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 illegal policies on the vast majority of people who did not (likely could not) sue.
That said, the procedure here is to just use class action lawsuits to get nationwide injunctions. The opinion explicitly notes that it is an option. And today there was a big flurry of people amending their complaints to do just that.
Since we’re rendering people to El Salvador, there’s no reason some ICE bounty hunter can’t grab you in Massachusetts, and dump you in some Home Depot parking lot in the Carolinas.
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.
So here's how the loophole works. There are 12 courts of appeals. You (ICE) does a bad thing. (renditions a US citizen to an El Salvador concentration camp without due process) You get sued, appeal it to that court of appeals. Let's say it's the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, let's say you lose. You take the L and move on. You never do the bad thing in the 9th circuit again: that decision is binding. Then you do it again in a different circuit. Let's say you do the bad thing in Texas, where the 9th circuit decision was not binding. Let's say you win this time. Now the 5th circuit is your playground.
From now on, every time you arrest someone in the 9th circuit, you put them on an express flight to anywhere in the 5th district within an hour or so of arresting them, before they can get a lawyer to talk to a judge. The precedent that matters is the 5th circuit precedent, where the detainee is right now, not the 9th district (or anywhere else) where they were detained.
Because the Supreme Court has now ruled that this is a lower court problem, they've effectively blocked anyone from ever getting justice ever again.
Universal injunctions are superfluous. If the law says the government cannot do X, then who is a judge to command that the government not do X? That’s the legislature’s job. Judges have no authority to create rules saying people shall and shall not do certain things. That’s called passing a law. Similarly, when a party violates an injunction, who is the Judge to enforce his command? If it within a case or controversy between litigants, then that is one thing. When the judge they’re going to proactively punish someone any time the law as against anyone… that’s a purely executive function.
In terms of efficiency, it’s more efficient. Those in favor of universal injunctions are saying there should be hundreds of judges all racing to rule over the government, and to have their opinions control in the abstract as to cases that aren’t even before them.
If the government forces the same issue over and over there are plenty of remedies at hand: 1983 civil penalties against officers, sanctions against attorneys for frivolous arguments, and ultimately the court can hand the legislature everything it needs to impeach and remove a president by ruling that he / she is intentionally failing to enforce the law.
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.
We didn't have universal injunctions for most of the republic. They started around 1916 and even then prior to Nixon, federal law required 3 judge courts for injunctions against govt. actions. So this idea of a single judge halting something (right or wrong) only dates back to 1976.
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.
What penalty is there for continuous “errors”. Let’s say a judge was known to always apply an injunction for a certain party, can they be penalized or removed?
If I become biased or incompetent at my job I’m eventually get fired but do judges ever?
really there's no limit to presidential power. the constitution is non-binding to the president. thus, there is no such thing as an executive breech of power, because they dont need to follow any laws set by congress, and dont even need to leave at the end of a term or when congress removes them.
its all just some text on a poece of paper, and neither congress nor the executive wield the military, so their opinions are irrelevant.
I'm personally much less worried about genuine national security matters getting temporarily blocked than I am about general authoritarianism from the President (any President). Given the impotence of Congress, what checks on executive power are we left with?
Liberals really should arm themselves before these people finally classify "disagreeing with daddy" as a mental disorder. [0] It is obviously hilarious to think the "conservatives" and "2A enthusiasts" would possibly help defend lefties' right to bear arms at this point, as they've shown themselves to be utterly devoid of actual values.
People across the political spectrum have an obscene amount of faith in "can't happen here" beliefs being an actual impediment to authoritarianism.
You don’t have to defend yourself from the entire US government, just the government representation who shows up and decides to violate laws or your rights (and your life is in imminent danger). “Better to be judged by twelve vs. carried by six.” Otherwise, you’re default dead. Odds are better in jail on US soil than an El Salvadorian prison. I agree full out civil war against the US military on US soil is a different threat and engagement model. 5 million people participated in the No Kings protest, more than double total active military members on US soil, for example.
(position derived from first principles and threat modeling, with input from several US military service members and a physical defense subject matter expert)
> You don’t have to defend yourself from the entire US government, just the government representation who shows up and decides to violate laws or your rights (and your life is in imminent danger)
No matter how much I hypothetically might train on firearms, I'm pretty sure if a SWAT team (or the federal equivalent) shows up at my house, they're going to arrest me no matter what I do. Well, no, that's not true: if I pull out a firearm, they'll kill me. No need for an arrest then.
And sure, maybe just one or two officers show up at my home. Either I still lose in a firefight, or they leave and come back with more firepower, and then I lose. I suppose before their second visit I can run? Not sure to where, though, and not sure how I'll get out of the country, living nowhere near a land border.
> 5 million people participated in the No Kings protest, more than double total active military members on US soil, for example.
I'm not sure which position you're taking here, but I don't buy the idea that one armed civilian is equal to one member of the US military when it comes to predicting who is going to win. I don't even buy the idea that two armed civilians are equal to one military member. Also consider all the right-wing nut-job militia groups in the US; they would certainly join in, on the side of the military.
Training, coordination, and access to the best weaponry (and ammunition) will win. US military will beat down 5 million civilians, no problem. Probably even 10 or 20 million. I could even see the military bombing cities; Trump already seems to think LA is "in rebellion" based on his National Guard and Marine deployments. Only hope there is that enough people in the military realize what they're doing and refuse to fight. Not sure I'd want to bet on that, though.
For people who believe the US will slide (or already has slid) into authoritarianism, and believe they have a strong chance of being targeted by the government in the future, the only sane thing to do is to leave the country now. It really hurts me to say that, but that's where we are. 77M people voted for this disgusting garbage, so this is what we have.
Even beyond the lives lost on the side of the anti-US fighters in those places, who wants to bet on if the US would give up and walk away and just let any random local armed community in its own territory ignore it?
Will you see eventual retreat, or will you see eventual overwhelming force? The US didn't want to bulldoze these other countries and jail or kill everyone and set up a new state; very different than how the US would handle more Wacos.
Well, for a country that's faced attempts to be "tamed" by three superpowers over 200 years, Afghanistan's holding up pretty well. It exists and independent! By the way, it crossed my mind that all the superpowers that tried their luck are no longer superpowers. Britain's just a weak shadow of itself, the USSR completely collapsed. What fate awaits the USA?
Using private weapons to fight against the government to protect your rights is a laughably-low-probability-of-success scenario. Even when insurrections or rebellions succeed they often end up... not so great.
We have seen what you get when you have an armed populace. Highly armed cops. Highly armed federal agents. Military equipment for civilian forces. All necessary in order to compete in the arms race against the "bad guys." All cheered for by conservatives, of course!
All that make it that much more easy to start cracking down. Maybe as a first step, issuing pardons for the rebels on your side while increasing the use of force against those protesting you.
Guns are not defensive tools. If you have a gun, but the government shoots first, you still lose.
Hitler's SA (the brownshirts) weren't government officials, nor were Mussolini's blackshirts. Nor are the Proud Boys. There are many more modern examples of pro-government militias in Venezuela and the mid-east.
You never know who's going to deputize themselves as "law enforcement", with the quiet encouragement and plausible deniability of the ruling political party. Guns are unquestionably useful defensive tools against these people.
This is the actual use case. It’s a pretty established pattern of non-governmental actors like those mentioned being the tip of the authoritarian spear.
Those people should be shot in the face upon entering their first few homes or businesses, while courts and juries will still have the wherewithal to acquit anyone defending themselves.
Either way, so long as it's legal to have guns, but they are disproportionally distributed along political lines, it makes sense to try to counterbalance that.
As it is, with gun ownership leaning firmly right, Trump has a massive number of armed paramilitaries that he could lean on. In any large-scale suppression of political dissent, those would be the people breaking your door at night, not uniformed feds (there simply isn't enough of the latter). Thus even if you're anti-gun in principle, it still makes sense for left-leaning people in this country to arm given the overall political climate.
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.
I know words are just words, but trying to re-interpret "subject to the jurisdiction" is such a ridiculous over-reach.
Enjoy the chaos though, because some later administration as a revenge will very likely strip the rights of folks who can't show a naturalization certificate in the same way.
I really don't understand why they didn't turn the case into a 14th amendment case. I guess they wanted to provide more slack and time for their benefactor and political ally (SCOTUS conservatives <--> Trump)
> Trump's argument is that it's not enough to be born here, you have to also be a charge of the country
And that argument is bullshit.
> Trump's argument is that people born in America to tourist parents here for a few weeks (for example) aren't subject to the jurisdiction of America
Yes they are. If they commit a crime on US soil, they will face charges in a US court, because they are subject to the jurisdiction of those courts. (They will also be deported, but that's another matter.)
The only people on US soil who are not subject to the US's jurisdiction are foreign nationals traveling on a diplomatic passport ("diplomatic immunity").
> Sure, birthright citizenship was the reason for the suit, but the core issue was judicial overreach. Don't get mad because the way your side was "winning" was by cheating, and they were stopped.
Er, what? Nationwide injunctions have been a thing since the 1970s. No judge is "cheating" by putting one in place. I'm mad because Trump thinks the constitution is toilet paper.
If you want to talk about chaos, this SCOTUS ruling will create chaos, and more lawlessness, and make it even more difficult for people to obtain justice in this country -- a place where it was already pretty damn difficult (regardless of the party in power).
There was lots of debate in the Senate during the passage of the 14th Amendment; much of it revolved around birthright citizenship. Both those who wanted the Amendment to exclude people who were born to those temporarily in the US and those who did not acknowledged that, in the form passed, it did not.
Sen. Edgar Cowan of Pennsylvania said "I am really desirous to have a legal definition of ‘citizenship of the United States. Is the child of the Chinese immigrant in California a citizen?" He didn't think that child should be.
Sen. Conness of California said he thought it should cover "the children begotten of Chinese parents in California, and it is proposed to declare that they shall be citizens. I voted for the proposition to declare that the children of all parentage whatever, born in California, should be regarded and treated as citizens of the United States, entitled to equal civil rights with other citizens of the United States." And let's remember, as Conness was certainly aware, that many of those Chinese laborers had been imported illegally.
They knew what they were passing, and they knew it included birthright citizenship. Senators who wanted to alter the Amendment to exclude some people failed.
> tourist parents here for a few weeks (for example) aren't subject to the jurisdiction of America. It's a valid argument to make, even if you come down on a different side
This ‘jurisdiction’ claim essentially only applied to people who had a diplomatic status while in the US. A traveler from Canada has no special right against being prosecuted (just like you would not were you to go to, say Britain).
A governmental figure from Canada would have protections - we would need to interact with another sovereign to hold them accountable.
This really has nothing to do with tourism, outside deceitful assertions on television.
IANAL but this argument doesn't seem to be on firm footing due to the extradition laws on the books. Technically I can violate a UK law while in the US and indeed be subject to their jurisdiction.
The OP said that the courts were preventing the president from exercising his power under the constitution, I replied that he does not have this power under the constitution. That's all.
There's a right way and a wrong way to go about addressing problems. If the president wants to exclude natural-born children of illegal immigrants from citizenship, he can lead an effort to amend the constitution.
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.
I mean they paid some $97 Billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022 [0], the country knows about them, and taxes them. They contribute so much to the economy Texas refuses to have business verify worker's work status for fear of the economic impact it would have.
> Even in logical terms it makes sense: You can't just let anyone in to give birth and then collect benefits; it's unsustainable.
The 14th Amendment was passed in 1868. Government benefits were basically nonexistent at the time, and besides, with the US population at under 40 million people, we needed more citizens, not fewer. Your "logical" argument is completely anachronistic and irrelevant.
The conservative side of the Supreme Court claims to rule based on what the writers of the Constitution had in mind. This is another example of how they completely ignore what the writers/framers/etc. of the Constitution intended as soon as it interferes with the larger conservative agenda that they serve.
The core premise of your racist rant is built around a the massive edge case. Reality is this policy will probably disenfranchise more children of American soldiers born abroad than prevent the alien invasion you’re scared of.
The notion that the sins of the father impact the child is repugnant. The interests of the nation as a whole not allowing a clear violation of the birthright of our fellow citizens have to be addressed in a lower court, as the Supreme Court isn’t even required to hear their case.
You’re allowing yourself to be manipulated into expanding the power of an executive who will never leave and a court whose power and individual avoidance of culpability for bribery and corruption. I suppose you’ll shrug when we decide that the electoral college can choose to follow the “silent majority” as opposed to the voters.
As someone who has reading comprehension above the high-school level, it's blindingly obvious that there was no racism in GP's post. Your accusation is factually incorrect, logically fallacious, emotionally manipulative, and actively degrades the quality of HN (and, obviously, badly breaks the guidelines). Either your logical reasoning skills are deeply lacking, or you're aware that your claim false and maliciously making it anyway to deceive others, which is deeply immoral and disgusting. Regardless of which of those this is, never do this.
If you are born and live in the US, how could you possibly not be "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States? Likewise, if you are born in the US to tourist parents who then leave the United States with you, how exactly are you supposed to "collect benefits"? And even if you are "collecting benefits", to be a citizen you'd have to also be paying your taxes, which should entitle you to said benefits.
> And even if you are "collecting benefits", to be a citizen you'd have to also be paying your taxes, which should entitle you to said benefits.
According to the SF Chronicle, about 72 million US households (40% of the population) paid no federal income tax in 2022. I don't have exact numbers but I doubt anyone would dispute that public benefits flow disproportionately to those 72 million households for obvious reasons. So the cause and effect of being a citizen and paying taxes is very tenuous.
> Where exactly is the unsustainable part of this?
If it's unsustainable, then someone should propose a constitutional amendment to fix it.
> Trump's argument is that people born in America to tourist parents here for a few weeks (for example) aren't subject to the jurisdiction of America. It's a valid argument to make…
I suspect, if they commit a crime or overstay their visa, we'll suddenly decide we have a little jurisdiction after all.
This implies that executive orders should be the status quo, which deviates from the design of the American system of government. The courts should not be routinely blocking the president because the president should not be routinely ruling by executive order. This change paves the way for additional power concentrated in the executive branch which is already far too powerful. It is the next step towards an authoritarian regime and no good will come from this ruling.
Having a strong federal government in the first place deviates from the design of the American system of government. We ought to eviscerate federal government power and devolve most executive power back to the several States. That would make national politics far less contentious.
We tried that. It was called the Continential Congress, and it was a spectacular failure.
If you want the US to be a loose confederation of 50 sovereign nations, fine. Just hope you live in California, New York or Texas, because every other state is going to devolve into the American equivalent of Eastern Europe.
The Continental Congress failed because it gave the federal government too little power, but that was fixed with the US Constitution. There was that long time period between that and Wickard v. Filburn, you know.
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 big changes" should be an indicator that not making big changes is the proper result.)
The status quo would be "issue a ruling, it may or may not get put on hold while the government appeals, eventually it gets to the Supreme Court if necessary." Seemed to be working. Republicans obviously have used this to challenge stuff themselves.
It is unclear why there is a need for giving the government an escape hatch to let them say "sure, we lost this one case, we'll stop enforcing things against these few people, we just won't appeal and will continue to do whatever we want nationally instead."
> 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 associated with a change, and that change becomes unpopular, it might threaten your reelection!
> "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.
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 consumer protection - even if MOST people on both sides would support it - isn't that you risk getting branded with it if it backfires. It's that you get labeled soft in a way that the die-hards who dominate primaries can be rallied against. The right wing has been VERY aggressive in pushing purity tests for decades, and eventually you have convinced everyone of the final-battle-of-good-and-evil stakes. The left has been doing it more and more too, sadly - but it's not like what they were doing before was working too great.
That situation also gives increasing sway to the rich lobbyists who also want to make sure those basic things don't happen. Your base won't get mad at you for failing to ban abortions nationally because obviously you can't. So they don't put much blame on you for not getting the smaller stuff done either, or scrutinize your donors too much.
> 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:
Not a single decision so far was related to national security. The checks and balances exist and they are/were working, and this is an attempt to circumvent that.
But don't forget the emergency narrative: "We're being invaded!" and "Governors (bureaucrats, etc.) aren't doing what I want them to do it's now an emergency!". This is not only how our dictatorial executive overreaches, but also how its supporters justify the means in their minds.
From my reading and understanding, they still can, it just involves an _immense_ amount more paperwork. The ruling is basically that judges can only provide injunctions for the named party in a case, not universal injunctions. So instead of one injunction, each person impacted by the EO will have to file for their own injunction. Which will likely be granted due to similar injunctions already granted.
So it reads to me like we've ended up in a similar spot, but with the requirement that an insane amount of paperwork happens.
Not all people affected by an EO have an equal opportunity to generate that paperwork. Going to court or getting involved in the legal system have costs, of both time and money. Not something all people have enough of to spare.
No it’s not the same spot at all. No one will file injunctions. There is also the possibility that another’s court case for the same reason won’t be decided the same way.
What this means is that it’s now ok for the orange man to break the law. Rule of law will only be upheld in very limited circumstances in very limited areas.
Law and order is frequently said, but few people separate the ideas. Law is justice while order is the absence of open conflict. They are not the same thing.
This is a ruling which chooses order over law. Order without justice is tyranny.
As someone said in another comment, constitutionality of an action is national. There's nothing that could be considered unconstitutional in one particular region of the US and not in the others. The nationwide injunction is a tool that needs to happen if the US is ever attempting to be a country of laws.
Mind you this simply meant that, if important enough to temporarily block, an appeal would be needed to ensure that what the President was doing was legal, which is entirely reasonable. This was simply an extra legal check on the president to keep the president inline with the law.
I may be mistaken but this is under the assumption that the government chooses to appeal their losses in these lower courts. So if the govt gets to choose between just not appealing and not having to deal with these injunctions or appealing and risking an injunction, why would they appeal in most cases?
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.
-fund basic research in science and engineering
-fund nascent beneficial commercial efforts where private interests fear to tread
- supply infrastructure and services that are useful to most but are natural monopolies are network effects monopolies. (i.e. roads, rail,air, healthcare, research labs, weather services to name a few)
- punishing cheating. i.e. fraud, externalities such as pollution, shifting costs onto the public to enhance profitability, and all forms of financial engineering.
- protection against catastrophic loss
- protection of vulnerable people
- limiting corporations and individuals from gaining society distorting power.
Any judge in the country based on their own subjective politics can also create a precedent by ruling a certain way, and that single precedent might be used even a hundred years later. So by the same logic, this also should go away since it means any judge anywhere at any time can basically sediment history with their opinion
> Any judge in the country based on their own subjective politics can also create a precedent by ruling a certain way, and that single precedent might be used even a hundred years later.
