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US Supreme Court limits federal judges' power to block Trump orders

theguardian.com

141–150 of 878 posts

Re: US Supreme Court limits federal judges' power to block Trump orders

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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."

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.

Re: US Supreme Court limits federal judges' power to block Trump orders

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't California have two? North and South?

Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Central. https://www.caed.uscourts.gov/caednew/index.cfm/cmecf-e-fili...

Did that change recently, id swear there was only two options on.

Re: US Supreme Court limits federal judges' power to block Trump orders

#143
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

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 injunctio…

Because they weren’t challenged on that basis.

Re: US Supreme Court limits federal judges' power to block Trump orders

#144
post #92

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. Univers…

>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 cou…

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.

Re: US Supreme Court limits federal judges' power to block Trump orders

#145

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 pl…

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Re: US Supreme Court limits federal judges' power to block Trump orders

#146
post #106
post #52

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 citizensh…

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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.

Re: US Supreme Court limits federal judges' power to block Trump orders

#147

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.

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.

Re: US Supreme Court limits federal judges' power to block Trump orders

#148

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. Univers…

> The people are not easily moved to action They tried to steal an election four years ago by sabotaging the vote certification.

And an attempted, violent coup of legislator! How is this part so easily forgotten!?

Re: US Supreme Court limits federal judges' power to block Trump orders

#149

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.

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.

Re: US Supreme Court limits federal judges' power to block Trump orders

#150

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.

>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…

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.

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