree about public perception. The timing of
| this ruling is about revoking birthright citizenship, which is
| a huge Constitutional trampling. There were opportunities four
| years ago for the SC to step in and they refused to intercede.
| For example, why didn't they rule in favor of executive
| authority when President Biden he tried to forgive student loan
| debt and a Federal Judge in Texas deemed it "unlawful"?
|
| Now we get to see Americans have their legitimacy removed so
| they can be sent to "Alligator Alcatraz", the new prison being
| built just for them in the Everglades.
| mjburgess wrote:
| > For example, why didn't they rule in favor of executive
| authority when President Biden he tried to forgive student
| loan debt and a Federal Judge in Texas deemed it "unlawful"?
|
| They just did
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Since we're rendering people to El Salvador, there's no reason
| some ICE bounty hunter can't grab you in Massachusetts, and
| dump you in some Home Depot parking lot in the Carolinas.
| mjburgess wrote:
| If you have any interest in taking a non-hysterical reaction to
| the ruling, read Kavanaugh's concurrence which goes through all
| the ways something like a universal injunction is still possible:
| via the Administrative Procedure Act which allows for judicial
| review of executive action, including prohibiting it; via class
| actions where all relevant parties plausibly form a nation-wide
| class; state-wide injunctions _remain_ possible; and the supreme
| court itself reserves the right to make universal injunctions on
| iterim orders /policies until _they_ decide the case on a full
| hearing (at which time they can invalide the law /order).
|
| His concurrence reads more like the dissent which should have
| been written. In all of these 6-3 cases where Sotomayor writes
| the dissent, she writes entirely for the press and reserves only
| the last few pages to engage in anything like the legal
| arguments. Her effect in these cases is profoundly pathological
| on the public discourse.
|
| After reading her dissent one could not imagine anything
| Kavanaugh said would even be possible, yet he writes a
| concurrence with the majority.
|
| iirc, his contributions during oral arguments also showed he had
| quite some sympathy with why UIs have proliferated, I believe it
| was he who tried to lend credibility to increasing rate of
| executive over-reach
| majormajor wrote:
| >and the supreme court itself reserves the right to make
| universal injunctions on iterim orders/policies until they
| decide the case on a full hearing (at which time they can
| invalide the law/order)
|
| Doesn't that require an appeal? Or are you saying they'd go put
| a policy or law on hold even if there wasn't an open case after
| a lower judge ruled against them and the government chose not
| to appeal so as to not risk losing more broadly.
|
| Seems like the takeaway here for any would-be executive-
| overreachers is "lose a couple cases affecting a handful of
| plaintiffs and ignore those loses."
|
| IIRC the general trend for getting a class certified for a
| class action is also in the "make it harder to do" direction.
| mjburgess wrote:
| Not necessarily, though I'd guess what Kavanaugh imagines is
| that many states will obtain state-wide injunctions that make
| executing an order like this practically impossible (indeed,
| _that_ is what the SC has said _should_ happen next) -- and,
| imv, he believes there is a nation-wide class in-play and
| this will go to a nation-wide class action. At which time the
| executive will be entirely boxed in. Given this, the
| executive has to ask the SC to stay some of these, or grant
| cert., or there 's practically no EO in play.
|
| It's important to remember here that _states_ are relevant
| parties to these suits against the federal government, and
| there are enough of them to enjoin any practical excerise of
| executive action.
|
| The SC has basically asserted that only it will, temporarily
| or permanently, review those cases where there is a federal-
| level split on these issues requiring a universal solution.
|
| I have a feeling he's also hinting that the SC will, in light
| of this, look at how it handles temporary orders -- he has,
| at least said, it is now obligated to be very proactive in
| these areas and take on all such temporary requests to enjoin
| the executive
|
| There's also the APA question, I don't fully understand
| judicial review in these cases -- but iirc, the APA grants
| courts to order the executive to stop (or to take) action on
| such policies. So when the EO has a "policy implementation"
| people can bring suits under the APA to enjoin, which is
| equivalent to a universal injunction.