District courts do not create precedent. Precedent comes from appellate courts.
They do not create binding precedent. They can create so-called persuasive precedent -- something other courts (and the same district in subsequent opinions) can and do cite when they don't disagree.
Arguing for or against common law wasn't the point (personally I'm not a fan of it). The point is that the same reasoning calls for the abolition of common law, so GP should take that into consideration
Thats why the government can just skip ahead and call the Supreme Court, and then the Supreme Court lifts it because apparently being unable to do illegal things is Irreparable Harm (actually makes a mockery of the concept of course).
In the meantime, when I sue John Doe and get an injunction, they are enjoined from their conduct everywhere; but when I sue the government, it should only apply to me? Makes no sense.
I would bet if the democrats did this, the collective right's head would explode. I love how selective Trump is with following the constitution and its amendments, his supporters as well. They will die on their sword for 2A, but 1A when it suits their agenda and all others are just loosely worded suggestions
I don't remember who it was who pointed this out, but it would appear as though the right considers hypocrisy to indicate a position of power. These are the rules for you, but not for me, because I'm more powerful.
No, they will not. Remember when Breonna Taylor was summarily executed for Kenneth Walker exercising his second amendment right to night time home defense - one of the exact scenarios the gun-fundamentalists are always fantasizing about - but then the Trumpists came out on the side of licking the jackboots?
Personally, I think it is likely that sometime during this Trump "presidency" we will see him call for more national gun control (obviously framed in terms of hurting some vulnerable group). We will see most of his supporters fall right in line, just as they have been doing on everything else. There will be heaps of rationalization about how it won't affect them of course, and they might even be right.
Morals, values, and other lofty ideals mean nothing to these people, beyond being trotted out as dishonest justifications to try and trick reasonable people into supporting their movement. Their only real desire appears to be unrestrained power for their team, demonstrating it by hurting people who aren't on their team. This is why it has been impossible to have an actual discussion about what they actually want, or how Dear Leader and his policies fail at everything they claim to want - there is literally nothing of substance there.
The balance of powers have been broken for over a century at this point with ever increasing “emergency” declarations that don’t go away, giving the executive branch immense power.
Agreed. The system simply cannot work if any district judge anywhere can veto the president's policies.
In theory it's just an injunction, but the reality is this kind of stuff takes forever to get hashed out in the courts, and Trump will be well out of office before it gets settled.
I have no problem with SCOTUS injunctions, but there are too many district courts for this to work.
The way things were heading the president was going to be forced to start ignoring injunctions, and he would have been right to do so. The Roberts court had to make this ruling for the government to function.
only under the assumption that the governments job is to contravene the law of the land - which up until pretty recently no one believed including the government
not a lawyer, but I believe the process involves (a) deciding if there is a case at all to be argued, which is this case there clearly is, and (b) weighing the harm of letting the government send US citizens to Sudan or life in prison in El Salvador vs the harm that would be caused by preventing the government from doing that while the case is adjudicated - which seems to be nonexistent.
but instead of a few cases, now there will be dozens of cases because now each state/district has to fight Trump's authoritarian tendencies, and in the meantime he can imprison (just for starters) illegal immigrants in "3rd countries" known for torture and the worst prison conditions impossible, and seemingly he prefers to do that.
It's astonishing how many people fail to address the legal argument in the SCOTUS opinion, disregard the legal question altogether, and apparently want the courts to decide how things "should" be, regardless of legality.
IANAL but I read SCOTUS opinions regularly and this one is hard to argue with. If things should be different then we need legislative/constitutional changes.
> If things should be different then we need legislative/constitutional changes
lol, yes, like birthright citizenship written plainly into the constitution.
What good are your further legislative/constitutional changes worth if the executive can just ignore them except for the single individuals who file suit?
> The ruling today very explicitly and clearly does not touch the birthright citizenship issue.
In practice it absolutely does, because now everyone is scrambling to try and protect their clients that were previously covered by the larger injunction. The supreme court could have just not taken the case in the first place, or let the injunctions stand as an appropriate use of injunctions (for grossly unconstitutional executive orders)
The only reason the avoided is to avoid countering Trump, it's dead obvious that Trump is forbidden by law to do what he's doing. It's going to take months to years for a real 14th amendment case to reach them, meanwhile he's shipping people off to "3rd nations" to imprison them there in the worst conditions imaginable and indefinitely with no court process or trial. Why should an illegal immigrant go to prison, potentially for the rest of their life just because they illegally crossed the border?
The judicial still has significant tools to stop an executive branch that is clearly acting illegally. So does the legislative. If these branches don't leverage those tools, or those tools don't work, we have bigger problems.
Guess what: You're living in the world of bigger problems.
The dissent on this court decision beautifully reasons why there is no practical recourse for the judicial branch to intervene after this decision. The effective power to do so is now solely with the Supreme Court. But the procedure is such the the Government can simply prevent any relevant cases from reaching that court because in order to get there, the Government would have to appeal and they can just consistently choose not to do it.
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.
Yes, this has been going on for decades at various levels of government.
It's very common when it comes to gun rights. The government (local/state and federal) will frequently avoid appealing if they think they might then lose the case, setting a wide precedent for millions of people.
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 action or taking it up to the Supreme Court
Not giving individual judges a veto over national law.
Not necessarily. That’s where class actions come in
The point is that relief should be tied to proper procedure, not handed out universally by default. One judge shouldn’t decide national policy based on one plaintiff unless the case is structured to justify it
They slow down the “forever lawsuit” problem by consolidating claims, reducing conflicting rulings, and giving defendants a clear path to challenge the case’s scope. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than unlimited nationwide injunctions from any one court.
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 anything. It removes the thing that forced consolidation - the ability of a court to issue an injunction and stop illegal actions from continuing - which forced the government to either give up, or appeal up. Now, everything is a legal patchwork.
No. If a ruling has determined that a government action has the potential to be illegal and must be halted for the suing party, it should absolutely be halted for everyone, because you're dealing with an action that's ambiguously illegal for everyone. It's not just the wronged party at the center of this issue, it's the capacity for the government to engage in illegal activity. Once you've identified behavior as questionable, you stop the behavior.
> 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.
What chaos that would be worse than the chaos of jurisdictional fracturing they're asking for here and the possibility to not let cases escalate to courts with supposed national jurisdiction? Rulings were stayed all the time.
The existence of a national injunction seems built in to the job of a federal judge since federal law is definitionally national. Voiding it only locally, or only in regard to specific plaintiffs, seems like a huge wishful reach.
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, there is a difference between saying “this law is unconstitutional” and saying “this law is blocked for everyone, everywhere.”
>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 "clever", more "obvious" situation in your mind? No, that's a clever hack that same sneaky bastard came up with to justify removing further obstacles for the executive to increase its own power.
But it seems to fly against the face of history. Federal law has been in the business of preempting local authority for centuries. Now we want to unwind that and let jurisdictions opt-out case-by-case?
This ruling opens the door for more inconsistency. Things can dead-end in a fractured state much more easily now.
Without you telling me any specific harms of the "chaos and inconsistency", and how you think they will be reduced now, then I can only consider the harms of the new potentials for inconsistency which is "the excecutive intentionally does not appeal when they lose to small groups because they want to be able to continue to overreach nationally."
What are the concrete examples of chaotic things that caused issues that you don't think could happen now?
1. In 2017, one district court blocked Trump’s travel ban nationwide, while others upheld it. That led to confusion at airports and legal whiplash
2. In 2019, one judge blocked the public charge immigration rule nationwide, while others allowed it. The rule ended up applying in some States and not others
3. Multiple district courts issued conflicting nationwide injunctions on Title IX guidance for transgender students during the Obama and Trump years
Those are just some
Inconsistency is still possible. But the alternative was worse
What we had was a race to the most favorable courtroom
The fix isn’t unlimited injunctions. It’s reform and not stretching judicial power beyond what the law allows
How is there less room for inconsistency now? If a judge has said five plaintiffs can play on a certain sports team in one jurisdiction, now the sports administrators need to know every ruling in every jurisdiction that their league functions in?
What makes you think "reform" is going to happen here? Have you read much of the material pushing for increased executive power on the right? It's very clear that the goal is solely to remove impediments to stretch executive power to the point that executive power decides what the law allows.
No, all of these cases are not resolved to this day
Title IX issue is not resolved. Public charge rule resolved itself because the Biden admin rescinded the rule. But not before creating mass confusion. Trump travel ban was resolved by SCOTUS as valid once Trump modified the ban
The point is that nationwide injunctions from different district courts created that chaos in the first place, often forcing rushed Supreme Court intervention just to untangle conflicting orders
If "working as expected" means conflicting nationwide orders from different judges, policy whiplash across states, and emergency SCOTUS intervention just to sort it all out..
then that’s exactly the kind of chaos the Court is trying to fix
> Whether you were personally hurt isn’t the point. Conflicting nationwide rulings from different judges created legal chaos and undermined consistency
So now you can be a US citizen when in New York but not while in Kentucky. Sure to cause no chaos.
> 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.
Right, it’s a delay, not a final veto. But when that delay applies nationwide, it functions like a veto until SCOTUS steps in, which can take months or years
If the executive avoids appeals to dodge precedent, that’s a separate (and valid) concern. But the solution isn’t to stretch injunction power beyond its legal limits
It is about who gets to block national policy for everyone, based on one local case. That kind of sweeping relief was never authorized by Congress
> until SCOTUS steps in, which can take months or years
It doesn't take months or years for SCOTUS to determine whether or not they will take a case. If they don't want to take it, they are fine with the arguments set by the lower precedent, and tough shit, but that means that the loser is in the wrong.
> If the executive avoids appeals to dodge precedent, that’s a separate (and valid) concern.
You're damn right it's a valid concern. It's a valid concern because this removed the only mechanism that there was to force them to address it.
> Of course, because innocent until proven guilty.
The purpose of courts litigating the legality of executive actions is not establishing innocence or guilt, so what you're saying is completely irrelevant.
The president doesn't go to prison because some court found that he signed an illegal executive order. (But it sounds like you maybe think that should be the case. It's hard to tell, because you aren't saying anything coherent.)
> The POTUS doesn't need to ask for permission to politicized local judges
Let's play a simple game. If he signs a blatantly unconstitutional and illegal EO ordering the US Marshals to have you and your family arrested, tortured, and shot tomorrow, whose permission do you think he should need? Which parts of the government would be able to stop him?
You seem to think that no 'politicized'[1] judge should be allowed to say "Whoa, hold on there, that may be illegal."
---
[1] What the hell does 'politicized' mean? Is there a single person in government who is not 'politicized'? Is SCOTUS somehow not 'politicized'? Is the executive?
> 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
This ruling does not "restore" a functioning balance, it damages it. This has never been a problem in the past because previous administrations (regardless of politics) didn't take illegal actions daily. Framing it as "politics" is disingenuous as many of the judges ruling against Trump were appointed by him.
The system was working as intended to check an executive acting outside of the law, but once again, the supreme court continues to empower the executive.
When the Supreme Court has multiple members who have and continue to openly break the law themselves, they have a vested interest in keeping a party in power who is also openly corrupt.
Judges have never been able to make rulings based on their own subjective politics. They must justify their rulings under the law.
I could extend some merit to the idea that injunctions should be limited in complex cases where case law is thin and the law is less than clear. When executive orders are clearly unconstitutional, however, I do not then see any reason for limits.
Judges make use of reasonableness, superset of rationality, all the time. The issue is what is reasonable to 30% is not reasonable to another 25%. As long as there is a political backing for their reasonable decisions, they are fine. One can call it subjective or political. That’s why judges do judge and provide good reasons that can be defendable by 20% of those who vote and have political sway.
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.
I am looking for feedback, but I don't think that is a valid argument.
A single person absolutely can and should pull the fire alarm!
Are you suggesting that an entire country should operate as a single building?
Different districts have different laws and by-laws, and a district judge SHOULD be able to take issue with any law being passed down from on high. But should one person be able to challenge and essentially negate the power of the President.
Remember, I'm trying to take how this would be viewed if it were not a Trump issue. It's really easy to say "oh it's Trump, so screw him!"
I'm just surprised that this is how the system works. A single judge can bring the entire system to a stand-still? Is that really how this works?
This isn't a single person pulling a fire alarm. The alarm has been pulled, it's a single person saying "turn that damn thing off, I don't agree with your fire".
Under normal circumstances, the president wouldn't be shooting the country in the foot, so I completely agree that in this instance, perhaps it is good that a district judge can do this. But if American politics starts getting played this way, I think you may see significantly more challenges in getting good laws passed. I am not saying this is a good law.
Should a single person be able to block the decision of the top ranking fire-fighter. That fire-fighter may be good, or may be in the job because he likes things to burn.
Can you outline the argument as to how? It seems quite different according to the article. The courts still assert supremacy when it comes to interpreting and vetting the law, and Trump isn't allowed to overrule the legislature's lawmaking powers.
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.
Makes me think of the latter part of this quotation:
"But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case it is unfit to exist."
- Lysander Spooner (emphasis mine)
Resilient systems have to align incentives such that they work whether or not everybody has enough good will or agreeability to play along.
250 years isn't a bad run. Maybe the next Constitution can iterate and fix the incentive alignment.
> 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.
It could be fixed for the class with a class action. But the courts have also don't their damndest to make that hard too. Requiring a class action means that courts have the additional opportunity to say "nope that's not a valid class" (WalMart v Dukes being a rather famous example).
I read the Wikipedia article [0] and I would point out that a class defined by birth place would pass easily Scalia's test for commonality. So it seems that using a class action suit that includes every person born in US of un-documented parents would work. (But who knows what other tests the Supreme Court would come up now...)
It may not be surprising to learn that over the past several decades conservative Congresses (through the so-called Class Action Fairness Act and its ilk) and Supreme Court decisions have all but eliminated class actions.
I don't think class action lawsuit is needed here.
It's enough for one case to get to SCOTUS and then we will hear their opinion about how 14th amendment should be interpreted.
It will be an interesting case I think both 4-5 against and 5-4 in favor of changing the interpretation is possible (with 3-6 and 6-3 less likely outcomes).
The problem (which Sotomayor raises in her dissent, pages 94 and 95 of the PDF) is that it may never reach the supreme court:
> There is a serious question, moreover, whether this Court will ever get the chance to rule on the constitutionality of a policy like the Citizenship Order. Contra, ante, at 6 (opinion of KAVANAUGH, J.) (“[T]he losing parties in the courts of appeals will regularly come to this Court in matters involving major new federal statutes and executive actions”). In the ordinary course, parties who prevail in the lower courts generally cannot seek review from this Court, likely leaving it up to the Government’s discretion whether a petition will be filed here. These cases prove the point: Every court to consider the Citizenship Order’s merits has found that it is unconstitutional in preliminary rulings. Because respondents prevailed on the merits and received universal injunctions, they have no reason to file an appeal. The Government has no incentive to file a petition here either, because the outcome of such an appeal would be preordained. The Government recognizes as much, which is why its emergency applications challenged only the scope of the preliminary injunctions
That's a good point.
I was under the impression that the current administration thinks it can win a case about 14th amendment in case both parents are not legally in US with current majority but if they are in fact not appealing it would mean they think they would lose.
That is terrible jurisprudence, but at least it’s honest. Sotomayor is overtly stating that she’s made up her mind and will not consider the possibility that maybe the 14th Amendment might mean something other than she already thinks. I really do not think someone should be a judge if they can’t be open minded enough to consider the arguments of the parties.
Wait, doesn't this just... End the constitution as a whole? So long as the current executive wants some unconstitutional thing, they get that unconstitutional thing in every state on their side in perpetuity? The constitution is now... per-litigant?
Oh, of course. Because it's federal law, being in a state with an injunction isn't actually a protection. A federal LEO can detain & relocate you, charging you with violating a law in another state where there is no such injunction.
This is a whole-sale shredding of the constitution.
So for example, seeking reproductive rights in one state which is forbidden in another?
Forgive a possibly silly question but in what sense does being "in" Florida mean you are bound by Florida state law when you leave? How long did you need to be in Florida before you became bound by its law? What if you fall pregnant after you left? Can you be in breach without ever having been in Florida, and a LEO can therefore take you there and charge you?
That should be unconstitutional to either try to prosecute you for actions outside your state or to prevent you from leaving to make those actions, but conservatives are trying!
No, not quite. State laws only apply in that state. They are not technically allowed (but sometimes try) to enforce laws on actions outside of that state. So, in this case, you could not be charged with having an abortion outside of Florida, from inside of Florida, based on Florida law.
But let's look at the birthright case that this ruling comes from.
Let's say Nevada state sues the federal government. The ruling is made from their district court that birthright citizenship is clear and this EO is illegal. An injunction is placed against the EO.
The state of Kentucky does not sue.
Previously, the Nevada court injunction would apply nationally. The EO is unconstitutional. EOs are federal, the constitution is federal. So, clearly, it is unconstitutional everywhere and must be stopped.
The federal government can then go through several layers of appeal to prove that this was a mistake and the EO is legal. All the way up to SCOTUS, who makes the final judgement and cannot be appealed.
What SCOTUS just ruled is that the injunction against the federal government only holds the EO from applying to the specific litigant. That can be a whole state, a group of people, or a single individual. Even though the EO is now ruled unconstitutional in the eyes of the federal court de jure, it is de facto still the law of the land by default to all other entities.
And it gets worse. A litigant cannot appeal to the next court, only a defendant that loses. And SCOTUS only has to address cases that are appealed. There is no mandatory reconciliation process. That means, for an infinite amount of time, individual people will have different constitutional interpretations that require a background of every case that has ever involved them.
So, back to our example. If the federal government loses in Nevada and there is no ruling in Kentucky... What the fuck even happens? Someone is or is not a citizen, that's literally the point behind Dread Scott and Obergfell, but they've contradicted those cases and invented a constitutional superposition.
So, in Nevada a naturalized citizen with non-citizen parents is... A citizen? Because of the injunction? And what if they're in Kentucky, but were born in Nevada? Or vice versa?
But, no, this isn't a state law. It's federal. Which means it doesn't matter what state you're in when you do it, it's still illegal. And federal LEO had the authority to try you in a different location than where you were arrested. So - born in Nevada or Kentucky, where you are now, that doesn't matter. Effectively, you have no citizenship. Again, this is quite literally Dread Scott.
This SCOTUS ruling effectively disables the constitution and dissolves the union of states. I'm not being dramatic, this is also the opinion of Sotomayor.
Curiously, this does not actually extend to other cases. So, say, if McDonalds gets in trouble and an injunction placed against them. That still applies universally.
