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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

#441

Post by anon84873628 »

belorn wrote: post #326
majormajor wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 losi…

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.

Sure. The problem is all the other people left vulnerable in the meantime, since it can take a long time for the appeals process to complete.

These injunctions are used in cases where the judge believes "irreparable harm" harm is imminent for a large group of people. It is not realistic to expect every person (or at least one person in every state/district) to hire a lawyer and argue the case to protect themselves.

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

#442

Post by wnevets »

jm20 wrote: post #433
wnevets wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Student visas tied into tech hiring, so it's at least tangentially related.

So is birthright citizenship

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

#443

Post by 8note »

pyinstallwoes wrote: post #380
vannevar wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 authori…

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

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

#444

Post by tshaddox »

majormajor wrote: post #400
tshaddox wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

As a former-red-state-citizen for decades, "basic stuff like consumer protection" is not something that I think has clear broad bipartisan support. Caveat emptor! Regulation [of scammers] bad! Free speech [for scammers] good! "I'm from the government and..." A certain amount of less-partisan stuff does get passed all the time. But, to get more subtle about it, I think the danger if you help pass something like consum…

> As a former-red-state-citizen for decades, "basic stuff like consumer protection" is not something that I think has clear broad bipartisan support.

This might have been the case in the region you grew up, or you might be deceived by narratives in mainstream political discourse (which are driven more by politicians, interest groups, and media than by popular opinion). Regardless, there are plenty of national policy polls that show high Republican support for a wide array of consumer protection policies. This one turned up from a quick web search:

https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/50343-national-po...

The 3 highest-supported consumer protection policies among Republicans:

- 88%: Increasing restrictions on telemarketers' use of automated dialing and robocalling

- 85%: Banning excessive price increases during emergencies

- 78%: Creating a federal digital-privacy bill of rights to protect personal data and privacy online

And here are the 3 lowest (the dataset is only for policies supported by a majority from both parties):

- 56%: Imposing stricter penalties on companies that use monopolistic practices

- 60%: Banning credit agencies from reporting information on unpaid medical bills

- 64%: Requiring all electronic device manufacturers to make their products compatible with the same type of charger

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

#445

Post by ARandomerDude »

consumer451 wrote: post #319
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.

How is it that the country appears to have been functioning pretty well for quite some time, until now? What has changed?

The post-WW2 bureaucratic state became so massive that it was first possible, then desirable, to weaponize it against your opponents.

This is why we should have small government. If the government has a narrowly scoped role, the fear of the other side getting elected goes away. With huge government comes great concern about who’s in it.

As proof of that principle, how many people are really fired up about who is elected locally? How about nationally? The reason is the federal government has way too much power.

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

#446

Post by magicalist »

mjburgess wrote: post #383
magicalist wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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…

> 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.

The executive order literally orders agencies not to recognize citizenship for children born in the US after February 19th to parents that aren't citizens or permanent residents. That can now proceed if you weren't personally covered by the three existing injunctions, so not sure what you're talking about.

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

#448

Post by hackyhacky »

mjburgess wrote: post #439
hackyhacky wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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> Your entire understanding of the SC here, under trump, has been completely distorted by emotionally-disregulating media narratives designed for those purposes.

Ah yes, the classic misogynist attack: I can't possibly understand the law because I'm too emotional. If only I were logical like you.

> Today's result also does not prevent state-wide injunctions, indeed, that's what they court has basically suggested.

Yes, state-level injunctions are allowed. All that this means is that different citizens will get different Constitutional rights depending on which state they live in. That's not how the Constitution is supposed to work.

> Congress can just change the statue. As it does a very large number of times every year.

What's the point of the changing the statute when SCOTUS insists on interpreting statutes in a way contrary to their text?

> That is the only impact of that ruling. It had nothing to do with criminal actions by trump.

It absolutely has to do with criminal actions. Notably, any official act cannot even be used as evidence in prosecuting a criminal act against the president. So if the president conspires with the AG to illegally prosecute a political enemy, that is unprosecutable. Since anything the president does is potentially an official act, this means that there in no way to hold the president responsible for his actions, which is the opposite of the intent of the Constitution, which provides for "checks and balances." Did you fail your high school civics class?

The Framers know how to provide immunity, as they do in the Speech and Debate clause. You may have a reason for supporting presidential immunity, but you can't deny that there is no basis for it in the Constitution. SCOTUS made it up, precisely at a time when their favorite president was found in flagrant violation.

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

#449

Post by jaggajasoos33 »

A lot of our systems work because everyone at least half heartedly sort of goes by the rules. Yes, everyone sort of pretends to obey the rule and hence it works. In reality these systems are extremely fragile and a small committed minority can totally break years of precedent and systems. I think we are at that phase right now from the right side and soonish we will see the same from right left as well.

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

#450

Post by grapesodaaaaa »

hayst4ck wrote: post #437

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 i…

To some extent, laws are enforced and interpreted subjectively.

The famous quote “give me the man and I will give you the case against him.” Comes to mind. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Give_me_the_man_and_I_will_g...

Legal settings (at least in the US), have always favored the wealthy who can find an army of lawyers to find loopholes.

I don’t agree with this, and hopefully what is currently happening raises awareness.

For example, the Patriot act post-9/11 famously gave law enforcement unconstitutional powers within 100 miles of a national border (I could be off, but this is how I remember it). If you really want to split hairs, the US has a LOT of borders if you include international airports.

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