| majormajor wrote:
| In that case than this change seems entirely pointless.
| Obviously there are plenty of states that are highly
| partisan in either direction. So it seems like the
| judicious thing to do would've been like "the status quo is
| fine, rulings that higher courts think are egregious can
| still be stayed pending appeal."
|
| It's hard to believe it's so innocuous given that (a) it is
| such a new approach to the issue for a not-new feature of
| US law and (b) the broader literature being pushed by the
| people pushing for this change.
|
| Instead it feels like the song and dance around how some
| Senators would try to get SC justice nominees to say they
| wouldn't overturn Roe v Wade - distractive performance
| that's utterly non-binding and an obvious smokescreen.
| mjburgess wrote:
| The SC was asked to consider a relatively narrow question
| of what the limits on equitable remindies in the discrict
| courts are. In a significant majority of cases they've
| exceeded their clear authority on anything like a
| plausible reading of what non-constitutional courts are
| supposed to do.
|
| Ironically, imv, I think in this case, they didnt. This
| was, imv, a case where a universal injunctions was
| actually within the power of the disctict court --
| because (and here Sotomayor is correct) the states were
| being obligated to take on burdens that "crossed state
| lines" and a complete remedy to relieve them of these
| burdens actually requires a universal injunction. So,
| imv, under the history of what equitable remedies are
| supposed to do, this would be one rare case where the
| action of the courts could be legally defensible.
|
| However, the SC was extremely fed up with district courts
| sending inumerable number of cases their way -- trigger
| happy judges at the distict level deciding they're going
| to rule for the whole US in a federal system. So, by this
| point, they've tried many times to stop it, and it hadnt
| worked.
|
| Here all they said is that you can have UIs only where
| congress makes explicit that courts have this power. They
| have done something kinda similar in the APA (creating
| judicial review of exec action), and can do again here
| (eg., a democratic congress could give the power in
| immigration cases; I think its plausible something like
| this happens). They also _themselves_ retain the right to
| make such orders.
|
| So they have only really moved where in the system such
| action is taken, retaining district court's rights to
| still -- very broadly -- give quite wide injunctions. And
| congress still has the power to empower the courts
| (though, as per usual, Thomas indicates he's on crazy
| pills and implies he would prevent congress from doing
| that -- that's not a serious outcome though).
|
| Given the problems they faced with district courts,
| something had to give. They were persuaded, plausibly
| correctly, that there are enough avenues to prevent this
| executive overreach without empowering the lowest rung of
| judges to rule for the whole of the US.
| majormajor wrote:
| > because (and here Sotomayor is correct) the states were
| being obligated to take on burdens that "crossed state
| lines" and a complete remedy to relieve them of these
| burdens actually requires a universal injunction
|
| > However, the SC was extremely fed up with district
| courts sending inumerable number of cases their way
|
| Well hold on then.
|
| So you think the Court was wrong in this case? That they
| were just on tilt? Because if this case _is_ a case for a
| universal injunction then does the executive have
| standing to ask about that issue here?
|
| But if Sotomayor is correct on the relevance of a
| universal injunction here, then why is your "non-
| hysterical reaction" _defending_ the decision instead?
|
| ---
|
| I also find it hard to agree with "judges are creating
| problems" vs "an increasingly aggresive executive is
| creating problems." The legislature hasn't been able to
| do much for a long time because the splits are so close,
| so presidents try to do more directly. Is _enabling that_
| despite how closely split the legislature is ANYTHING
| like in line with how the US government system is
| supposed to work?
|
| Cause really, awww, they have more cases than they used
| to? Welcome to the computer driven future, it sucks for
| all of us, don't make us suffer because you're tired of
| it.
| mjburgess wrote:
| Imagine you're a SC judge in this case, and you have to
| craft a judgement which allows universal injunctions in
| _incredibly narrow_ and highly specific cases, whilst
| ruling out almost all of them. And that the area of law
| you 're dealing with is a puddle of mud (equity).