Oftentimes hard to model this from other nations. Here in Australia we have pretty well understood applicability of federal law everywhere, but when the states started enacting changes in abortion law, voluntary assisted dying, decriminalisation of recreational drugs, it all got a bit messy. Especially since we have non-state territories where enacting laws means .. conditional to the federal government with lower barriers than with the states.
Britain its mostly UK Law, with bits of "no, thats English law, this is Scotland" on top. I emigrated so long ago the national appeals structure has changed and I don't entirely understand when it applies and overrides. But immigration is clearly nation-wide.
I think "birthright" citizenship is pretty alien to most legal regimes. Ireland might be the one people think about in the Europe/Britain context. Used to be a lot of pregnant women flying in late stage. But, thats not to call it wrong or decry what the appeals in the US were trying to do. It was amended into the constitution a very long time ago, and until recently what the current WH is trying to do was seen as "fringe law" but now seems core.
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.
There are supposed to be able to declare them Unconstitutional. If it's unconstitutional in district 5, why wouldn't it also be unconstitutional in district 10?
Most law, and most law courts deal with is federal law, not constitutional law. A lot of the most contentious recent court issues could be addressed with federal laws. It's just congress is lazy and doesn't want to go on record.
Yes, but things like rights listed in the constitution have been protected by the supreme court regardless of laws. Things like your Miranda rights don't exist because of any law, they existed because of a supreme court ruling.
CASA Inc. in Maryland is in fact refiling its broader lawsuit as a class action case, and has asked for a wider injunction on that basis. So we'll see.
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 up with a lot of reasons why, which are structural in many cases, but the fact remains that the majority of people are not involved in the political process at all, have no desire to be an actively reject any opportunity to be.
Assuming that citizens would all of a sudden become involved because it requires a lawsuit, means that there’s the capacity to do so, which does not exist, and all we need is a catalyst.
If the number of possible catalysts that have already happened in the last decade we’re not sufficient then nothing short of a literal terminator Skynet scenario is going to cause people to take action and I’m increasingly doubtful that even that would do it.
Based on my observation from my work position, people are ready to just roll over onto their backs and have robots slice them from the belly up, because it’s easier than actually doing something that would prevent it.
I think this often gets confused. Voting a president in doesn't give them a blank mandate to do whatever they want, such as break the law. And knowingly doing things that might not get approved by courts, but veiling it in a "novel legal theory" disguise is still breaking the law. Just because slow and thorough processes need to take place to adjudicate these actions doesn't mean that these actions aren't worth adjudicating. So while voting is important, keeping the voted-in president accountable is important too.
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 is new, though they've been leading up to it for decades, so it's not really surprising.
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 again.
The second amendment is “very clearly” spelled out in the Constitution yet many roadblocks to gun ownership are thrown up in various states and people STILL make tired arguments about how the amendment “should” be interpreted. For example, the old argument that the founding fathers could have never conceived of AR-15s and thus their legality under the second amendment is debatable.
Likewise, in 1868 the writers of the fourteenth amendment probably couldn’t conceive of rapid international travel and the possibility that pregnant women could just show up weeks before their due date and their newborn child should “obviously” be an American citizen.
The amendment was quite obviously targeted at Native Americans and slaves, not any and all pregnant women the world over who manage to reach the US before giving birth. But as you’re noticing, there’s multiple ways people can interpret laws. It’s rarely as cut and dry as “this is obviously against the law!!!”
> Likewise, in 1868 the writers of the fourteenth amendment probably couldn’t conceive of rapid international travel and the possibility that pregnant women could just show up weeks before their due date and their newborn child should “obviously” be an American citizen.
This is a better point than you realize, and in the opposite direction you intend.
Immigration in the 1800s was a… cursory process. Not only would those kids be citizens, but their parents would have had little trouble staying around.
So is your argument that the writers of the amendment intended for American citizenship to be a contest wherein women the world over should compete to drop anchor babies on US soil?
> It imposed a head tax on non-citizens of the United States who came to American ports and restricted certain classes of people from immigrating to America, including criminals, the insane, or "any person unable to take care of him or herself." The act created what is recognized as the first federal immigration bureaucracy and laid the foundation for more regulations on immigration, such as the Immigration Act of 1891.
The quotas you describe didn’t come until the 1920s. Well after the amendment.
"Consistent with the views of the clause's author, Senator Jacob M. Howard, the Supreme Court held that because Indian reservations are not under the federal government's jurisdiction, Native Americans born on such land are not entitled to birthright citizenship. The 1887 Dawes Act offered citizenship to Native Americans who accepted private property as part of cultural assimilation, while the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act offered citizenship to all Native Americans born within the nation's territorial limits."
SCOTUS did rule on the anchor babies thing, in 1898.
Indeed, how terrible! Those kids who then grow up in other countries outside the US will eventually be adults who have to pay taxes without sucking up any physical resources of said United States, whatever will we do about this huge drain on our resources? </sarcasm>
Why am I supposed to be mad about people doing this, exactly? Because of hazy "rules are rules" talk?
Well, that's very cynical and maybe you'll be right, but for now the California AG agrees with me. Per a quote in the WSJ [1]:
> California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a co-plaintiff, looked for a silver lining: Red states, which sought universal injunctions to stymie Biden administration policies, would encounter obstacles pursuing that strategy under a future Democratic president, he said.
Call me a crazy, glass-half-full centrist, but I prefer to look at this as a clawing back of extremely broad powers from rather partisan judges. It's been maddening that circuit court judges in a few hyper-partisan districts basically push every decision to the Supreme Court.
> California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a co-plaintiff, looked for a silver lining…
Sure, and Susan Collins thinks Trump "learned his lesson" with his first impeachment. Looking for the silver lining is what we sometimes call "cope". He lost. As a politician, he's obliged to put some spin on it.
> It's been rather maddening that circuit court judges basically push every decision to the Supreme Court.
It is. This sort of thing should've died before ever becoming an EO, and at every level of the judiciary as clearly unconstitutional. That it didn't is a big problem.
Well, if we're predicting the future, here's mine: since they're already basically telegraphing it (and also because it's pretty clear-cut), I predict that they'll overturn the whole thing in a future case, and then the left will be crowing about how mean-ol Mr. Trump was taught a lesson in capital-D Democracy by our powerful system of government.
> There's nothing that binds any Supreme Court to do anything at all.
We agree. So your remark about “nothing in the ruling says. . .” was actually irrelevant to the broader point. From a lacuna in a decision we can conclude nothing.
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 injunctions) when they were aimed at a Democratic president. See, e.g. Biden's student loan forgiveness executive order.
"C. The District Court’s Remedy Was Improper" is a section of the petition for cert in The mifeprestone case from the Biden admin[0], where the SC overruled the district court's PI, but declined to address the question of whether it's PI was reasonable.
I think that comment is referring to Trump v. United States, where the court said that a president cannot be held accountable for using a Constitutional authority to break the law. It is very literally "a blank mandate to break the law".
For example, a president is granted authority to command the military and issue pardons. They have absolute immunity for any act performed using these authorities, including illegal acts such as assassinating or deporting a political opponent or accepting bribes in return for pardons. This is not a matter of opinion or a controversial interpretation, these consequences were discussed during the case and in the opinion, and the court accepted them.
This was also discussed in the Constitutional Convention, where the participants decided the impeachment process, and failing that, four-year terms, were a sufficient remedy.
Sure, that was a concern: a sufficiently large faction of Senators might combine to protect a bad President, or destroy a good one unjustly.
> Mr. MADISON, objected to a trial of the President by the Senate, especially as he was to be impeached by the other branch of the Legislature, and for any act which might be called a misdemeanor. The President under these circumstances was made improperly dependent. He would prefer the Supreme Court for the trial of impeachments, or rather a tribunal of which that should form a part.
> Mr. PINKNEY disapproved of making the Senate the Court of impeachments, as rendering the President too dependent on the Legislature. If he opposes a favorite law, the two Houses will combine agst. him, and under the influence of heat and faction throw him out of office.
Ultimately it was decided that "in four years he can be turned out", so it was not worth addressing further. Indeed some argued that the President should not be impeachable at all because of this.
> Mr. KING expressed his apprehensions that an extreme caution in favor of liberty might enervate the Government we were forming. He wished the House to recur to the primitive axiom that the three great departments of Govts. should be separate & independent: that the Executive & Judiciary should be so as well as the Legislative: that the Executive should be so equally with the Judiciary. Would this be the case, if the Executive should be impeachable? It had been said that the Judiciary would be impeachable. But it should have been remembered at the same time that the Judiciary hold their places not for a limited time, but during good behaviour. It is necessary therefore that a forum should be established for trying misbehaviour. Was the Executive to hold his place during good behaviour? The Executive was to hold his place for a limited term like the members of the Legislature: Like them particularly the Senate whose members would continue in appointmt the same term of 6 years he would periodically be tried for his behaviour by his electors, who would continue or discontinue him in trust according to the manner in which he had discharged it. Like them therefore, he ought to be subject to no intermediate trial, by impeachment. He ought not to be impeachable unless he held his office during good behaviour, a tenure which would be most agreeable to him; provided an independent and effectual forum could be devised. But under no circumstances ought he to be impeachable by the Legislature. This would be destructive of his independence and of the principles of the Constitution. He relied on the vigor of the Executive as a great security for the public liberties.
>According to the Supreme Court, that's exactly what it does. The President simply isn't accountable.
The president absolutely is accountable. The problem is the Congress for their own reasons refuse to hold it to account. The Congress could remove any president in less than 24 hours with simple majority for no reason whatsoever.
Also, any time anyone actually brings up any details about Presidential elections you'll quick get many people rushing to explain how the people do not in fact directly elect the President and how this is such an incredibly brilliant idea.
Except voting this person to the presidency has given just over 1000 convicted criminals a pardon, as promised in advance. It’s an unlimited and irreversible power.
The Court has long considered that the president has a duty to follow the law, but also that the Court can’t compel the president to follow the law. That is a political question. Congress alone can stop a president by impeaching and removing them from office. Not only can’t the Court initiate impeachments, impeachment is unreviewable by the Court.
If there’s a servile Congress, it means voters can elect a law breaker as president. They are going to get a president who breaks the law.
And this is what’s happening. People voted for an abuser, a rapist, a felon, a conspiracy theorist who lies about the outcome of elections, lies that VPOTUS can and should overturn them, and even sent a mob to have that VPOTUS assassinated for refusing to comply with that illegal order. Then boasted he’d pardon all those criminals who were in his service. And despite all of this, people voted for him again.
It's so silly to blame the American people though, considering the vastly greater resources required to politically organize millions of people to counter the what a handful of people in the executive branch or a couple dozen people in the legislative branch can do with a flick of the wrist.
I vote but have little influence because I won't join a party and live in a state with closed primaries where the real selection process is carried out. If the remaining 30 closed states cared about civic engagement they'd switch to one of the established open primary models.
There is also the damage done by the Supreme Court ending the Voting Rights Act, had the act been in place in 2024, Kamalah would have won by a landslide. Millions of minority voters were targeted for disenfranchisement in 2024.
Huh? Kamala lost because Trump made in-roads in Latino and Arab voting population in Michigan and Wisconsin. Almost half of Latinos voted for Trump [0] and more Arabs voted for Trump than Kamala [1] and [2] and [3]. Quite the opposite of minority voters were disenfranchised - minorities exercised their right to vote the way they wanted.
Not until the one-two punch of Obama not insisting on his SCOTUS nominee being pushed through, and RBG not retiring in time for him to have a second. You could put it as late as the DNC pushing Clinton as the 2016 presidential nominee and/or pushing for Trump to be the GOP nominee (with the rationale that he'd be easy to defeat).
Brian Thompson's death didn't seem to have any major consequences along those lines. Targeted assassinations seem to be kosher for avoiding crackdowns. If someone were to shoot Peter Thiel in the head, do we REALLY expect to see a sudden descent into oppressive authoritarianism? Or, as with Thompson, do most people say, "Eh, he had it coming," and keep it moving?
The problem is that Dems are just culturally irrelevant. Most people don't care about issues, policy or the economy, they just want to cheer for a team and will justify everything their team does regardless of efficacy or outcome. Trump is the fun underdog team that everyone is talking about, the Dems are the boring party-pooper team we all love to hate. During covid, that boring became a source of needed stability, but after boring stewarded us through the crisis, nobody wanted to be associated with them again.
There is some compelling research from Princeton that for 90%+ of the American voting population, there opinions have zero impact on federal policy. It's all lobby driven money.
“The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”
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/2024/10/29/podcasts/the-daily/electi... (“On the Ballot: An Immigration System Most Americans Never Wanted”). Americans never asked to import tens of millions of people from the third world. When Congress reformed the immigration system in 1965, they promised that wouldn’t happen. But for decades, there’s been a coalition of pro-foreigner liberals and pro-cheap-labor conservatives that have facilitated massive immigration that average americans never asked for.
Trump, ironically, is a reaction to the very thing the Princeton study identified.
> 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 day to day.
Systematic voter suppression plus gerrymandering etc may win you rigged elections, but ultimately voting isn’t about the system in place it’s avoidance unrest. We’re entering uncharted territory with how strongly people disagree with what the government is doing, which is where the general public actually has a say, namely by destroying the existing power structures rather than voting. It’s not even a question of insurrection, not having kids plus 60’s style dropping out at scale is ruinous.
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.
> 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 day to day.
It does tell you something. For example, if people mostly disagreed with the elites, but the elites got their way anyway, that would be a different situation.
> We’re entering uncharted territory with how strongly people disagree with what the government is doing
You’re overestimating how much people care about any of this stuff. I’m in a blue state and I hear almost nothing about it other than from some overly empathetic people on facebook. The “protests” recently were tepid and nearly all elderly liberals with nothing better to do.
A big chunk of the country really wants mass deportations, and for the most part, folks in the broader left don’t care much to oppose it.
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.
You’re really pulling at straws. Despite what Michelle Obama says, this is exactly “who we are” and who we have always been from slavery, to Jim Crow, to the dog whistles of Reagan to Willie Horton, to “Obama is a secret Muslim who wants to bring Sharia law”, to “the Haitians are eating our pets”, to the segregated proms that have happened in the rural south as late as the early 2000s.
I'm not grasping at straws, because I don't have any particular conclusion in mind. It looked to me like you were specifically contrasting the electoral college with the popular vote while explicitly claiming that Donald Trump received more than half of the popular vote. I responded with a correction to your technicality.
If your contribution is to quote an old rap song and make a meta complaint about how people will react to you, then you're right - you don't deserve a positive reaction.
I did two things this year that had nontrivial effects on my state of mind.
1. I quit drinking for the time being. This had a modest but real effect on my mood and general wellbeing. It has pros and cons, but on balance it's a win for where I'm at and what I'm trying to do. I might choose differently in the future.
2. I installed GrapheneOS and built NixOS, from source, with fairly extreme choices about networking. This had a staggering effect on every aspect of how I think and feel: cutting the surveillance capitalism at the network level is like having a mass of rage and angst and blurry confusion taken out of my head. I will never, ever go back to that.
Its time for everyone to cut the cord. Get a Pixel, an 8a open box at best buy can be 200-300, install Lineage or Calyx or Graphene, and reclaim ownership of your brain.
Absolutely, and they discussed this. The “problem” with that is the results of a class action are binding on the class, win or lose. So it’s possible that you’re a member of the # Million person class-action claiming to be exempt from deportation because of X (because you didn’t opt-out) and the class could lose. The Universal Injunctions were a one-way rule. If the government lost any one case, the rule would apply again the government in every other instance. However, if the government won, only that one person would be deported and the opposition would be free to try the same argument again against a different judge.
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.
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.
2. Request an injunction type that's more appropriate
Given the number of babies being born every day it shouldn't be hard to do.
The thing is, the US doesn't issue citizenship papers. So I suppose they need to apply for an SSN and get denied (since the baby is a non-citizen), which will show immediate harm.
It also begs the question: if that baby is illegal can it be deported?
The thing here is that instead of officially denying it, the administration will just "coincidentally" slow-walk everything indefinitely, then illegally exile the baby to Sudan when ICE notices they don't have proof of citizenship.
One upshot may be that the law will be drastically different in the several circuits and (unless SCOTUS plans to handle everything on the emergency docket — as it did here) it will stay that way so long as SCOTUS lets the issues percolate through them (using them as laboratories, as Justice O'Connor was fond of saying).
My understanding is that the administration's position is that at least one of the parents needs to be a citizen or a legal resident.
If that's the case the answer to your question is: yes - together with the parents.
I suppose the recourse the Supreme Court is offering is that the baby (or more likely the parents) can sue when the citizenship is denied. At which point I'd just expect ICE to arrest and deport them when they show up to court for their lawsuit.
The debate is over what "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" means, it's misleading to simply announce it's guaranteed - the whole legal argument is over whether it is guaranteed.
as soon as you step foot in the USA you are subject to its jurisdiction. Just like if you go to Canada or Zimbabwe and break a law there. You would be laughed at with much gusto for breaking the law and telling them they don't have jurisdiction.
> it's misleading to simply announce it's guaranteed.
Let's not pretend all assertions are equally worth entertaining. Maybe it's "misleading" if you're Stephen Miller, but every court case where it's ever been heard and the legislative record at the time of adopting the 14th amendment show that citizenship is guaranteed. The Trump administration hasn't even raised it in appeals!
The author of the clause didn't think it applied to the children of aliens, so it doesn't seem crazy to me.
> Howard said that the clause "is simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land already, that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States."[30] He added that citizenship "will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons"[30]—a comment which would later raise questions as to whether Congress had originally intended that U.S.-born children of foreign parents were to be included as citizens.[32]
"Textualism is a formalist theory in which the interpretation of the law is based exclusively on the ordinary meaning of the legal text, where no consideration is given to non-textual sources, such as intention of the law when passed, the problem it was intended to remedy, or significant questions regarding the justice or rectitude of the law."
Legislative intent didn't save the Voting Rights Act, or the EPA.
> He added that citizenship "will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons"
yes, exactly, if you're born to an ambassador in the US, you aren't subject to the jurisdiction.
Meanwhile:
> The proposition before us, I will say, Mr. President, relates simply in that respect to the children begotten of Chinese parents in California, and it is proposed to declare that they shall be citizens. We have declared that by law; now it is proposed to incorporate the same provision in the fundamental instrument of the nation. I am in favor of doing so. I voted for the proposition to declare that the children of all parentage whatever, born in California, should be regarded and treated as citizens of the United States, entitled to equal civil rights with other citizens of the United States. . . . Here is a simple declaration that a score or a few score of human beings born in the United States shall be regarded as citizens of the United States, entitled to civil rights, to the right of equal defense, to the right of equal punishment for crime with other citizens; and that such a provision should be deprecated by any person having or claiming to have a high humanity passes all my understanding and comprehension.
