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

theguardian.com

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

#341

Post by boothby »

Jensson wrote: post #261
EasyMark wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not valid. When you're in a country you are subject to it's laws, whether it's the USA or Somalia

If you are an undocumented immigrant so the country doesn't know about you then its arguable.

If a foreign diplomat is pulled over by the cops after running over a pedestrian, they can flash an ID card and drive away. If an undocumented immigrant does the same, they go directly to jail and probably get deported in short order. That's what jurisdiction means.

In ordinary times, the notion of establishing precedent that immigrants are not under the jurisdiction of the US would be met with sputtering indignance for all but the most idealistic anarchists. Because that goes way beyond open borders, it promotes foreigners to super-citizens untouchable by the law.

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

#342

Post by threemux »

mjburgess wrote: post #252

[flagged]

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.

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

#343

Post by majormajor »

tshaddox wrote: post #338
majormajor wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bi…

> 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 ass…

> "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.

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

#344

Post by Tadpole9181 »

chasd00 wrote: post #187
vharuck wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

>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.

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.

This makes US law effectively intractable. The only natural resolution then is to visit Obergfell - the gay marriage case that the current SCOTUS majority has harped against for years in their rulings - and resolve the conflict by appealing to the federal nature of the law & enforcement, revoking citizenship of even those with an injunction.

In another comment I've gone into detail on exactly how the federal government can force that case to the SCOTUS.

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

#345

Post by firesteelrain »

majormajor wrote: post #337
firesteelrain wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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 "cle…

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

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

#346

Post by pedalpete »

paulvnickerson wrote: post #127

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.

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.

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

#347

Post by [deleted] »

laughing_man wrote: post #306
scarface_74 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The President is literally taking away citizenship. What can be more fundamental than that?

Birthright citizenship was never enacted into law. It was a policy change by the State Department early in the 20th century. Since Trump controls the State Dept, has the power to make the change - Congress needs to deal with this.

[deleted]

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

#348

Post by vannevar »

paulvnickerson wrote: post #127

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 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.

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

#349

Post by laughing_man »

tzs wrote: post #330
laughing_man wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Birthright citizenship was never enacted into law. It was a policy change by the State Department early in the 20th century. Since Trump controls the State Dept, has the power to make the change - Congress needs to deal with this.

It's been enacted into law at least 3 times, for difference classes of people. 1. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which covers everyone born here who is not the child of foreign diplomats or members of foreign armed forces stationed in the US. 2. The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 which extended it to Native Americans who were living under tribal sovereignty. 3. The Immigration and Nationality Technical Corre…

Well, okay, but none of this applies to the children of illegal immigrants.

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

#350

Post by lurking_swe »

ljsprague wrote: post #237
scarface_74 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The President is literally taking away citizenship. What can be more fundamental than that?

[flagged]

it seems like you’re not really understanding the “point” of the United States and what makes it different from other countries. That’s a shame.

Is america only for the white descendants, the former slave owning class? Perhaps former Nazis who fled Germany after the war? Who is america _really_ for? Why should Trump and the GOP get to decide who the undesirables are? This narrative of “giving away citizenship” quite literally makes zero sense.

Even as a child growing up it was clear to me (from teachers, textbooks, books, movies) that what makes america special is its ability to integrate immigrants from various backgrounds into 1 working nation. It’s a land of immigrants from the start.

The founding fathers didn’t “belong” here either. The land was stolen from native americans and other tribes that lived here. It’s in the DNA of the country. Some Americans need a big mirror and a heaping spoon of empathy IMO.

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