|
| You can either try to do this and roll the dice again on
| letting district courts interpret this judgement, or just
| say, basically no -- if you want to do this you have to
| come to us (or go via one of the other mechanisms). Given
| there are ~25 recent cases of this in total, its not a
| very significant number -- but the effects are extremely
| significant.
|
| They chose the lesser of two evils, and in this lesser
| world, basically everything is still fine. You can still
| get the right outcomes.
|
| This is the actual job of the court. There is no right
| answer. There is only what judgement they can write and
| what effects it will have, and whether those are the most
| consistent with the spirit of the constutional order (or
| statutory order) that has been setup.
|
| its very common for them to rule, "in cases of doubt,
| just get congress to pass a law allowing this to happen"
|
| They very often actually do amend laws due to SC rulings.
| Many laws are passed every year, and its very common to
| see amendements explicitly reply to tell the SC to undo
| its actions in cases where they've asked congress to be
| clear.
|
| Just because I think there's a read of "complete
| equitable remedy" in this case which plausibly allows a
| district court to issue a UI, does not mean that the SC
| wasn't right to set a standard which precludes it. Or
| that asking congress to make this possible isn't the
| right position for the court to take.
|
| You have to remember that congress is the democratic
| legislative body, not the courts. Having district courts
| intrude on US-wide implementation of congress' laws (via
| the executive) should really require congress to
| authorise that.
|
| And in any case, they have in the APA -- and the SC can
| still do it.
| magicalist wrote:
| > _Ironically, imv, I think in this case, they didnt.
| This was, imv, a case where a universal injunctions was
| actually within the power of the disctict court --
| because (and here Sotomayor is correct) the states were
| being obligated to take on burdens that "crossed state
| lines" and a complete remedy to relieve them of these
| burdens actually requires a universal injunction. So,
| imv, under the history of what equitable remedies are
| supposed to do, this would be one rare case where the
| action of the courts could be legally defensible._
|
| > _However, the SC was extremely fed up with district
| courts sending inumerable number of cases their way --
| trigger happy judges at the distict level deciding they
| 're going to rule for the whole US in a federal system.
| So, by this point, they've tried many times to stop it,
| and it hadnt worked._
|
| ...so you were lauding a "Some of you may die, but it's a
| sacrifice I am willing to make" opinion?
|
| We're talking citizenship here, in a time when the
| executive branch is deporting people as hastily as
| possible to prevent judicial review. But the supreme
| court was "extremely fed up" and took a stand...against
| universal injunctions. How "non-hysterical" of them.
| mjburgess wrote:
| This judgement has nothing to do with citizenship, and
| there's yet no reason to suppose citizenship is under
| threat from the EO as a result of this judgment.
|
| Many states will have state-wide injunctions, and there
| will be a nation-wide class action suit to go thru the
| courts, and if there's any executive policy on this, it
| will receive judicial review.
|
| The SC will also, whilst this is going on, intervene an
| basically issue a universal injunction as soon as the
| executive takes any issue whatsoever with this process.
| Balooga wrote:
| Can the executive branch force arbitration via presidential
| order to limit the ability to form class action suites?
| mjburgess wrote:
| No, it isn't that sort of civil class action.
|
| You can see the relevant law here:
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_23
| belorn wrote:
| I don't live in the US, but can't the winning party still
| appeal? Here in Sweden it is not uncommon that both parties
| appeal important cases, sometimes with the explicit goal of
| getting the highest court to make a judgement. Some cases are
| just more important to get the highest courts judgement,
| especially those related to government, than holding onto a
| win from a lower court.
| cde-v wrote:
| Remain possible in the same way amendments are still possible.
| Technically true but realistically...
| magicalist wrote:
| > _After reading her dissent one could not imagine anything
| Kavanaugh said would even be possible, yet he writes a
| concurrence with the majority._
|
| What? Seems like you're working backwards from wanting to spout
| about Sotomayor. This is exactly the gamesmanship she pointed
| out the majority allowed the Trump administration to play with.