(the "declared that by law" is referring to the Civil Rights Act of 1866 that Howard used as the basis of the 14th amendment: "all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States")
The Supreme Court explicitly rejected this reasoning in Plyler v. Doe (1982).
> This Court's prior cases... cannot be distinguished on the asserted ground that persons who have entered the country illegally are not "within the jurisdiction" of a State even if they are present within its boundaries and subject to its laws. Nor do the logic and history of the Fourteenth Amendment support such a construction. Instead, use of the phrase "within its jurisdiction" confirms the understanding that the Fourteenth Amendment's protection extends to anyone, citizen or stranger, who is subject to the laws of a State, and reaches into every corner of a State's territory. Pp. 457 U. S. 210-216.
It’s curious you don’t link to a source even though you pasted something that contains references - I suspect you know that you are misinterpreting this willfully.
> The author of the clause didn't think it applied to the children of aliens, so it doesn't seem crazy to me.
>> Howard said that the clause "is simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land already, that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States."[30] He added that citizenship "will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons"[30]—a comment which would later raise questions as to whether Congress had originally intended that U.S.-born children of foreign parents were to be included as citizens.[32]
I would assume that the child would be registered with the embassy that the parents are citizens of and there would be an application for a non-resident visa that would be fast tracked.
Greenland, Finland, Norway and Sweden all have no concept of Jus Soli and as far as I know, kids born to non-residents aren't being deported from the hospital.
>Moreover, there is literally no mechanism to prove that your parents are citizens.
> I would think a birth certificate would work....
You'd probably be wrong.
> Still, Immigration and Customs Enforcement kept Watson imprisoned as a deportable alien for nearly 3 1/2 years… Watson was correct all along: He was a U.S. citizen.
Bonus: They held him long enough the statute of limitations to sue expired.
> On Monday, an appeals court ruled that Watson, now 32, is not eligible for any of that money — because while his case is "disturbing," the statute of limitations actually expired while he was still in ICE custody without a lawyer.
> A US-born Marine veteran who served in Afghanistan had his US passport, a REAL ID driver’s license, a military ID card, and his US Marine Corps dog tags with him when he was arrested by police in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which held him for three days before his lawyer demanded his release, according to the ACLU of Michigan.
"What no one seemed to notice," said a colleague of mine, a philologist, "was the ever widening gap, after 1933, between the government and the people. Just think how very wide this gap was to begin with, here in Germany. And it became always wider. You know, it doesn’t make people close to their government to be told that this is a people’s government, a true democracy, or to be enrolled in civilian defense, or even to vote. All this has little, really nothing, to do with knowing one is governing.
"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.
"This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter. (https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.htm)
It seems like it was ruled that instead of 1000, much more local, people able to protect constitutional rule with the force of the judiciary, we now have 9.
If you analyze only based on power changes, now fewer people have more power.
It's wild that that the supreme court can just avoid ruling on the actual patently illegal and unconstitutional action that this administration is taking and instead solely focus on a procedural mechanism that is being used to stop that illegal action.
Oh but the high court of chancery in england! They didn't have them, so we can't either! Never mind that is 2025, we're a different nation, the federal government has a lot more power, and we have these injunctions for all of Biden's term and they had plenty of opportunity to stop them but said nothing when it was for protecting gun rights or denying women's healthcare.
"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 plainly unlawful policies unless doing so is necessary to afford the formal parties complete relief. That holding renders constitutional guarantees meaningful in name only for any individuals who are not parties to a lawsuit. Because I will not be complicit in so grave an attack on our system of law, I dissent."
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 Corrections Act of 1994 extended it to children of US citizens who are born outside the US.
> 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.
It does not mean that in broad strokes. It very specifically was meant to exclude folks such as children of diplomats, as decided in United States vs Wong Kim Ark 169 U.S. 649 (1898): https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/169/649
In short the phrase “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” excludes three and only three groups of people:
1.Children born to foreign diplomats here on diplomatic business, who have diplomatic immunity to US Law
2.Children of members of an invading army that has occupied and controlled some part of US territory, born on that occupied area, who are obviously not subject to US Law (which has rarely happened in the US, although Guam was occupied during WWII, and parts of Alaska, and small parts of Maine during the War of 1812); and
3. Members of Native American tribes, subject to the jurisdiction of their tribal governments, who do not pay US taxes. (This was true when the 14th amendment was passed, but it no longer is. See section below on the act that changed it in 1924.)
Neither you nor that heritage foundation (an incredibly biased and anti-immagrant organization) have read the supreme court decision which I linked to. To save you time, I will quote the relevant commentary by the justice:
> [T]he Fourteenth Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and with the single additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes. The Amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born, within the territory of the United States, of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States.
Per the policy directive of https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/prot... citizenship has been taken away from anyone born from parents of targeted classes as of Jan 20, 2025 with a 30-day order for all executive departments and agencies to enact the policy.
Ironically the largest number of immigrants have been Latinos, who come from a fairly traditional and conservative culture. Ask any Mexican outside of the capital how they feel about abortion or trans women using women's bathrooms. These are not destined to be voters for the Democrats in the long term.
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.
That's what I'm saying, it's one of the most simple Amendments in terms of understandability, yet people will completely ignore that somehow. If the 14th can be loop-holed, we might as well chuck all copies of the constitution in the Potomac and just declare Trump dictator
Citizen or immigration status does not matter, it depends if they are in a state with the case being litigated in federal court or if they live one of the twenty eight states that did not join the case. The Trump admin can make up whatever rule they want for the other twenty eight states. The Supreme Court just narrowed the specifity of injunctions to solely the litigants which opens up a huge can of worms in American legal system.
Federal judges' can't block EOs indefinitely. The WH can appeal to a circuit court, and so on up to the Supreme Court. But it does prevent the Admin from implementing an unconstitutional EO while they wait to be challenged in all states/districts.
I'm not particularly happy about nationwide injunctions, but this is much worse if you have a president who is not shy to "break the law now and fight it in court later". And now that Trump has shown the way, you can be sure future presidents will follow.
Another terrible outcome is that you then have federal orders applied differently from state to state (or more accurately, federal district to district). If you're in Nevada you won't get citizenship, but in Oregon you will.
This is right up there with the Presidential Immunity in terms of terrible decisions by this SCOTUS.
> If you're in Nevada you won't get citizenship, but in Oregon you will.
They're 100% coming for Obergfell and it's clear now how. They'll arrest a legal US citizen who has naturalized citizenship from illegal parents, born in a state that received an injunction but residing in a state that has not.
The representative of that person will say that they by being a citizen in the other state, they must be respected as a citizen in the other. They will cite Obergfell.
The SCOTUS will revoke their ruling on Obergfell and say, no, you are not a citizen just because there's an injunction in that other state.
The astute reader may notice that this is literally a replay of Dread Scott.
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.
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 citizenship is a fundamental and clear cut right. Any attempts to overturn that must meet a high burden of justification. Temporarily suspending such attempts until the matter can firmly be decided causes the least amount of harm and should be allowed.
Before today’s ruling nationwide injunctions were granted. Not sure how you can now claim “that’s how the court system works” when nationwide injunctions were fine before today’s ruling.
A President can now issue blatantly unconstitutional executive orders and the burden for obtaining relief will rest on each individual person (or small class of people). Prior to today rules/laws that caused harm could be temporarily prevented from being enforced while the matter is litigated. Now parties that will be harmed are much more likely to be harmed before the matter is resolved. This is a sad state of affairs.
If the next President issues an order confiscating guns from people the champions of today’s ruling will want nationwide relief while the matter is litigated.
If someone is going to be deported they can file a case and stop the deportation.
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.
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.
Universal injunctions were a Band-Aid fix, one of the very few avenues our system permitted for there to be any rapid institutional response to illegal and immediately harmful policy. But that is no more.
As an exercise, what happens if a president issues a "throw enemies in the woodchipper" executive order? How many hours or days would it take the other branches of government to legally nullify the order? (What they can do in practice is another question.)
It's an extreme example, but a future admin could use the current admin's reasoning to unilaterally confiscate guns and force you to be a plaintiff in federal court to get relief.
>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 court below supreme court can, and routinely do, block cases from getting to supreme court. And More. In short UK judiciary is institutionally corrupt with the elected and unelected the one and the same but press won't say it.
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.
The UK is all about 'appearencea' hence why they came up with 'justice must not just be done but be seen to be done'
With ref to your point 1 and 2 , they are not needed. HRA 1998 covers that.
Point 3 - the supreme court was previously within the House of Lords and the one day they got their own building.
The primary and secondary legislation, and leading case law is fine in the UK. Its just that the Judges know what are really there for and routinely falsify the outcomes.
No one sees the case files, no one sees the transcript, only the judges judgement is published and that we all have to pretend is never anything other than perfect...
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.
Yeah that's completely meaningless as far as the possibility of secession is concerned. All it means is that if you secede and reenter then all the legislation you did as a separate state is void which is completely reasonable.
The US constitution is outdated. There is a whole host of historical experience around totalitarian subversion of democratic constitutions of similar design to the US one. That experience has never been used to update the way the US works. In other words, the manual to overturn the system from the inside has been out there for a long time.
The three branch system allows any two to gang up on the third. Parliamentary systems don't have any checks like this and trend towards unitary authoritarians.
In modern parliamentary systems, political leaders are not in direct control of the executive branch. Politicians may issue priorities and guidance, but career civil servants run the show. Department heads serve fixed terms that are independent of the election cycle, and they cannot be removed without a criminal conviction. If politicians want major changes, they can change the law. And in many countries, the constitutionality of proposed legislation must be established in advance.
The descent to authoritarianism usually begins with a party gaining enough power that it can override the checks and balances. Which often involves rewriting the constitution.
No. The three branch system allows any two to gang up legally against the third. But, as we are seeing, all the actual power relies with the executive. They can simply ignore the actions of the other two.
Every country has a constitution, usually it's ignored. The value of a piece of paper is only as much as the people that comprise the system that upholds it. If you completely ignore the people and just whine at them about constitution this and that they're going to ignore it and rip it up. Society is also a compact and if the supermajority wants something they're going to get it.
The US system has power more fragmented than most. In Europe, the Senate often doesn't wield any power (it rubber stamps anything the legislature approves). The executive is a part of the legislative.
In parliamentary system, individual MPs are "whipped" into voting with the party, and can basically be pushed out of power if they don't go along with it. If the party in power has a large majority, there is nothing but the courts to stop them from passing whatever they want.
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.
The most depressing thing COVID made clear is even in the "land of the free and home of the brave" people will just do what they're told by the authorities.
What if those people consider what they're being told by the authorities, understand that it makes sense, and choose to take that action because it's important for the public good?
Why are people who prioritized public health during a temporary pandemic "sheep", but the President's supporters who demonstrate exceptionally cult-like behavior, "free thinking individuals"?
> Why are people who prioritized public health during a temporary pandemic "sheep", but the President's supporters who demonstrate exceptionally cult-like behavior, "free thinking individuals"?
In that case there seemed to be bipartisan consensus—the liberals and civil rights fanatics seemed to largely agree with President Trump's shutdown policies.
Decisions by courts are often enjoined based on a balancing test as well as the likelihood that the issue will succeed or not.
So, deporting people to a third-country (another decision SCOTUS allowed this term) has a simple balancing test: stay here and be fine or possibly deport a Chinese citizen to El Salvador, which could cause incredible harm. So even ignoring th elikelihood of how the issue is decided, the balancing test favors enjoining third-party deportation.
So in this case, we had a universal injunction against an executive order removing birthright citizenship. This fails on two fronts:
1. As justices noted, it's highly unlikely that the order will be held up as constitutional. There is case law on this. The language of the 14th amendment is clear. The exact issue was discussed at the time. This has no hope in a non-corrupt court of succeeding.
2. Given other decisions, bona fide US citizens could be deported to CECOT and detained indefinitely with no due process. So it should be stayed because of the potential harm.
What SCOTUS did today was say the order revoking birthright citizenship was unlikely to succeed but it allows the administration to proceed anyway while hte issue is litigated in the courts, which could take years.
That's how corrupt this court is.
People have been fed this propaganda that Supreme Court justices are apolitical legal scholars who come down from their tower to issue judgements and keep things in check. It couldn't be further from the truth. Supreme Court justices are political appointees that dress up their political positions in legalese.
Example 1: this court invented the "major questions doctrine" whereby the court decides a matter is large enough that the court gets to override both the administrative and legislative branches.
Example 2: they also invented the "historical traditions doctrine", which is used selectively. For example, abortion was completely legal 200+ years ago. Ben Franklin even published at-home instructions on how to perform an abortion [1].
Example 3: in the wake of the Civil War there was huge violence not from the freed slaves but from white people towards former slaves, most notably with the Colfax massacre. The Supreme Court went on a white supremacist tear during Reconstruction, notably gutting the federal government's ability to prosecute hate crimes like Colfax [2].
Example 4: The Tiney court in the 1850s made what is perhaps one of the worst decisions ever made (ie Dred Scott), arguing from a legal and constitutional perspective that black people weren't "people".
Example 5: the Roberts court decided that moeny equals speech, gutting any legislation around campaign spending, which is a big part of how we got here.
Example 6: the presidential immunity decision will go down in history as one of the 10 or even 5 worst decisions ever made. It completely invented far-reaching immunity that essentially made the president a king, in a country that was founded on the very idea of rejecting monarchs.
Example 7: in 1984, the Supreme Court decided that in any areas of ambiguity in legislation, trial courts should defer to the agency empowered by Congress to enforce that legislation. This is the so-called "Chevron deference".
More than 40 years passed through 7 presidents (4 Republican and 3 Democrat) where both parties at different times controlled Congress. Congress declined to legislate away Chevron deference despite having ample opportunity to do so. Moreso, they intentionally wrote legislation with Chevron deference in mind yet this court decided to reverse Chevron. Yet on other cases, the court has deferred to Congress's inaction as intent.
Fun fact: Chevron v Natural Resources Defense Council was previously known as Natural Resources Defense Council v. Gorsuch [3]. That's not a coincidence. The suit involved Reagan's head of dthe EPA, Anna Gorsuch, mother of current Supreme Court justice Neil Gorsuch, who was humiliated and ultimately fired from the EPA while trying to destroy it from within.
This is essentially an ad hoc Constitutional Convention being carried out by 6 people, 3 of whom were hand-picked by the sitting president and another of whom is arguably the most corrupt Supreme Court Justice in our history. Nothing is off the table. Anyone who thinks the Constitution can protect them should think again.
No. It’s better to have a court that does its job. Reasonable people can accept a decision even if they disagree if the reasoning is not solid than “lol we can so suck it up”.
And yes, anything close to a majority nominated by the sitting president is a constitutional crisis, in a regime where one is supposed to check the other.
The courts only have so much power because congress is dysfunctional and kicks every issue to the courts so they don't have to be accountable to voters.
Well yeah. That is a problem as well. The whole US government is a steaming mess right now, just because we cannot mention everything that’s wrong every post does not mean that we should not discuss any specific example.
Yes, congress also abdicated its power. At the moment you have an executive branch ignoring law, precedent, and court orders, the legislative branch that is subservient to the executive and a judiciary in a state of civil war. None of that is right. None of the top-level institutions are working as they should.
The Supreme Court has literally been usurping power from Congress by refusing to read the laws they've passed as written, kicking them back or neutering them knowing that Congress is locked down.
And in this case they're refusing to do their actual job, which is defending the constitutional foundation of our country.
To clarify, do you think you're uniquely better at this than most / the folks here, or is that not an intended implication? Do you further think this phenomena is specific to here, or was that not an intended implication? Just trying to figure out what your scope is.
The "i like bagels -> oh so you hate croissants, huh?" framing strikes again.
This is what things going to shit looks like. You may be completely justified in acting the way you are, it just so happens that that's of very little help. Spiraling is pretty tough to prevent at that point.
And yes, very obviously people have an easier time understanding things when they're better aligned with their thinking.
I'm talking more broadly about this court and its decisions, of which this decision is one of many that are obliterating precedent and directly empowering the sitting president.
Want to ban nationwide injunctions against student debt relief? Sure, I can agree with that. Want to ban nationwide injunctions against ACA enforcement or some other similar type thing? I have no problem either way.
Banning a nationwide injunction against birthright citizenship is inherently different. It’s a fundamental constitutional right we are talking about. Banning birthright citizenship should not be allowed to be enforced until SCOTIS decides the matter.
Unfortunately, the US seems to be rapidly sliding into a combination of effectively/mostly one-party rule, oligarchy, corporatocracy, and to a lesser but visible extent, theocracy.
With the US Supreme Court strongly tilted toward all four, its an extremely difficult hole to climb out of.
I don't see a dictatorship (anytime soon). Not out of any abundance of optimism, but simply that all four of those constituencies and the Supreme Court's dominant wing itself, are highly aligned with each other, and would all lose out if it goes that far.
You need to actually read the decision. There's plenty of legal reasoning. You may not agree with it, but your opinion is irrelevant.
One thing they didn't talk about was structural: the court system is split up into X circuits, and each circuit is independent. Normally each circuit uses rulings from other circuits as a basis for its judgements, but circuits are pretty independent from each other. The Supremes weigh in when the circuits conflicted with each other.
The national injunctions issued by the lower court allowed the lowest level court to have more authority than an appeals court. An appellate court's decision was only binding on its circuit. Why would a lower court have more authority than an appeals court? That makes no sense.
That's outside of all the reasoning the court used to stop this practice.
That said, if an affected individual brought a suit the may be able to get an injunction, since the court ruled that universal injunctions were inappropriate.
If the law is universal then it makes sense that courts can rule universally. If the law is arbitrary and every judge is basically a ruler of their own domain, which directly conflicts with the idea of Rule of Law, then it would be invalid for a lower court to make universal rulings.
It is precisely the universality and supremacy of the law which gives the lower courts the authority to make universal rulings. Just because something is federally illegal in one federal district doesn't mean it is legal in another.
The lower court doesn't have more authority than the appellate court if the appellate court can overturn the lower court.
No court has the "authority" to make arbitrary unlawful rulings.
>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.
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.
So what do you want 2A supporters to do exactly? Start shooting government officials? Because I guarantee you would call them nut job terrorists if they did.
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.
To be fair, that is exactly what 2A supporters have claimed they're willing, ready and able to do, and what the 2A is intended to allow. Every single time there's a mass shooting or other such event, they're the first to start lecturing people on how that violence a price worth paying to have an armed populace around keeping the government in check, and that the threat of popular violence is the only thing keeping the government in check. An armed society is a civil society, and what not.
