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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

#431

Post by atmavatar »

firesteelrain wrote: post #216
vkou wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 actio…

> It just says injunctions should only apply to the actual parties in the case.

The actual parties will have been shipped off to another country, unable to bring the case, and anyone not already deported would lack standing to challenge the action.

That seems awfully convenient for the executive.

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

#432

Post by russdill »

nine_zeros wrote: post #8

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.

I don't think this applies to just the president.

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

#433

Post by jm20 »

wnevets wrote: post #422
jm20 wrote: post #410

[flagged]

> Why is this on the front page of hacker news? It seems to have very little to do with technology. Weird that you didn't share this sentiment when commenting about terrible the US educational system is.

Student visas tied into tech hiring, so it's at least tangentially related. But I agree, that should've probably been scrubbed as well.

Not sure why I'm being downvoted. It's literally in the guidelines:

Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.

Trump's court battles are hardly a new interesting phenomenon.

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

#434

Post by hackyhacky »

mjburgess wrote: post #420
hackyhacky wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. That's one interpretation. On the other hand, I can understand her reaction at the conservative majority's repeated disrespect for stare decisis and existing c…

I'm unclear on which cases you're referring to. Roe v. Wade is the closest I can think of -- its not clear to me that this being handled by changes to state constitutions hasn't been a net benefit to the robustness of abortion law in the US. Or perhaps you mean presidental immunity. However, either way, its very hard to defend the view that the US constitution entails a democratic limit on abortion. When the SC rules…

> I'm unclear on which cases you're referring to. Roe v. Wade is the closest I can think of

I wonder if you misread my comment or just aren't aware of recent court history. The current conservative majority did not decide Roe, which is a case from 1973.

An example of a non-textual reading of the Constitution is last year's Trump v US case, wherein the conservative majority decided, apparently without any basis in law or Constitution, that the President is entitled to presumed criminal immunity for all official acts. You seem to have completely misinterpreted what this case was about: it's not about charging the president for "bad presidenting", it's about holding him accountable for criminal acts. Judges who violates criminal law are not exempt and enjoy no immunity.

Or how about Snyder v US, wherein SCOTUS decided to neuter the federal statute on official corruption, because their reading of "bribe" required money to be proffered before and not after the corresponding official act.

Or how about today's stay of the injunction against enforcement of the wildly unconstitutional attempt to void the 14th amendment, essentially giving the president the right to violate constitutional civil rates as long as he does it in states that support him against people who can't afford effective legal representation.

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

#435

Post by underlipton »

Retric wrote: post #140
rayiner wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 d…

Yup. Two things can never happen:

1) General labor strike

2) General rent/bill strike

Either one results in an immediate liquidity crisis/credit crunch and the delegitimizing/insolvency of most institutions. The beginning of the COVID pandemic was, essentially, this.

I would add in "general bank run", but I imagine that they just... wouldn't let that happen. Ironically, an emergency "injunction" against withdrawals.

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

#436

Post by SrslyJosh »

acoustics wrote: post #137

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 ill…

[flagged]

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

#437

Post by hayst4ck »

By accepting the frame that it is federal judges and not the law that is blocking trump, it means that we are analyzing based on a frame of Trump vs Judges rather than Trump vs Law.

If you accept that framing, you accept many of that frames implications without even consciously processing them. This is one of the ways that consent is manufactured.

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, based on the judge ruling, rather than objective. It argues that there is no objective truth. To say it is judges and not the law that stops trump is to say that judges are agents of themselves and not agents of the law.

Agreeing that it is Judges vs Trump is implicitly agreeing that the law is arbitrary based on the judge ruling. Arbitrary government is authoritarian government.

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.

This feels about as grim as the Citizens United dissent, which has been proven more and more true every day:

A democracy cannot function effectively when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold.

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

#438

Post by firesteelrain »

atmavatar wrote: post #431
firesteelrain wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 actio…

> It just says injunctions should only apply to the actual parties in the case. The actual parties will have been shipped off to another country, unable to bring the case, and anyone not already deported would lack standing to challenge the action. That seems awfully convenient for the executive.

Are you arguing against our existing immigration laws that the executive has to enforce?

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

#439

Post by mjburgess »

hackyhacky wrote: post #434
mjburgess wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm unclear on which cases you're referring to. Roe v. Wade is the closest I can think of -- its not clear to me that this being handled by changes to state constitutions hasn't been a net benefit to the robustness of abortion law in the US. Or perhaps you mean presidental immunity. However, either way, its very hard to defend the view that the US constitution entails a democratic limit on abortion. When the SC rules…

> I'm unclear on which cases you're referring to. Roe v. Wade is the closest I can think of I wonder if you misread my comment or just aren't aware of recent court history. The current conservative majority did not decide Roe, which is a case from 1973. An example of a non-textual reading of the Constitution is last year's Trump v US case, wherein the conservative majority decided, apparently without any basis in law…

[flagged]

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

#440

Post by int_19h »

pjc50 wrote: post #196
throwaway48476 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what laws are for. Courts aren't supposed to write them.

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.

It can go both ways. For example, in 1890-1930, SCOTUS had a series of decisions that had methodically demolished the then-budging laws pertaining to labor rights and business regulations, enacted with wide popular support, on the basis that they violated "economic liberty" rights that the judges have read into the 14th Amendment use of "liberty". You know, stuff like min wage, 40-hour work week, prohibitions on child labor, mandatory qualification requirements for some professions etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lochner_era

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