|
| Look at all these fun, lengthy, expensive legal remedies you
| can attempt over the next few years to protect your basic
| rights while the executive branch enacts plainly
| unconstitutional policies. Someone count the number of
| nationwide injunctions during the last four years where the
| majority could have stepped in to swat down the trend but
| didn't, but instead chose this one.
| consumer451 wrote:
| > If you have any interest in taking a non-hysterical
| reaction...
|
| What a lovely way to frame a statement and put down people who
| hold a multitude of opinions that you do not share.
| pyinstallwoes wrote:
| One can find an opinion at the ready but to be hysterical
| with opinions is a matter of distance.
| mjburgess wrote:
| The well has been poisoned by Sotomayor's dissent, and the
| headlines which come form it. I'm rebuffing a framing that
| many have taken who haven't listened to the oral arguments,
| havent read the judgement, and so on.
|
| I don't take people who engage in this emotionally elevated
| reaction to the issue to have a different opinion, I take
| them to have no opinion at all -- because their reaction
| isn't an evaluation of the judgement.
|
| All i'm saying is, "before you go ham on emotionally
| disregulation based on media reports, go read a few pages of
| the actual judgement
| magicalist wrote:
| > _I don 't take people who engage in this emotionally
| elevated reaction to the issue to have a different opinion,
| I take them to have no opinion at all -- because their
| reaction isn't an evaluation of the judgement._
|
| It's just civil rights and citizenship. Why can't they all
| be as detached and unimpacted as rich old guy Kavanaugh?
| threemux wrote:
| Justice Jackson's dissent is honestly one of the most
| embarrassing things I've read from the Court and I've been
| reading most every opinion for years now. Heavy on the pathos,
| completely devoid of cogent legal theory. Kinda reminds me of
| Breyer, who, charitably, had an esoteric style.
|
| Kavanaugh is good to read on any topic - his writing is clear
| and often easily understandable by the layman. Gorsuch is an
| excellent writer as well. Those two are imo the best writers
| currently among the justices.
| mjburgess wrote:
| They're both excellent judges in non-ideological cases, and
| many of Sotomayor's majority judgements read well and she's
| clearly very on-the-ball in orals. It's a shame in these
| cases -- I think Sotomayor is more of an ideologue than
| Thomas.
| cryptodan wrote:
| This is far overdue. The lower courts arent the scotus.
| gigatexal wrote:
| It's Trump's world we are just living in it (as NPCs).
| guywithahat wrote:
| Shouldn't it say US Supreme Court affirms constitutional powers?
| hayst4ck wrote:
| By accepting the frame that it is federal judges and _not the
| law_ that is blocking trump, it means that we are analyzing on a
| frame of _Trump vs Judges_ rather than _Trump vs Law_.
|
| The headline itself shows how media at large has failed us and
| how they manufacture consent for authoritarian rule through abuse
| of language and controlling of frames.
|
| The judges are not ruling like a king would rule, but instead
| ruling that the actions likely violate the law in their own
| assessment and likely to cause harm. This ruling is stating that
| federal judges cannot rule that the law is blocking Trump. By
| accepting and adopting the frame that it is Trump vs Judges you
| implicitly accept that the law itself is a weapon rather than a
| boundary. It argues that the law is subjective rather than
| objective. It argues that there is no objective truth. To say it
| is judges that are stopping trump is to say that judges are
| agents of themselves and not agents of the law.
|
| _The court's decision to permit the executive to violate the
| constitution with respect to anyone who has not yet sued is an
| existential threat to the rule of law," Jackson wrote. "Given the
| critical role of the judiciary in maintaining the rule of law ...
| it is odd, to say the least, that the court would grant the
| executive's wish to be freed from the constraints of law by
| prohibiting district courts from ordering complete compliance
| with the constitution._
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