So yeah. Do a "water the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants," already. The gun people were more than willing when they thought a Democrat was stealing their votes or Bill Gates was putting microchips in vaccines.
> 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 case law, their tendency to craft non-textual and ahistorical reading of the Constitution to suit their short-term political goals, and their seeming bottomless capacity for subservience and deference to an obviously unlawful executive branch that has repeatedly evinced contempt for the judicial.
So, given the extraordinary depths that the majority is sinking to, her dramatic dissents are more justified than you think.
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 that something is required or forbidden by the constitution, they mean that it is beyond the power of congress to permit or prescribe it; it is is completely outside of democratic control.
The majority of the court today have a judicial philosophy which was common to the court for most of its history whereby one would only, in extremely certain cases, rule an issue entirely outside of the democratic process -- ie., decided entirely by the constitution alone, as interpreted by 9 people.
It isnt the job of the SC to make america moral, or require the whole of the US to follow how you wish things to be -- their constitutional role is to prevent the operation of democracy in extremely clear cut cases.
As for presidential immunity -- all constitutional centres of power (congress, the courts, the president) have immunities in the exercise of that power. These are required to enable them to function as balances of power against the other. Eg., if the president could arrest a judge for a bad judgement, the courts would not balance the executive.
The court confirmed only that the president has no more or less the necessary kind of immunity that each branch has -- and this is a clear requirement of the balance of power system set up in the constitution.
They left open, very widely, grounds on which a president acting outside of the duties of the office, could be prosecuted. And they clearly believed trump could be on at least some of those grounds.
> 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.
Just as the president cannot hold law-makers or judges liable for their actions in law-making, likewise, can neither branch criminalise or prosecute actions of the president which belong to the president under their constitutional authority. It is an absolutely obvious ruling, as obvious as judicial immunity -- the constitution gives the president powers that congress nor courts can criminalise or constrain. That is the only impact of that ruling. It had nothing to do with criminal actions by trump, indeed the ruling clearly gave a pathway to criminal review of trump's actions.
Today's result also does not prevent state-wide injunctions, indeed, that's what they court has basically suggested. And K's concurrence lists the innumerable number of ways the executive can be universally constrained.
Your entire understanding of the SC here, under trump, has been completely distorted by emotionally-disregulating media narratives designed for those purposes. This is not a pro-Trump court.
> federal statute
Congress can just change the statue. As it does a very large number of times every year.
> 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.
? I'm entirely unaware of your sex. I imagine many of the hysterical people in this thread are men.
> That's not how the Constitution is supposed to work.
Correct, the SC is supposed to resolve that. And in this judgement, they affirm that they will.
> What's the point of the changing the statute
If the SC wanted to make bribery constitutionally permissible, they would not have made the ruling statutory. By making a ruling on statutory interpretation they are explicitly inviting congress to over-turn their ruling by amending the law. That's deliberate.
> So if the president conspires with the AG to illegally prosecute a political enemy...
No, this is illegal and prosecutable. A "political enemy" of the person of the president (eg., trump) is a private action. You can read the decision, it has nothing to do with allowing the person-who-happens-to-be-president to do whatever they want. A very wide class of criminal actions of this person are still criminal, this is explicitly there in the judgement.
They even clearly imply many of the things trump has done are prosecutable, and iirc, this is raised in oral arguments.
I don't know where you're getting your information, but it has little to do with these SC judgments or their reasoning. The constitutional powers afforded to the president (, congress, courts) are the very foundation of the constitution. All "immunity" here means is that insofar as these powers are concerned, *obviously*, they can only be changed via a constitutional amendment.
The actions of the president, to form the executive, constitute his presidental power. Just as, eg., writing a court opinion is the power of a judge. A judge cannot "make illegal" constitutional actions of the president, just as the president cannot arrest a judge for a judgement.
Presidental immunity in this case has nothing to do with immunity of the person of the president from criminal action taken to further his private interests, that is explicitly illegal in the ruling
> ? I'm entirely unaware of your sex. I imagine many of the hysterical people in this thread are men.
How is that relevant? The fantasy that any opinion that differs from yours is based in emotional interests, whereas your opinion is objective and logical is the root of many misogynistic attacks.
> Correct, the SC is supposed to resolve that. And in this judgement, they affirm that they will.
Your argument is tautological. You're saying "SCOTUS's job is to interpret the Constitution, and there is no appeal to their decision, therefore their interpretetation must be correct." Your position makes it impossible to ever find that SCOTUS is incorrect. So what's the point of your argument?
> If the SC wanted to make bribery constitutionally permissible, they would not have made the ruling statutory. By making a ruling on statutory interpretation they are explicitly inviting congress to over-turn their ruling by amending the law. That's deliberate.
What's deliberate is they opened the door to official corruption, despite the obvious intent of Congress to make that activity illegal. When their judgement goes against the plain language and intent of the written law, SCOTUS is wrong. Now, those wishing to commit official corruption have a clear, SCOTUS-approved blueprint of how to do it. They have, with their decision, ensured that only the most inept cases of official corruption can be prosecuted. And they know full well that Congress, in its current state of disfunction, will not ammend the law.
> No, this is illegal and prosecutable. A "political enemy" of the person of the president (eg., trump) is a private action. You can read the decision, it has nothing to do with allowing the person-who-happens-to-be-president to do whatever they want. A very wide class of criminal actions of this person are still criminal, this is explicitly there in the judgement.
You have clearly not read the decision. Any official act using powers vested in the presidency gets presumptive immunity. Conferring with the AG is an official act. All the president has to do is claim a good-faith attempt to enforce the law, and the act cannot be used as evidence in any prosecution against him.
> They even clearly imply many of the things trump has done are prosecutable, and iirc, this is raised in oral arguments.
I don't believe they did. Please provide a citation from the decision.
> I don't know where you're getting your information, but it has little to do with these SC judgments or their reasoning. The constitutional powers afforded to the president (, congress, courts) are the very foundation of the constitution. All "immunity" here means is that insofar as these powers are concerned, obviously, they can only be changed via a constitutional amendment.
This is completely irrelevant. No one is talking about changing the powers, only requiring that they be used lawfully. The president takes an oath to carry out the law; your position, and that of SCOTUS, seems to be that that oath has no meaning.
> The actions of the president, to form the executive, constitute his presidental power. Just as, eg., writing a court opinion is the power of a judge. A judge cannot "make illegal" constitutional actions of the president, just as the president cannot arrest a judge for a judgement.
Again, a tautalogical argument: if his act is Constitutional, then it can't be illegal. That's missing the point. The president can have the Constituional power to command the army, while still not having the legal power to command the army to murder Joe Biden. Do you honestly not see the difference between a means granted by the Constitution and an illegal use of that power? Well, if you don't, you belong on the SCOTUS.
> Presidental immunity in this case has nothing to do with immunity of the person of the president from criminal action taken to further his private interests, that is explicitly illegal in the ruling
This interpretation is not to be found in the ruling.
Based on your responses, I'd say that you are the one letting your emotions get the best of you. You're clearly in the bag for Trump and are willing to distort reality in order to justify your preconceived position.
> This interpretation is not to be found in the ruling.
Then you haven't read it. It's explicit.
> they opened the door to official corruption,
Their job is not to make America moral, that's the job of the congress and the democractic process of government. If they say a statue means A rather than B, it is then the job of elected representatives to clarify they mean B. Or else you believe 9 unelected people should govern the country. Congress often modifies law in light of SC rulings to make these clarifications.
> Your position makes it impossible to ever find that SCOTUS...
I don't think you've understood my point. My point was only that today's ruling asserts what you are asserting. The SC has explicitly said that they will still impose universal injunctions, still invalidate executive orders, etc. Only that district courts cannot.
There is nothing in this principle which means that the courts can no longer constrain the executive. The constitution only prescribes one court, the supreme court -- all others are created by congress and must therefore be granted these powers by congress.
What the SC has said is that these powers were not given to district courts by congress. They still can be if congress wishes. So congress can grant these powers.
All of this is irrelevant anyway, as K explains in his concurrence, that there are many ways to universally challege this order that do not require extraordinary powers to be given to district court judges, powers never given to them by congress.
>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 losing more broadly.
Seems like the takeaway here for any would-be executive-overreachers is "lose a couple cases affecting a handful of plaintiffs and ignore those loses."
IIRC the general trend for getting a class certified for a class action is also in the "make it harder to do" direction.
Not necessarily, though I'd guess what Kavanaugh imagines is that many states will obtain state-wide injunctions that make executing an order like this practically impossible (indeed, that is what the SC has said should happen next) -- and, imv, he believes there is a nation-wide class in-play and this will go to a nation-wide class action. At which time the executive will be entirely boxed in. Given this, the executive has to ask the SC to stay some of these, or grant cert., or there's practically no EO in play.
It's important to remember here that states are relevant parties to these suits against the federal government, and there are enough of them to enjoin any practical excerise of executive action.
The SC has basically asserted that only it will, temporarily or permanently, review those cases where there is a federal-level split on these issues requiring a universal solution.
I have a feeling he's also hinting that the SC will, in light of this, look at how it handles temporary orders -- he has, at least said, it is now obligated to be very proactive in these areas and take on all such temporary requests to enjoin the executive
There's also the APA question, I don't fully understand judicial review in these cases -- but iirc, the APA grants courts to order the executive to stop (or to take) action on such policies. So when the EO has a "policy implementation" people can bring suits under the APA to enjoin, which is equivalent to a universal injunction.
In that case than this change seems entirely pointless. Obviously there are plenty of states that are highly partisan in either direction. So it seems like the judicious thing to do would've been like "the status quo is fine, rulings that higher courts think are egregious can still be stayed pending appeal."
It's hard to believe it's so innocuous given that (a) it is such a new approach to the issue for a not-new feature of US law and (b) the broader literature being pushed by the people pushing for this change.
Instead it feels like the song and dance around how some Senators would try to get SC justice nominees to say they wouldn't overturn Roe v Wade - distractive performance that's utterly non-binding and an obvious smokescreen.
The SC was asked to consider a relatively narrow question of what the limits on equitable remindies in the discrict courts are. In a significant majority of cases they've exceeded their clear authority on anything like a plausible reading of what non-constitutional courts are supposed to do.
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 remedies are supposed to do, this would be one rare case where the action of the courts could be legally defensible.
However, the SC was extremely fed up with district courts sending inumerable number of cases their way -- trigger happy judges at the distict level deciding they're going to rule for the whole US in a federal system. So, by this point, they've tried many times to stop it, and it hadnt worked.
Here all they said is that you can have UIs only where congress makes explicit that courts have this power. They have done something kinda similar in the APA (creating judicial review of exec action), and can do again here (eg., a democratic congress could give the power in immigration cases; I think its plausible something like this happens). They also themselves retain the right to make such orders.
So they have only really moved where in the system such action is taken, retaining district court's rights to still -- very broadly -- give quite wide injunctions. And congress still has the power to empower the courts (though, as per usual, Thomas indicates he's on crazy pills and implies he would prevent congress from doing that -- that's not a serious outcome though).
Given the problems they faced with district courts, something had to give. They were persuaded, plausibly correctly, that there are enough avenues to prevent this executive overreach without empowering the lowest rung of judges to rule for the whole of the US.
> 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 remedies are supposed to do, this would be one rare case where the action of the courts could be legally defensible.
> However, the SC was extremely fed up with district courts sending inumerable number of cases their way -- trigger happy judges at the distict level deciding they're going to rule for the whole US in a federal system. So, by this point, they've tried many times to stop it, and it hadnt worked.
...so you were lauding a "Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I am willing to make" opinion?
We're talking citizenship here, in a time when the executive branch is deporting people as hastily as possible to prevent judicial review. But the supreme court was "extremely fed up" and took a stand...against universal injunctions. How "non-hysterical" of them.
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 issue a universal injunction as soon as the executive takes any issue whatsoever with this process.
> 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.
It cannot proceed for 30 days, in which time they can file a class action case -- and states which want to challenge this can still obtain state-wide injunctions. Neither has happened only because of the UI, not because the UI itself is required to challenge this.
And when this has a policy implementation it can be reviewed by the courts under the APA and that policy declated unconstitutional.
So no, this ruling says nothing about the executive order. An K's concurrence explains all the ways the order can still be challenged.
> 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
> However, the SC was extremely fed up with district courts sending inumerable number of cases their way
Well hold on then.
So you think the Court was wrong in this case? That they were just on tilt? Because if this case is a case for a universal injunction then does the executive have standing to ask about that issue here?
But if Sotomayor is correct on the relevance of a universal injunction here, then why is your "non-hysterical reaction" defending the decision instead?
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I also find it hard to agree with "judges are creating problems" vs "an increasingly aggresive executive is creating problems." The legislature hasn't been able to do much for a long time because the splits are so close, so presidents try to do more directly. Is enabling that despite how closely split the legislature is ANYTHING like in line with how the US government system is supposed to work?
Cause really, awww, they have more cases than they used to? Welcome to the computer driven future, it sucks for all of us, don't make us suffer because you're tired of it.
Imagine you're a SC judge in this case, and you have to craft a judgement which allows universal injunctions in incredibly narrow and highly specific cases, whilst ruling out almost all of them. And that the area of law you're dealing with is a puddle of mud (equity).
You can either try to do this and roll the dice again on letting district courts interpret this judgement, or just say, basically no -- if you want to do this you have to come to us (or go via one of the other mechanisms). Given there are ~25 recent cases of this in total, its not a very significant number -- but the effects are extremely significant.
They chose the lesser of two evils, and in this lesser world, basically everything is still fine. You can still get the right outcomes.
This is the actual job of the court. There is no right answer. There is only what judgement they can write and what effects it will have, and whether those are the most consistent with the spirit of the constutional order (or statutory order) that has been setup.
its very common for them to rule, "in cases of doubt, just get congress to pass a law allowing this to happen"
They very often actually do amend laws due to SC rulings. Many laws are passed every year, and its very common to see amendements explicitly reply to tell the SC to undo its actions in cases where they've asked congress to be clear.
Just because I think there's a read of "complete equitable remedy" in this case which plausibly allows a district court to issue a UI, does not mean that the SC wasn't right to set a standard which precludes it. Or that asking congress to make this possible isn't the right position for the court to take.
You have to remember that congress is the democratic legislative body, not the courts. Having district courts intrude on US-wide implementation of congress' laws (via the executive) should really require congress to authorise that.
And in any case, they have in the APA -- and the SC can still do it.
> Imagine you're a SC judge in this case, and you have to craft a judgement which allows universal injunctions in incredibly narrow and highly specific cases, whilst ruling out almost all of them. And that the area of law you're dealing with is a puddle of mud (equity).
You can of course, also not take up the issue on this case. I can't find the article offhand, but I believe Steve Vladeck made this point that the SC has passed over a number of egregiously bad universal injunctions, handling them entirely on the shadow docket, and decided to grant full cert and a hearing on this case.
You can maybe argue that that's good in the sense that they're making a strong stand that even in the best example this is disallowed, which is clearer precedent. But also they could have picked a "better" case in the sense of it being a clearer misuse, and used that as the vehicle for the same ruling. Using a Kacsmaryk injunction for the same ruling sends a very different message than this case.
I think there's a clear 7-2 against this EO when its content will be considered. I do not think a lot of them enjoyed making this their stand against UIs; and you can hear in orals robert's frustration with the situation and various desires across the panel to find some way to thread the needle. I dont think any of the 7 trusted the goverment as far as they could throw them. This isn't a pro-trump court, nor one that believes any of this executive behaviour is credible. I think they were not at all pleased with how the case had been brought to them.
It's clear K's concurrence was written as a playbook for how to get to "the right outcome" in this case, and it will be followed. I suspect if that playbook wasnt available, they would have had a much harder time with getting to a judgement.
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.
The well has been poisoned by Sotomayor's dissent, and the headlines which come form it. I'm rebuffing a framing that many have taken who haven't listened to the oral arguments, havent read the judgement, and so on.
I don't take people who engage in this emotionally elevated reaction to the issue to have a different opinion, I take them to have no opinion at all -- because their reaction isn't an evaluation of the judgement.
All i'm saying is, "before you go ham on emotionally disregulation based on media reports, go read a few pages of the actual judgement
> I don't take people who engage in this emotionally elevated reaction to the issue to have a different opinion, I take them to have no opinion at all -- because their reaction isn't an evaluation of the judgement.
It's just civil rights and citizenship. Why can't they all be as detached and unimpacted as rich old guy Kavanaugh?
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.
They're both excellent judges in non-ideological cases, and many of Sotomayor's majority judgements read well and she's clearly very on-the-ball in orals. It's a shame in these cases -- I think Sotomayor is more of an ideologue than Thomas.
Yeah you can certainly criticize Thomas's legal theories, but his interpretation is logically consistent and he sticks to it even to the point of frequently solo dissenting.
It's important to read his stuff too because it seems to gain more acceptance as time goes on.
Your points on Sotomayor are well taken, her dissents are often way over the top. However I'm starting to think Justice Jackson is potentially worse when it comes to histrionics
> If you have any interest in taking a non-hysterical reaction to the ruling
"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.”
Reacting to a (female) judge assessing that there is an existential threat to the rule of law, in an administration that has done everything to break through the boundaries of law and openly violates it is hardly "hysteria", especially when there is a track record of robbing people of due process, which is literally and precisely the executive asserting its supremacy over the judiciary by robbing it of the opportunity to make a ruling.
Yes, that's why I didnt recommend reading Jackson's dissent -- because its design ed to create emotional disregulation in readers and whip up a political storm.
If you read K's concurrence, you'll wonder why there is any issue at all. Since, roughly, there isn't one -- there are a very large number of ways this EO can be challenged universally without requiring UIs
Yes I am aware. Your use of the word hysterical was precisely chosen based on your prejudices.
Hearing that the executive is less constrained and more able to violate the law should make you emotional, especially when one of the nine highest members of the judiciary are assessing it.
The executive was being constrained by district court judges, hundres of them -- many, as we've seen, can be themselves a little crazy.
You don't want your country being run by the craziest common denominator amongst the judiciary. This is about as far away from democracy as you can imagine, and allowed to run rampent, would lead to massive a democractic backfire.
Imagine the political upheval of a democrat president being unable to act because of trump-apointee crazys in florida. The court has just prevented a decade of mass protests and political insability
> Her effect in these cases is profoundly pathological on the public discourse.
I love this. “Everybody that disagrees with me is hysterical and it is actually the dissent’s fault” is a fantastic take. It is literally impossible to simultaneously disagree with you about this and also be of sound mind. I feel like you could have worded this a tad differently, “I am very smart. Possibly the smartest, and the sanest. I am superlatively smart and sane, and my brain is very good.” would have been more succinct.
