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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

#671

Post by rufus_foreman »

grogers wrote: post #473
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…

IANAL but isn't any ruling by even a lower court precedent? Like if I sue the government for thing A and a lower court rules in my favor, doesn't that make the next plaintiff's case for sueing the government for thing A much easier? All it seems to do is make everything much less efficient.

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

#672

Post by hobs »

goodluckchuck wrote: post #603
kelnos wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also possible that someone with Sotomayor's experience can see the government's position for what it is: complete bullshit.

Again, the point of being a judge is to not just make assumptions about what you think their argument is going to be. If your opinion is made up before you hear the case, then your opinion is bullshit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vexatious_litigation There's plenty of times you can see the litigant is just filing bullshit, venue shopping, and hey - maybe even packing the courts with friendly folks who will rubber stamp whatever you really want.

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

#673

Post by paulryanrogers »

firesteelrain wrote: post #570
vkou wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This creates conflicting rulings, because now anyone who is party to a lawsuit has one precedent for them, and everyone else isn't. If a state now sues the federal government on behalf of its citizens that a federal action is illegal, and wins, you now has a situation where a federal action is constitutionally illegal in one state , but is legal in another. How the hell is this consistent? This doesn't consolidate an…

That’s exactly how constitutional challenges have always worked. In our system, different circuits can interpret federal law differently until SCOTUS resolves the split. It’s not ideal, but it’s how precedent gets built. Nationwide injunctions didn’t “force” consolidation. Often, they often blocked it. We need to follow the process as designed. This ruling restores pressure to actually appeal and get clarity at the a…

What if the executive prefers not to appeal their losses because they see a patch work as better than a permanent nationwide loss? Because that seems to be exactly their strategy here.

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

#674

Post by anigbrowl »

timr wrote: post #113
jfengel wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 grandparent comment refers to a ruling from last year about Presidential immunity.

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

#675

Post by paulryanrogers »

firesteelrain wrote: post #612
atmavatar wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm arguing that the Constitution guarantees due process to anyone subject to US jurisdiction, and the nationwide injunctions were necessary because ICE was sweeping people off the streets and quickly shipping them to different countries intentionally and explicitly in contravention of due process. If every single case must be prosecuted individually, those who have been illegally robbed of due process will already b…

Constitution guarantees checks and balances but not justice in every case. People can still be disenfranchised. Especially when the system values procedural order over urgent harm. Someone might be deported, incarcerated, or otherwise harmed before the courts even rule on whether their rights were violated. US legal system highly values procedural fairness and due process. This is by design, not accident

So... no nationwide injunctions except from SCOTUS?

Meaning the executive can just keep deporting without due process or honoring birthrights, so long as they back down for anyone with the means to challenge it. (And their lawyer is fast enough, and knows which district they were spirited off to in the middle of the night.)

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

#676

Post by benlivengood »

laughing_man wrote: post #366
lelandbatey wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. Yes. It's in the constitution. Says it right there. Please explain how all our eyes deceive us.

You're relying on a 21st century layman's interpretation of legal language written in the 19th century. "[S]ubject to the jurisdiction thereof" means, in broad strokes, people who are here legally.

In this case, I'm in favor of a reading that the only natural citizens of America are Native Americans and their descendants. I don't think they naturalized many folks, either. Gotta go with the original law, which was Native. Just because a bunch of illegal westerners come in and try to run things means nothing.

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

#677

Post by slowmovintarget »

dpe82 wrote: post #426
pyinstallwoes wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

And if the judgement is in error, it will be appealed and overruled by a higher court. This is how our system works. We're only seeing it as a "problem" lately because the past few administrations have leaned increasingly heavily on unilateral executive action rather than legislation as the constitution designs, and as we'd been doing successfully for the previous 200 years.

And yet what's going on is an exercise of the law as it exists, because Congress abrogated its responsibility.

Each Executive administration since W has reached further and further. Congress has ceded more and more, because while it is their responsibility to choose, doing so comes at a political cost they don't want to pay. So they hand it over to the Executive.

Time for some garbage collection in the law code. If you want a limited Executive, vote for a Congress that will take its power back. The Constitution gave tariff power to Congress, for example, and a few decades ago, they gave it over to the President. IIRC, the same goes for border policy and deportation rules. We keep assuming when we install all of this machinery in the Oval Office that no... no he wouldn't push that button, it would be indecent. Every President pushes more of the buttons at their disposal (with the possible exception of Joe, as it was his staff running things and not him), and this one is no exception.

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

#678

Post by yongjik »

AngryData wrote: post #654
yongjik wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you think if the US populous was zero threat at all that we wouldn't be in an even worse place right now? How can you look at what the government is doing right now in the largest police state to ever exist and be like "Nah, we shouldn't be armed at all."

What I'm trying to say is: you say zero threat is bad, but an armed populace is actually worse than that. It's a potential asset to a wannabe dictator.

There are very few ways an armed populace can stop a dictator (and not become an unmitigated disaster for everybody). There are a ton of ways they can start chaos - which can be a great opportunity for wannabe dictators.

And that's not considering the case when these armed citizens want to be the dictator's death squad in the first place.

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

#679

Post by throwaway48476 »

refurb wrote: post #651
throwaway48476 wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada is a dictatorship though most don't realize it. MPs can't tweet anything unless it's approved by the PM. You have a hundred heads speaking with one voice.

It’s an interesting system looking from the outside in. A party with a majority in power has little to stop any legislation the party decides to pass. The senate is mostly a rubber stamp. The courts are independent but won’t nullify legislation unless it violates the charter. MPs can’t not vote with the party unless they want to risk their political career (or it’s a free vote - but that’s reserved for unimportant le…

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

#680

Post by paulryanrogers »

msgodel wrote: post #597
bravesoul2 wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First paragraph of TFA > The US supreme court has supported Donald Trump’s attempt to limit lower-court orders that have so far blocked his administration’s ban on birthright citizenship See also: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthright_citizenship_in_th...

Those are only "citizens" because of a weird legal technicality that's a holdover from the civil war era. Most countries don't do that because the incentives it creates are kind of insane and very destructive in practice.

> Those are only "citizens" because of a weird legal technicality that's a holdover from the civil war era.

Indeed, if your ancestors didn't cross the Bering Land Bridge at least 10K years ago then you're clearly not a native, and should be deported back to your continent of origin ASAP. And if you don't like it then I hope your lawyer can catch up to the trucks hauling you to a distant, deportation-happy district where you'll be processed!

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