You could have started with a refutation of the point if you wanted to impress us. Instead we're 40 comments deep in a flagged comment chain because you wanted to put your ad-hominem foot forward. When you editorialize your language like that, you dilute the point to something anyone could argue over.
I arrived to a thread in chaos. I don't take it to have been my foot forward.
Perhaps I could've better phrased it, "Given the emotional disregulation caused by the dissents, go read K's concurrence" -- however this is what I meant to say, still mean to say, and said.
I don't take the only legitimate aim of a comment to be "arguments" in this sense. One can comment on the psychology of the environment one finds oneself in without this being ad hom.
> After reading her dissent one could not imagine anything Kavanaugh said would even be possible, yet he writes a concurrence with the majority.
What? Seems like you're working backwards from wanting to spout about Sotomayor. This is exactly the gamesmanship she pointed out the majority allowed the Trump administration to play with.
Look at all these fun, lengthy, expensive legal remedies you can attempt over the next few years to protect your basic rights while the executive branch enacts plainly unconstitutional policies. Someone count the number of nationwide injunctions during the last four years where the majority could have stepped in to swat down the trend but didn't, but instead chose this one.
Judges were using injunctions to avoid putting their name behind a ruling.
They can absolutely still strike down a law or executive branch policy.
This forces judges to actually do their job., instead of a nationwide injunction while they decide if they want to do their job later.
It doesn’t actually alter some fabric of our democracy or checks and balances, because the judges had already gone beyond what the constitution and congress prescribed.
Every issue that any partisan has with this country is because one branch isn’t doing their job.
The disruptive aspect of this - with concern to the birthright case that hasnt been ruled on yet - is just another example of this. Judges not doing their job.
> Every issue that any partisan has with this country is because one branch isn’t doing their job.
It's impractical to rule on a subject before allowing parties to formulate coherent prepared arguments. Ruling on circumstantial evidence is a temporary stop, leaving the ruling up to an appellate which will invalidate it due to it being founded on circumstantial evidence. The injunctions were the practical way to allows all parties to formulate their case and make a legal reasoning for a ruling. Written law has to be incremental and narrow for interpretation. Otherwise it's an interpretive dance free for all in every case.
You have repeatedly implied that the jobs of Judges are something other than what you they are. Ofc you don't think they are doing what you think they should be. That's inconsequential.
A judge's job is to *judge*. They have basically zero ability to gather evidence, that is the responsibility for the parties to the case.
Would you have them issue a ruling before being presented with evidence? That makes no sense. But at the same time harm can come from not issuing a ruling. Thus we have injunctions--if a judge feels a case is likely to prevail they can issue an injunction prohibiting actions which inflict harm that can't be remedied by the resolution of the case.
> Judges were using injunctions to avoid putting their name behind a ruling.
What? That makes no sense. You can lookup which court and judge (or panel of judges) issued the injunctions. I do not understand why this non-existent anonymity would motivate a judge to issue an injunction.
> They can still strike down a law or executive branch policy.
Federal courts will only look at cases if there is a party with standing who engages in a lawsuit. If someone is being deported without due process, it will be hard for them to bring suit.
> This forces judges to actually do their job., instead of a nationwide injunction while they decide if they want to do their job later.
In general there are two reasons why these temporary restraining orders which have been issued. The first being that not doing so would cause irrevocable (or ridiculously difficult to revoke) harm (e.g., deporting people to a foreign jail). The second is that the TRO is used to stop something which seems illegal on its face (e.g. deporting people to countries from which they have never been).
> It doesn’t actually alter some fabric of our democracy or checks and balances, because the judges had already gone beyond what the constitution and congress prescribed.
It does alter the power dynamic of our democracy. Now, the executive branch can repeatedly perform illegal acts and only needs to stop its behavior in cases which have been decided. This checks and balances isn’t about stopping each other branch in a vacuum, the intent is to stop the government from overreaching on its citizenry. By crippling all of the lower courts, the Supreme Court has created a bureaucratic bottleneck for itself, allowing the executive branch to effectively DDoS the judicial system with case after case.
> The disruptive aspect of this - with concern to the birthright case that hasnt been ruled on yet - is just another example of this. Judges not doing their job.
No, it was the judge telling the executive branch that the executive branch must recognize the citizenship of children born on US soil. Instead of actually appealing the TRO on grounds of the legality of their actions, the executive branch has decided to complain about the legality of a court telling the executive branch to stop.
Who is supposed to tell the executive branch to stop doing something illegal, congress? Part of the point of the executive branch was to allow for some expedience, congress is slow. A judge is in a perfect position to tell the executive branch to stop, they don’t need to wait on committee and are not beholden to the president. Without the ability, the executive branch can quite literally do whatever the president wants.
this seems more emphatic than convincing.. Can you rewrite this so that it addresses the legal principles at hand, instead of repeating "judges dont do their jobs" ?
It’s ridiculous that any President (whether he’s from your favorite team or not) has to appease 300+ judges is ridiculous. There will always be biased judges who will only rule to obstruct.
Yes, this is literally the entire job description of a judge: to "judge" if someone broke the law. Details on what judges have jurisdiction over differ (in some countries they can't rule on constitutional matters), but this is basically how it works everywhere. You have appeals processes and whatnot to deal with mistakes. This is civics 101 separation of powers stuff.
When that one person, who is part of the judicial branch and operating within its jurisdiction, has a trial placed in front of them? Yes. That's literally their job.
The quote is from a landmark case that established the judiciary as being the ultimate arbiters of the interpretation of the laws that have been passed by the legislature and signed by the executive.
What was issued was a temporary restriction from implementing the executive order until the matter is decided. No one issued an order declaring the executive order illegal.
You mean like the President? The President of the United States of America whom is deciding that parts of our constitution, our founding legal document isn't actually legally binding?
Those 300 judges are only a temporary check. They get to say 'hold on, we're going to put this on pause while we make sure it's constitutional'. The 9 people that determine what are legal can then unpause that pause at any time if it is not based on sound thought.
Do you feel that temporary checks (that can be easily reversed) to ensure the government is behaving in a constitutional way are ridiculous?
And they are wrong to do so. Right now a child born in one district in the U.S. will have birthright citizenship while children in every other district won’t. This is an inherently stupid state of affairs.
An injunction is not a judgment. It is temporary. A new rule or law is passed. It might be unconstitutional or otherwise not enforceable. Until this can be sorted out sometimes the law/rule is blocked until it is sorted out. Since the law/rule was not in place before the suit it is sometimes ok to temporarily block the rule until it’s legality can be determined. One goes by the principle of causing least harm.
It causes the least harm to block the birthright executive order until it’s legality can be determined. Therefore it should be blocked nationwide.
Limiting and doing away with them aren't the same thing.
I'd love to see higher requirements for issuing them, and an expedited appeals process to review them. I'd like to see protections against judge shopping (as endorsed by both Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer: https://www.texastribune.org/2024/04/11/judge-shopping-texas...) We know SCOTUS can move very fast when they feel like it.
Two reasons I'd guess: Trump has signed as many EOs as biden did in his entire presidency already [1]. Presumably when your executive order contradicts existing law you're more likely to be hit by an injunction.
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 illegal policies on the vast majority of people who did not (likely could not) sue.
That was a concern noted by the dissent.
That said, the procedure here is to just use class action lawsuits to get nationwide injunctions. The opinion explicitly notes that it is an option. And today there was a big flurry of people amending their complaints to do just that.
Since we’re rendering people to El Salvador, there’s no reason some ICE bounty hunter can’t grab you in Massachusetts, and dump you in some Home Depot parking lot in the Carolinas.
Would this not be by residency? If you are a Oklahoma resident, then do either of those states matter?
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.
It's only binding in that district.
So here's how the loophole works. There are 12 courts of appeals. You (ICE) does a bad thing. (renditions a US citizen to an El Salvador concentration camp without due process) You get sued, appeal it to that court of appeals. Let's say it's the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, let's say you lose. You take the L and move on. You never do the bad thing in the 9th circuit again: that decision is binding. Then you do it again in a different circuit. Let's say you do the bad thing in Texas, where the 9th circuit decision was not binding. Let's say you win this time. Now the 5th circuit is your playground.
From now on, every time you arrest someone in the 9th circuit, you put them on an express flight to anywhere in the 5th district within an hour or so of arresting them, before they can get a lawyer to talk to a judge. The precedent that matters is the 5th circuit precedent, where the detainee is right now, not the 9th district (or anywhere else) where they were detained.
Because the Supreme Court has now ruled that this is a lower court problem, they've effectively blocked anyone from ever getting justice ever again.
You don’t honestly believe that do you?
If some guy on hacker news can think of it, you know the lawyers working with the doj/ice have.
Universal injunctions are superfluous. If the law says the government cannot do X, then who is a judge to command that the government not do X? That’s the legislature’s job. Judges have no authority to create rules saying people shall and shall not do certain things. That’s called passing a law. Similarly, when a party violates an injunction, who is the Judge to enforce his command? If it within a case or controversy between litigants, then that is one thing. When the judge they’re going to proactively punish someone any time the law as against anyone… that’s a purely executive function.
In terms of efficiency, it’s more efficient. Those in favor of universal injunctions are saying there should be hundreds of judges all racing to rule over the government, and to have their opinions control in the abstract as to cases that aren’t even before them.
If the government forces the same issue over and over there are plenty of remedies at hand: 1983 civil penalties against officers, sanctions against attorneys for frivolous arguments, and ultimately the court can hand the legislature everything it needs to impeach and remove a president by ruling that he / she is intentionally failing to enforce the law.
I'm not a lawyer.
What's the chance that this could be addressed via class action?
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They're complicit. Their power is (hypothetically) intact, and they don't care about potential harm to anyone else.
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.
We didn't have universal injunctions for most of the republic. They started around 1916 and even then prior to Nixon, federal law required 3 judge courts for injunctions against govt. actions. So this idea of a single judge halting something (right or wrong) only dates back to 1976.
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.
What penalty is there for continuous “errors”. Let’s say a judge was known to always apply an injunction for a certain party, can they be penalized or removed?
If I become biased or incompetent at my job I’m eventually get fired but do judges ever?
really there's no limit to presidential power. the constitution is non-binding to the president. thus, there is no such thing as an executive breech of power, because they dont need to follow any laws set by congress, and dont even need to leave at the end of a term or when congress removes them.
its all just some text on a poece of paper, and neither congress nor the executive wield the military, so their opinions are irrelevant.
So it's effectively always been a dictatorship, it's just been dressed up to look like something else.
There are places with absolute monarchs. You could live there you know.
I'm personally much less worried about genuine national security matters getting temporarily blocked than I am about general authoritarianism from the President (any President). Given the impotence of Congress, what checks on executive power are we left with?
Appeal to Theil to talk to the king.
Prayer mostly. Or actually fixing the congress.
Trump did once note an additional option.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/10/us/politics/donald-trump-...
Liberals really should arm themselves before these people finally classify "disagreeing with daddy" as a mental disorder. [0] It is obviously hilarious to think the "conservatives" and "2A enthusiasts" would possibly help defend lefties' right to bear arms at this point, as they've shown themselves to be utterly devoid of actual values.
People across the political spectrum have an obscene amount of faith in "can't happen here" beliefs being an actual impediment to authoritarianism.
[0]: https://davidson.house.gov/2025/5/rep-warren-davidson-introd...
If you’re not armed yet, you’re already behind the curve. No one is going to protect you except you and potentially your sphere/community.
unless you can arm yourself with a nuke, “arming” yourself for a fight against US government is laughable :)
You don’t have to defend yourself from the entire US government, just the government representation who shows up and decides to violate laws or your rights (and your life is in imminent danger). “Better to be judged by twelve vs. carried by six.” Otherwise, you’re default dead. Odds are better in jail on US soil than an El Salvadorian prison. I agree full out civil war against the US military on US soil is a different threat and engagement model. 5 million people participated in the No Kings protest, more than double total active military members on US soil, for example.
https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-people-are-in-the-us-...
https://www.militaryonesource.mil/data-research-and-statisti...
(position derived from first principles and threat modeling, with input from several US military service members and a physical defense subject matter expert)
> You don’t have to defend yourself from the entire US government, just the government representation who shows up and decides to violate laws or your rights (and your life is in imminent danger)
No matter how much I hypothetically might train on firearms, I'm pretty sure if a SWAT team (or the federal equivalent) shows up at my house, they're going to arrest me no matter what I do. Well, no, that's not true: if I pull out a firearm, they'll kill me. No need for an arrest then.
And sure, maybe just one or two officers show up at my home. Either I still lose in a firefight, or they leave and come back with more firepower, and then I lose. I suppose before their second visit I can run? Not sure to where, though, and not sure how I'll get out of the country, living nowhere near a land border.
> 5 million people participated in the No Kings protest, more than double total active military members on US soil, for example.
I'm not sure which position you're taking here, but I don't buy the idea that one armed civilian is equal to one member of the US military when it comes to predicting who is going to win. I don't even buy the idea that two armed civilians are equal to one military member. Also consider all the right-wing nut-job militia groups in the US; they would certainly join in, on the side of the military.
Training, coordination, and access to the best weaponry (and ammunition) will win. US military will beat down 5 million civilians, no problem. Probably even 10 or 20 million. I could even see the military bombing cities; Trump already seems to think LA is "in rebellion" based on his National Guard and Marine deployments. Only hope there is that enough people in the military realize what they're doing and refuse to fight. Not sure I'd want to bet on that, though.
For people who believe the US will slide (or already has slid) into authoritarianism, and believe they have a strong chance of being targeted by the government in the future, the only sane thing to do is to leave the country now. It really hurts me to say that, but that's where we are. 77M people voted for this disgusting garbage, so this is what we have.
Worked pretty well for the Vietnamese and the Afghans
It didn't though. It was really really bad for them.
Even beyond the lives lost on the side of the anti-US fighters in those places, who wants to bet on if the US would give up and walk away and just let any random local armed community in its own territory ignore it?
Will you see eventual retreat, or will you see eventual overwhelming force? The US didn't want to bulldoze these other countries and jail or kill everyone and set up a new state; very different than how the US would handle more Wacos.
Well, for a country that's faced attempts to be "tamed" by three superpowers over 200 years, Afghanistan's holding up pretty well. It exists and independent! By the way, it crossed my mind that all the superpowers that tried their luck are no longer superpowers. Britain's just a weak shadow of itself, the USSR completely collapsed. What fate awaits the USA?
Using private weapons to fight against the government to protect your rights is a laughably-low-probability-of-success scenario. Even when insurrections or rebellions succeed they often end up... not so great.
We have seen what you get when you have an armed populace. Highly armed cops. Highly armed federal agents. Military equipment for civilian forces. All necessary in order to compete in the arms race against the "bad guys." All cheered for by conservatives, of course!
All that make it that much more easy to start cracking down. Maybe as a first step, issuing pardons for the rebels on your side while increasing the use of force against those protesting you.
Guns are not defensive tools. If you have a gun, but the government shoots first, you still lose.
Hitler's SA (the brownshirts) weren't government officials, nor were Mussolini's blackshirts. Nor are the Proud Boys. There are many more modern examples of pro-government militias in Venezuela and the mid-east.
You never know who's going to deputize themselves as "law enforcement", with the quiet encouragement and plausible deniability of the ruling political party. Guns are unquestionably useful defensive tools against these people.
Correct.
This is the actual use case. It’s a pretty established pattern of non-governmental actors like those mentioned being the tip of the authoritarian spear.
Those people should be shot in the face upon entering their first few homes or businesses, while courts and juries will still have the wherewithal to acquit anyone defending themselves.
Either way, so long as it's legal to have guns, but they are disproportionally distributed along political lines, it makes sense to try to counterbalance that.
As it is, with gun ownership leaning firmly right, Trump has a massive number of armed paramilitaries that he could lean on. In any large-scale suppression of political dissent, those would be the people breaking your door at night, not uniformed feds (there simply isn't enough of the latter). Thus even if you're anti-gun in principle, it still makes sense for left-leaning people in this country to arm given the overall political climate.
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.
I know words are just words, but trying to re-interpret "subject to the jurisdiction" is such a ridiculous over-reach.
Enjoy the chaos though, because some later administration as a revenge will very likely strip the rights of folks who can't show a naturalization certificate in the same way.
I really don't understand why they didn't turn the case into a 14th amendment case. I guess they wanted to provide more slack and time for their benefactor and political ally (SCOTUS conservatives <--> Trump)
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> Trump's argument is that it's not enough to be born here, you have to also be a charge of the country
And that argument is bullshit.
> Trump's argument is that people born in America to tourist parents here for a few weeks (for example) aren't subject to the jurisdiction of America
Yes they are. If they commit a crime on US soil, they will face charges in a US court, because they are subject to the jurisdiction of those courts. (They will also be deported, but that's another matter.)
The only people on US soil who are not subject to the US's jurisdiction are foreign nationals traveling on a diplomatic passport ("diplomatic immunity").
> Sure, birthright citizenship was the reason for the suit, but the core issue was judicial overreach. Don't get mad because the way your side was "winning" was by cheating, and they were stopped.
Er, what? Nationwide injunctions have been a thing since the 1970s. No judge is "cheating" by putting one in place. I'm mad because Trump thinks the constitution is toilet paper.
If you want to talk about chaos, this SCOTUS ruling will create chaos, and more lawlessness, and make it even more difficult for people to obtain justice in this country -- a place where it was already pretty damn difficult (regardless of the party in power).
There was lots of debate in the Senate during the passage of the 14th Amendment; much of it revolved around birthright citizenship. Both those who wanted the Amendment to exclude people who were born to those temporarily in the US and those who did not acknowledged that, in the form passed, it did not.
Sen. Edgar Cowan of Pennsylvania said "I am really desirous to have a legal definition of ‘citizenship of the United States. Is the child of the Chinese immigrant in California a citizen?" He didn't think that child should be.
Sen. Conness of California said he thought it should cover "the children begotten of Chinese parents in California, and it is proposed to declare that they shall be citizens. I voted for the proposition to declare that the children of all parentage whatever, born in California, should be regarded and treated as citizens of the United States, entitled to equal civil rights with other citizens of the United States." And let's remember, as Conness was certainly aware, that many of those Chinese laborers had been imported illegally.
They knew what they were passing, and they knew it included birthright citizenship. Senators who wanted to alter the Amendment to exclude some people failed.
> tourist parents here for a few weeks (for example) aren't subject to the jurisdiction of America. It's a valid argument to make, even if you come down on a different side
This ‘jurisdiction’ claim essentially only applied to people who had a diplomatic status while in the US. A traveler from Canada has no special right against being prosecuted (just like you would not were you to go to, say Britain).
A governmental figure from Canada would have protections - we would need to interact with another sovereign to hold them accountable.
This really has nothing to do with tourism, outside deceitful assertions on television.
Regarding Britain, here’s an example of someone not being subject to the jurisdiction of a country after committing a serious crime: https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/harry-dunn-uk-anne-sacoolas...
I hope this clarifies your misunderstanding about the meaning of jurisdiction.
IANAL but this argument doesn't seem to be on firm footing due to the extradition laws on the books. Technically I can violate a UK law while in the US and indeed be subject to their jurisdiction.
[delayed]
The OP said that the courts were preventing the president from exercising his power under the constitution, I replied that he does not have this power under the constitution. That's all.
There's a right way and a wrong way to go about addressing problems. If the president wants to exclude natural-born children of illegal immigrants from citizenship, he can lead an effort to amend the constitution.
It's not valid. When you're in a country you are subject to it's laws, whether it's the USA or Somalia
They have more guns than we do. It's valid.
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.
No it's not. In fact the concept of "undocumented immigrant" or even just "immigrant" only makes sense in the context of an asserted jurisdiction.
Undocumented or not, you are always subject to our laws.
They are not subject to the law of the land and can act with full legal immunity?
I mean they paid some $97 Billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022 [0], the country knows about them, and taxes them. They contribute so much to the economy Texas refuses to have business verify worker's work status for fear of the economic impact it would have.
[0] https://itep.org/undocumented-immigrants-taxes-2024/
> You can't just let anyone in to give birth and then collect benefits; it's unsustainable.
You don’t seem to think the USA is very exceptional…
> Even in logical terms it makes sense: You can't just let anyone in to give birth and then collect benefits; it's unsustainable.
The 14th Amendment was passed in 1868. Government benefits were basically nonexistent at the time, and besides, with the US population at under 40 million people, we needed more citizens, not fewer. Your "logical" argument is completely anachronistic and irrelevant.
The conservative side of the Supreme Court claims to rule based on what the writers of the Constitution had in mind. This is another example of how they completely ignore what the writers/framers/etc. of the Constitution intended as soon as it interferes with the larger conservative agenda that they serve.
What benefits are you collecting?
The core premise of your racist rant is built around a the massive edge case. Reality is this policy will probably disenfranchise more children of American soldiers born abroad than prevent the alien invasion you’re scared of.
The notion that the sins of the father impact the child is repugnant. The interests of the nation as a whole not allowing a clear violation of the birthright of our fellow citizens have to be addressed in a lower court, as the Supreme Court isn’t even required to hear their case.
You’re allowing yourself to be manipulated into expanding the power of an executive who will never leave and a court whose power and individual avoidance of culpability for bribery and corruption. I suppose you’ll shrug when we decide that the electoral college can choose to follow the “silent majority” as opposed to the voters.
> The core premise of your racist rant
As someone who has reading comprehension above the high-school level, it's blindingly obvious that there was no racism in GP's post. Your accusation is factually incorrect, logically fallacious, emotionally manipulative, and actively degrades the quality of HN (and, obviously, badly breaks the guidelines). Either your logical reasoning skills are deeply lacking, or you're aware that your claim false and maliciously making it anyway to deceive others, which is deeply immoral and disgusting. Regardless of which of those this is, never do this.
If you are born and live in the US, how could you possibly not be "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States? Likewise, if you are born in the US to tourist parents who then leave the United States with you, how exactly are you supposed to "collect benefits"? And even if you are "collecting benefits", to be a citizen you'd have to also be paying your taxes, which should entitle you to said benefits.
Where exactly is the unsustainable part of this?
> And even if you are "collecting benefits", to be a citizen you'd have to also be paying your taxes, which should entitle you to said benefits.
According to the SF Chronicle, about 72 million US households (40% of the population) paid no federal income tax in 2022. I don't have exact numbers but I doubt anyone would dispute that public benefits flow disproportionately to those 72 million households for obvious reasons. So the cause and effect of being a citizen and paying taxes is very tenuous.
> Where exactly is the unsustainable part of this?
If it's unsustainable, then someone should propose a constitutional amendment to fix it.
Is federal income tax the only tax?
It eclipses the others, so it's the most relevant one to talk about.
> Trump's argument is that people born in America to tourist parents here for a few weeks (for example) aren't subject to the jurisdiction of America. It's a valid argument to make…
I suspect, if they commit a crime or overstay their visa, we'll suddenly decide we have a little jurisdiction after all.
That clause is about foreign ambassadors and such, not tourists.
This implies that executive orders should be the status quo, which deviates from the design of the American system of government. The courts should not be routinely blocking the president because the president should not be routinely ruling by executive order. This change paves the way for additional power concentrated in the executive branch which is already far too powerful. It is the next step towards an authoritarian regime and no good will come from this ruling.
Having a strong federal government in the first place deviates from the design of the American system of government. We ought to eviscerate federal government power and devolve most executive power back to the several States. That would make national politics far less contentious.
We tried that. It was called the Continential Congress, and it was a spectacular failure.
If you want the US to be a loose confederation of 50 sovereign nations, fine. Just hope you live in California, New York or Texas, because every other state is going to devolve into the American equivalent of Eastern Europe.
The Continental Congress failed because it gave the federal government too little power, but that was fixed with the US Constitution. There was that long time period between that and Wickard v. Filburn, you know.
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 big changes" should be an indicator that not making big changes is the proper result.)
The status quo would be "issue a ruling, it may or may not get put on hold while the government appeals, eventually it gets to the Supreme Court if necessary." Seemed to be working. Republicans obviously have used this to challenge stuff themselves.
It is unclear why there is a need for giving the government an escape hatch to let them say "sure, we lost this one case, we'll stop enforcing things against these few people, we just won't appeal and will continue to do whatever we want nationally instead."
> 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 associated with a change, and that change becomes unpopular, it might threaten your reelection!
> "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.
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 consumer protection - even if MOST people on both sides would support it - isn't that you risk getting branded with it if it backfires. It's that you get labeled soft in a way that the die-hards who dominate primaries can be rallied against. The right wing has been VERY aggressive in pushing purity tests for decades, and eventually you have convinced everyone of the final-battle-of-good-and-evil stakes. The left has been doing it more and more too, sadly - but it's not like what they were doing before was working too great.
That situation also gives increasing sway to the rich lobbyists who also want to make sure those basic things don't happen. Your base won't get mad at you for failing to ban abortions nationally because obviously you can't. So they don't put much blame on you for not getting the smaller stuff done either, or scrutinize your donors too much.
> 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
Your argument leaves out the chilling effect of gerrymandering on implementing the will of the people.
You're just stating that the President, and his federal government, should be above the rule of law again.
Not a single decision so far was related to national security. The checks and balances exist and they are/were working, and this is an attempt to circumvent that.
But don't forget the emergency narrative: "We're being invaded!" and "Governors (bureaucrats, etc.) aren't doing what I want them to do it's now an emergency!". This is not only how our dictatorial executive overreaches, but also how its supporters justify the means in their minds.
From my reading and understanding, they still can, it just involves an _immense_ amount more paperwork. The ruling is basically that judges can only provide injunctions for the named party in a case, not universal injunctions. So instead of one injunction, each person impacted by the EO will have to file for their own injunction. Which will likely be granted due to similar injunctions already granted.
So it reads to me like we've ended up in a similar spot, but with the requirement that an insane amount of paperwork happens.
Not all people affected by an EO have an equal opportunity to generate that paperwork. Going to court or getting involved in the legal system have costs, of both time and money. Not something all people have enough of to spare.
No it’s not the same spot at all. No one will file injunctions. There is also the possibility that another’s court case for the same reason won’t be decided the same way.
What this means is that it’s now ok for the orange man to break the law. Rule of law will only be upheld in very limited circumstances in very limited areas.
Law and order is frequently said, but few people separate the ideas. Law is justice while order is the absence of open conflict. They are not the same thing.
This is a ruling which chooses order over law. Order without justice is tyranny.
As someone said in another comment, constitutionality of an action is national. There's nothing that could be considered unconstitutional in one particular region of the US and not in the others. The nationwide injunction is a tool that needs to happen if the US is ever attempting to be a country of laws.
Mind you this simply meant that, if important enough to temporarily block, an appeal would be needed to ensure that what the President was doing was legal, which is entirely reasonable. This was simply an extra legal check on the president to keep the president inline with the law.
I may be mistaken but this is under the assumption that the government chooses to appeal their losses in these lower courts. So if the govt gets to choose between just not appealing and not having to deal with these injunctions or appealing and risking an injunction, why would they appeal in most cases?
In practice we’ve had the opposite problem, plain and simple.
> based on their own subjective politics.
You mean like under their own judgement?
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.
Define small government.
My list starts with:
-fund basic research in science and engineering -fund nascent beneficial commercial efforts where private interests fear to tread - supply infrastructure and services that are useful to most but are natural monopolies are network effects monopolies. (i.e. roads, rail,air, healthcare, research labs, weather services to name a few) - punishing cheating. i.e. fraud, externalities such as pollution, shifting costs onto the public to enhance profitability, and all forms of financial engineering. - protection against catastrophic loss - protection of vulnerable people - limiting corporations and individuals from gaining society distorting power.
Any judge in the country based on their own subjective politics can also create a precedent by ruling a certain way, and that single precedent might be used even a hundred years later. So by the same logic, this also should go away since it means any judge anywhere at any time can basically sediment history with their opinion
> Any judge in the country based on their own subjective politics can also create a precedent by ruling a certain way, and that single precedent might be used even a hundred years later.
District courts do not create precedent. Precedent comes from appellate courts.
They do not create binding precedent. They can create so-called persuasive precedent -- something other courts (and the same district in subsequent opinions) can and do cite when they don't disagree.
Many people do think this should go away yes. Common law VS statutory law is a constant debate
Arguing for or against common law wasn't the point (personally I'm not a fan of it). The point is that the same reasoning calls for the abolition of common law, so GP should take that into consideration
Thats why the government can just skip ahead and call the Supreme Court, and then the Supreme Court lifts it because apparently being unable to do illegal things is Irreparable Harm (actually makes a mockery of the concept of course).
In the meantime, when I sue John Doe and get an injunction, they are enjoined from their conduct everywhere; but when I sue the government, it should only apply to me? Makes no sense.
I would bet if the democrats did this, the collective right's head would explode. I love how selective Trump is with following the constitution and its amendments, his supporters as well. They will die on their sword for 2A, but 1A when it suits their agenda and all others are just loosely worded suggestions
I don't remember who it was who pointed this out, but it would appear as though the right considers hypocrisy to indicate a position of power. These are the rules for you, but not for me, because I'm more powerful.
From another perspective, this is what is commonly referred to as Wilhoit’s Law:
> Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit:
> There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
> There is nothing more or else to it, and there never has been, in any place or time.
> They will die on their sword for 2A
No, they will not. Remember when Breonna Taylor was summarily executed for Kenneth Walker exercising his second amendment right to night time home defense - one of the exact scenarios the gun-fundamentalists are always fantasizing about - but then the Trumpists came out on the side of licking the jackboots?
Personally, I think it is likely that sometime during this Trump "presidency" we will see him call for more national gun control (obviously framed in terms of hurting some vulnerable group). We will see most of his supporters fall right in line, just as they have been doing on everything else. There will be heaps of rationalization about how it won't affect them of course, and they might even be right.
Morals, values, and other lofty ideals mean nothing to these people, beyond being trotted out as dishonest justifications to try and trick reasonable people into supporting their movement. Their only real desire appears to be unrestrained power for their team, demonstrating it by hurting people who aren't on their team. This is why it has been impossible to have an actual discussion about what they actually want, or how Dear Leader and his policies fail at everything they claim to want - there is literally nothing of substance there.
The balance of powers have been broken for over a century at this point with ever increasing “emergency” declarations that don’t go away, giving the executive branch immense power.
Agreed. The system simply cannot work if any district judge anywhere can veto the president's policies.
In theory it's just an injunction, but the reality is this kind of stuff takes forever to get hashed out in the courts, and Trump will be well out of office before it gets settled.
I have no problem with SCOTUS injunctions, but there are too many district courts for this to work.
The way things were heading the president was going to be forced to start ignoring injunctions, and he would have been right to do so. The Roberts court had to make this ruling for the government to function.
> The Roberts court had to make this ruling for the government to function.
For the government to rule by executive order.
For the government to be able to change with the winds of Trump's opinion.
Neither of which is "functioning correctly" by my definition.
He would have been wrong to do so.
Not at all. The president has to protect the powers of his office, and when the courts overstep he doesn't have an obligation to give them deference.
only under the assumption that the governments job is to contravene the law of the land - which up until pretty recently no one believed including the government
You're proceeding with the assumption the government would lose in court, which is not the case in the vast majority of these injunctions.
Isn't a full and proper court case required to decide what you have just proclaimed outright?
not a lawyer, but I believe the process involves (a) deciding if there is a case at all to be argued, which is this case there clearly is, and (b) weighing the harm of letting the government send US citizens to Sudan or life in prison in El Salvador vs the harm that would be caused by preventing the government from doing that while the case is adjudicated - which seems to be nonexistent.
but instead of a few cases, now there will be dozens of cases because now each state/district has to fight Trump's authoritarian tendencies, and in the meantime he can imprison (just for starters) illegal immigrants in "3rd countries" known for torture and the worst prison conditions impossible, and seemingly he prefers to do that.
It's astonishing how many people fail to address the legal argument in the SCOTUS opinion, disregard the legal question altogether, and apparently want the courts to decide how things "should" be, regardless of legality.
IANAL but I read SCOTUS opinions regularly and this one is hard to argue with. If things should be different then we need legislative/constitutional changes.
> If things should be different then we need legislative/constitutional changes
lol, yes, like birthright citizenship written plainly into the constitution.
What good are your further legislative/constitutional changes worth if the executive can just ignore them except for the single individuals who file suit?
The ruling today very explicitly and clearly does not touch the birthright citizenship issue.
> The ruling today very explicitly and clearly does not touch the birthright citizenship issue.
In practice it absolutely does, because now everyone is scrambling to try and protect their clients that were previously covered by the larger injunction. The supreme court could have just not taken the case in the first place, or let the injunctions stand as an appropriate use of injunctions (for grossly unconstitutional executive orders)
The only reason the avoided is to avoid countering Trump, it's dead obvious that Trump is forbidden by law to do what he's doing. It's going to take months to years for a real 14th amendment case to reach them, meanwhile he's shipping people off to "3rd nations" to imprison them there in the worst conditions imaginable and indefinitely with no court process or trial. Why should an illegal immigrant go to prison, potentially for the rest of their life just because they illegally crossed the border?
The judicial still has significant tools to stop an executive branch that is clearly acting illegally. So does the legislative. If these branches don't leverage those tools, or those tools don't work, we have bigger problems.
Guess what: You're living in the world of bigger problems.
The dissent on this court decision beautifully reasons why there is no practical recourse for the judicial branch to intervene after this decision. The effective power to do so is now solely with the Supreme Court. But the procedure is such the the Government can simply prevent any relevant cases from reaching that court because in order to get there, the Government would have to appeal and they can just consistently choose not to do it.
It's hard to argue for since the 14th amendment is very easy to understand, and it's easy to understand why Trump is overstepping his authority
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.
> The state of affairs is that:
Yes, this has been going on for decades at various levels of government.
It's very common when it comes to gun rights. The government (local/state and federal) will frequently avoid appealing if they think they might then lose the case, setting a wide precedent for millions of people.
But the difference is that now the government can continue to enforce its policy against anyone who has not sued.
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 action or taking it up to the Supreme Court
Not giving individual judges a veto over national law.
> It just says injunctions should only apply to the actual parties in the case.
So every person wronged by the government should sue individually?
Not necessarily. That’s where class actions come in
The point is that relief should be tied to proper procedure, not handed out universally by default. One judge shouldn’t decide national policy based on one plaintiff unless the case is structured to justify it
It seems like the GPs issue still remains, except instead of individual lawsuits forever, it's class action lawsuits forever, does it not?
They slow down the “forever lawsuit” problem by consolidating claims, reducing conflicting rulings, and giving defendants a clear path to challenge the case’s scope. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than unlimited nationwide injunctions from any one court.
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 anything. It removes the thing that forced consolidation - the ability of a court to issue an injunction and stop illegal actions from continuing - which forced the government to either give up, or appeal up. Now, everything is a legal patchwork.
No. If a ruling has determined that a government action has the potential to be illegal and must be halted for the suing party, it should absolutely be halted for everyone, because you're dealing with an action that's ambiguously illegal for everyone. It's not just the wronged party at the center of this issue, it's the capacity for the government to engage in illegal activity. Once you've identified behavior as questionable, you stop the behavior.
I don’t agree because that’s not how our legal system is setup
I disagree: that is indeed how our legal system was set up.
> 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.
What chaos that would be worse than the chaos of jurisdictional fracturing they're asking for here and the possibility to not let cases escalate to courts with supposed national jurisdiction? Rulings were stayed all the time.
The existence of a national injunction seems built in to the job of a federal judge since federal law is definitionally national. Voiding it only locally, or only in regard to specific plaintiffs, seems like a huge wishful reach.
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, there is a difference between saying “this law is unconstitutional” and saying “this law is blocked for everyone, everywhere.”
>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 "clever", more "obvious" situation in your mind? No, that's a clever hack that same sneaky bastard came up with to justify removing further obstacles for the executive to increase its own power.
But it seems to fly against the face of history. Federal law has been in the business of preempting local authority for centuries. Now we want to unwind that and let jurisdictions opt-out case-by-case?
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
This ruling opens the door for more inconsistency. Things can dead-end in a fractured state much more easily now.
Without you telling me any specific harms of the "chaos and inconsistency", and how you think they will be reduced now, then I can only consider the harms of the new potentials for inconsistency which is "the excecutive intentionally does not appeal when they lose to small groups because they want to be able to continue to overreach nationally."
What are the concrete examples of chaotic things that caused issues that you don't think could happen now?
These come to mind:
1. In 2017, one district court blocked Trump’s travel ban nationwide, while others upheld it. That led to confusion at airports and legal whiplash
2. In 2019, one judge blocked the public charge immigration rule nationwide, while others allowed it. The rule ended up applying in some States and not others
3. Multiple district courts issued conflicting nationwide injunctions on Title IX guidance for transgender students during the Obama and Trump years
Those are just some
Inconsistency is still possible. But the alternative was worse
What we had was a race to the most favorable courtroom
The fix isn’t unlimited injunctions. It’s reform and not stretching judicial power beyond what the law allows
And what happened next in those cases?
Was the inconsistency resolved?
How is there less room for inconsistency now? If a judge has said five plaintiffs can play on a certain sports team in one jurisdiction, now the sports administrators need to know every ruling in every jurisdiction that their league functions in?
What makes you think "reform" is going to happen here? Have you read much of the material pushing for increased executive power on the right? It's very clear that the goal is solely to remove impediments to stretch executive power to the point that executive power decides what the law allows.
No, all of these cases are not resolved to this day
Title IX issue is not resolved. Public charge rule resolved itself because the Biden admin rescinded the rule. But not before creating mass confusion. Trump travel ban was resolved by SCOTUS as valid once Trump modified the ban
The point is that nationwide injunctions from different district courts created that chaos in the first place, often forcing rushed Supreme Court intervention just to untangle conflicting orders
I don't see any of the "chaos" you're talking about: the examples you give are of the system working as expected.
If "working as expected" means conflicting nationwide orders from different judges, policy whiplash across states, and emergency SCOTUS intervention just to sort it all out..
then that’s exactly the kind of chaos the Court is trying to fix
> Whether you were personally hurt isn’t the point. Conflicting nationwide rulings from different judges created legal chaos and undermined consistency
So now you can be a US citizen when in New York but not while in Kentucky. Sure to cause no chaos.
Huh? Federal laws apply everywhere.
The rulings just means an injunction only affects the parties in that case or a certified class and not everyone everywhere automatically
Yeah, so when you say "federal laws apply everywhere", what happens when one state sues that it's unconstitutional and another doesn't?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44401294
Then enforcement is paused for the parties in that case. Other courts may rule differently until the issue is resolved higher up
The whole strategy of the federal government with this is to never resolve the issue higher up.
You keep saying that the issue will be resolved higher up. How? There's no mechanism for it. The winner of a case can't kick it up to higher courts.
> 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?
Do you have a reference to the law about deporting citizens. I can't find it.
It would be nice, for a start, if it actually followed the laws its supposed to enforce.
Could you find me the one that lets the president's office strip citizenship from people?
Are you arguing that the government should be free to act unconstitutionally?
> Not giving individual judges a veto over national law.
It's not a veto, it's a delay until appeal. If the lower court is wrong, SCOTUS has never had any issue with settling the question.
The fact that the government isn't appealing means that they know they can't win on appeal, and what they are doing is illegal.
Right, it’s a delay, not a final veto. But when that delay applies nationwide, it functions like a veto until SCOTUS steps in, which can take months or years
If the executive avoids appeals to dodge precedent, that’s a separate (and valid) concern. But the solution isn’t to stretch injunction power beyond its legal limits
It is about who gets to block national policy for everyone, based on one local case. That kind of sweeping relief was never authorized by Congress
> until SCOTUS steps in, which can take months or years
It doesn't take months or years for SCOTUS to determine whether or not they will take a case. If they don't want to take it, they are fine with the arguments set by the lower precedent, and tough shit, but that means that the loser is in the wrong.
> If the executive avoids appeals to dodge precedent, that’s a separate (and valid) concern.
You're damn right it's a valid concern. It's a valid concern because this removed the only mechanism that there was to force them to address it.
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Its "politicized" when it's something someone doesn't like.
It can't just be, I don't know, a plain reading of the fucking law.
It's time to Balkanize.
Most of these blocks have been overturned, and important government action has been unnecessarily delayed.
> Of course, because innocent until proven guilty.
The purpose of courts litigating the legality of executive actions is not establishing innocence or guilt, so what you're saying is completely irrelevant.
The president doesn't go to prison because some court found that he signed an illegal executive order. (But it sounds like you maybe think that should be the case. It's hard to tell, because you aren't saying anything coherent.)
> The POTUS doesn't need to ask for permission to politicized local judges
Let's play a simple game. If he signs a blatantly unconstitutional and illegal EO ordering the US Marshals to have you and your family arrested, tortured, and shot tomorrow, whose permission do you think he should need? Which parts of the government would be able to stop him?
You seem to think that no 'politicized'[1] judge should be allowed to say "Whoa, hold on there, that may be illegal."
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[1] What the hell does 'politicized' mean? Is there a single person in government who is not 'politicized'? Is SCOTUS somehow not 'politicized'? Is the executive?
It's not worth replying to incoherent comments. Just DV or flag them.
> 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
This ruling does not "restore" a functioning balance, it damages it. This has never been a problem in the past because previous administrations (regardless of politics) didn't take illegal actions daily. Framing it as "politics" is disingenuous as many of the judges ruling against Trump were appointed by him.
The system was working as intended to check an executive acting outside of the law, but once again, the supreme court continues to empower the executive.
When the Supreme Court has multiple members who have and continue to openly break the law themselves, they have a vested interest in keeping a party in power who is also openly corrupt.
I don't think you understand what the word "balance" means.
"balance" is when the people you agree with get more power than they should right?
Judges have never been able to make rulings based on their own subjective politics. They must justify their rulings under the law.
I could extend some merit to the idea that injunctions should be limited in complex cases where case law is thin and the law is less than clear. When executive orders are clearly unconstitutional, however, I do not then see any reason for limits.
Judges make use of reasonableness, superset of rationality, all the time. The issue is what is reasonable to 30% is not reasonable to another 25%. As long as there is a political backing for their reasonable decisions, they are fine. One can call it subjective or political. That’s why judges do judge and provide good reasons that can be defendable by 20% of those who vote and have political sway.
>They must justify their rulings under the law.
The law that states that growing wheat on your own land is interstate commerce.
Up there in the top five worst legal decisions ever made in the US
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.
>I don't see why a single district should be able to influence the entire country.
Should a single person be able to pull a fire alarm? Or do we need building-wide consensus first?
I am looking for feedback, but I don't think that is a valid argument.
A single person absolutely can and should pull the fire alarm!
Are you suggesting that an entire country should operate as a single building?
Different districts have different laws and by-laws, and a district judge SHOULD be able to take issue with any law being passed down from on high. But should one person be able to challenge and essentially negate the power of the President.
Remember, I'm trying to take how this would be viewed if it were not a Trump issue. It's really easy to say "oh it's Trump, so screw him!"
I'm just surprised that this is how the system works. A single judge can bring the entire system to a stand-still? Is that really how this works?
This isn't a single person pulling a fire alarm. The alarm has been pulled, it's a single person saying "turn that damn thing off, I don't agree with your fire".
Under normal circumstances, the president wouldn't be shooting the country in the foot, so I completely agree that in this instance, perhaps it is good that a district judge can do this. But if American politics starts getting played this way, I think you may see significantly more challenges in getting good laws passed. I am not saying this is a good law.
Should a single person be able to block access to the fire hydrant or do we need consensus?
Should a single person be able to block the decision of the top ranking fire-fighter. That fire-fighter may be good, or may be in the job because he likes things to burn.
That's the right take. Thank you. I came up with a much worse analogy.
This is functionally equivalent to the Enabling Act of 1933. [0]
[0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933
Can you outline the argument as to how? It seems quite different according to the article. The courts still assert supremacy when it comes to interpreting and vetting the law, and Trump isn't allowed to overrule the legislature's lawmaking powers.
Also it is not a constitutional change.
Only eerily not legislated
Our legislature willingly gave up its power quite a while ago.
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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.
Makes me think of the latter part of this quotation:
"But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case it is unfit to exist." - Lysander Spooner (emphasis mine)
Resilient systems have to align incentives such that they work whether or not everybody has enough good will or agreeability to play along.
250 years isn't a bad run. Maybe the next Constitution can iterate and fix the incentive alignment.
That small minority probably showed up like a hundred years ago, or earlier.
There are few ways to secure rules against every contingency that don't come at a cost in efficiency.
Either you can have watchers all the way down and nothing gets done, or there are limits.
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.
It could be fixed for the class with a class action. But the courts have also don't their damndest to make that hard too. Requiring a class action means that courts have the additional opportunity to say "nope that's not a valid class" (WalMart v Dukes being a rather famous example).
Thank you for this example - is very interesting.
I read the Wikipedia article [0] and I would point out that a class defined by birth place would pass easily Scalia's test for commonality. So it seems that using a class action suit that includes every person born in US of un-documented parents would work. (But who knows what other tests the Supreme Court would come up now...)
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wal-Mart_Stores,_Inc._v._Dukes
It may not be surprising to learn that over the past several decades conservative Congresses (through the so-called Class Action Fairness Act and its ilk) and Supreme Court decisions have all but eliminated class actions.
I don't think class action lawsuit is needed here. It's enough for one case to get to SCOTUS and then we will hear their opinion about how 14th amendment should be interpreted. It will be an interesting case I think both 4-5 against and 5-4 in favor of changing the interpretation is possible (with 3-6 and 6-3 less likely outcomes).
The problem (which Sotomayor raises in her dissent, pages 94 and 95 of the PDF) is that it may never reach the supreme court:
> There is a serious question, moreover, whether this Court will ever get the chance to rule on the constitutionality of a policy like the Citizenship Order. Contra, ante, at 6 (opinion of KAVANAUGH, J.) (“[T]he losing parties in the courts of appeals will regularly come to this Court in matters involving major new federal statutes and executive actions”). In the ordinary course, parties who prevail in the lower courts generally cannot seek review from this Court, likely leaving it up to the Government’s discretion whether a petition will be filed here. These cases prove the point: Every court to consider the Citizenship Order’s merits has found that it is unconstitutional in preliminary rulings. Because respondents prevailed on the merits and received universal injunctions, they have no reason to file an appeal. The Government has no incentive to file a petition here either, because the outcome of such an appeal would be preordained. The Government recognizes as much, which is why its emergency applications challenged only the scope of the preliminary injunctions
That's a good point. I was under the impression that the current administration thinks it can win a case about 14th amendment in case both parents are not legally in US with current majority but if they are in fact not appealing it would mean they think they would lose.
That is terrible jurisprudence, but at least it’s honest. Sotomayor is overtly stating that she’s made up her mind and will not consider the possibility that maybe the 14th Amendment might mean something other than she already thinks. I really do not think someone should be a judge if they can’t be open minded enough to consider the arguments of the parties.
Wait, doesn't this just... End the constitution as a whole? So long as the current executive wants some unconstitutional thing, they get that unconstitutional thing in every state on their side in perpetuity? The constitution is now... per-litigant?
That’s the end goal. And to take over the other states too.
Oh, of course. Because it's federal law, being in a state with an injunction isn't actually a protection. A federal LEO can detain & relocate you, charging you with violating a law in another state where there is no such injunction.
This is a whole-sale shredding of the constitution.
So for example, seeking reproductive rights in one state which is forbidden in another?
Forgive a possibly silly question but in what sense does being "in" Florida mean you are bound by Florida state law when you leave? How long did you need to be in Florida before you became bound by its law? What if you fall pregnant after you left? Can you be in breach without ever having been in Florida, and a LEO can therefore take you there and charge you?
That should be unconstitutional to either try to prosecute you for actions outside your state or to prevent you from leaving to make those actions, but conservatives are trying!
https://www.texastribune.org/2024/02/09/texas-abortion-trans...
No, not quite. State laws only apply in that state. They are not technically allowed (but sometimes try) to enforce laws on actions outside of that state. So, in this case, you could not be charged with having an abortion outside of Florida, from inside of Florida, based on Florida law.
But let's look at the birthright case that this ruling comes from.
Let's say Nevada state sues the federal government. The ruling is made from their district court that birthright citizenship is clear and this EO is illegal. An injunction is placed against the EO.
The state of Kentucky does not sue.
Previously, the Nevada court injunction would apply nationally. The EO is unconstitutional. EOs are federal, the constitution is federal. So, clearly, it is unconstitutional everywhere and must be stopped.
The federal government can then go through several layers of appeal to prove that this was a mistake and the EO is legal. All the way up to SCOTUS, who makes the final judgement and cannot be appealed.
What SCOTUS just ruled is that the injunction against the federal government only holds the EO from applying to the specific litigant. That can be a whole state, a group of people, or a single individual. Even though the EO is now ruled unconstitutional in the eyes of the federal court de jure, it is de facto still the law of the land by default to all other entities.
And it gets worse. A litigant cannot appeal to the next court, only a defendant that loses. And SCOTUS only has to address cases that are appealed. There is no mandatory reconciliation process. That means, for an infinite amount of time, individual people will have different constitutional interpretations that require a background of every case that has ever involved them.
So, back to our example. If the federal government loses in Nevada and there is no ruling in Kentucky... What the fuck even happens? Someone is or is not a citizen, that's literally the point behind Dread Scott and Obergfell, but they've contradicted those cases and invented a constitutional superposition.
So, in Nevada a naturalized citizen with non-citizen parents is... A citizen? Because of the injunction? And what if they're in Kentucky, but were born in Nevada? Or vice versa?
But, no, this isn't a state law. It's federal. Which means it doesn't matter what state you're in when you do it, it's still illegal. And federal LEO had the authority to try you in a different location than where you were arrested. So - born in Nevada or Kentucky, where you are now, that doesn't matter. Effectively, you have no citizenship. Again, this is quite literally Dread Scott.
This SCOTUS ruling effectively disables the constitution and dissolves the union of states. I'm not being dramatic, this is also the opinion of Sotomayor.
Curiously, this does not actually extend to other cases. So, say, if McDonalds gets in trouble and an injunction placed against them. That still applies universally.
Oftentimes hard to model this from other nations. Here in Australia we have pretty well understood applicability of federal law everywhere, but when the states started enacting changes in abortion law, voluntary assisted dying, decriminalisation of recreational drugs, it all got a bit messy. Especially since we have non-state territories where enacting laws means .. conditional to the federal government with lower barriers than with the states.
Britain its mostly UK Law, with bits of "no, thats English law, this is Scotland" on top. I emigrated so long ago the national appeals structure has changed and I don't entirely understand when it applies and overrides. But immigration is clearly nation-wide.
I think "birthright" citizenship is pretty alien to most legal regimes. Ireland might be the one people think about in the Europe/Britain context. Used to be a lot of pregnant women flying in late stage. But, thats not to call it wrong or decry what the appeals in the US were trying to do. It was amended into the constitution a very long time ago, and until recently what the current WH is trying to do was seen as "fringe law" but now seems core.
In my opinion, birthright citizenship is undesirable. Like you said, it's fairly unique to America and largely exists for historical reasons.
However, there is no just world where you can revoke citizenship from existing Americans. Especially under the vague terms they used.
Furthermore, the constitution itself is what defines it in clear language. Birthright citizenship can only be changed via constitutional amendment.
And everyone needs to recognize and treat it as such, for all it’s worth.
The administration does not need to appeal to the supreme court. I don't think they would appeal it since it is being enforced as desired.
Indeed, this is one of the concerns of the dissenting opinions.
I'm worried about the trend of civil rights going unprotected until after a Supreme Court ruling.
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
There are supposed to be able to declare them Unconstitutional. If it's unconstitutional in district 5, why wouldn't it also be unconstitutional in district 10?
You do kind of need courts to rule that something in fact violated a law.
The law was written - in the Constitutuon - the judiciary interrupts them and the executive branch was suppose to enforce it.
Most law, and most law courts deal with is federal law, not constitutional law. A lot of the most contentious recent court issues could be addressed with federal laws. It's just congress is lazy and doesn't want to go on record.
Yes, but things like rights listed in the constitution have been protected by the supreme court regardless of laws. Things like your Miranda rights don't exist because of any law, they existed because of a supreme court ruling.
And where is federal law derived from? What does the court weigh against federal law when considering if it's enforceable or not?
Note how they fast-tracked Trump's case so he could do maximum damage before any test of the 14th, and ignored the actual 14th amendment challenges.
CASA Inc. in Maryland is in fact refiling its broader lawsuit as a class action case, and has asked for a wider injunction on that basis. So we'll see.
>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 up with a lot of reasons why, which are structural in many cases, but the fact remains that the majority of people are not involved in the political process at all, have no desire to be an actively reject any opportunity to be.
Assuming that citizens would all of a sudden become involved because it requires a lawsuit, means that there’s the capacity to do so, which does not exist, and all we need is a catalyst.
If the number of possible catalysts that have already happened in the last decade we’re not sufficient then nothing short of a literal terminator Skynet scenario is going to cause people to take action and I’m increasingly doubtful that even that would do it.
Based on my observation from my work position, people are ready to just roll over onto their backs and have robots slice them from the belly up, because it’s easier than actually doing something that would prevent it.
I think this often gets confused. Voting a president in doesn't give them a blank mandate to do whatever they want, such as break the law. And knowingly doing things that might not get approved by courts, but veiling it in a "novel legal theory" disguise is still breaking the law. Just because slow and thorough processes need to take place to adjudicate these actions doesn't mean that these actions aren't worth adjudicating. So while voting is important, keeping the voted-in president accountable is important too.
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 is new, though they've been leading up to it for decades, so it's not really surprising.
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 again.
Less charitably, the Supreme Court has said that this president has this authority.
Forgive student loans? No authority!
End birthright citizenship? Well, he's the boss!
That's nice rhetoric, but they're not the same issue at all.
Yes, there's always some reason it's different when Dems are President with this crew.
You're right, though, it is different; birthright citizenship is spelled out, very clearly, in the Constitution. It's an even plainer wrong.
It's Calvinball.
The second amendment is “very clearly” spelled out in the Constitution yet many roadblocks to gun ownership are thrown up in various states and people STILL make tired arguments about how the amendment “should” be interpreted. For example, the old argument that the founding fathers could have never conceived of AR-15s and thus their legality under the second amendment is debatable.
Likewise, in 1868 the writers of the fourteenth amendment probably couldn’t conceive of rapid international travel and the possibility that pregnant women could just show up weeks before their due date and their newborn child should “obviously” be an American citizen.
The amendment was quite obviously targeted at Native Americans and slaves, not any and all pregnant women the world over who manage to reach the US before giving birth. But as you’re noticing, there’s multiple ways people can interpret laws. It’s rarely as cut and dry as “this is obviously against the law!!!”
> Likewise, in 1868 the writers of the fourteenth amendment probably couldn’t conceive of rapid international travel and the possibility that pregnant women could just show up weeks before their due date and their newborn child should “obviously” be an American citizen.
This is a better point than you realize, and in the opposite direction you intend.
Immigration in the 1800s was a… cursory process. Not only would those kids be citizens, but their parents would have had little trouble staying around.
We had very few rules beyond “don’t be Chinese” until 1891. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1891?wprov=...
So is your argument that the writers of the amendment intended for American citizenship to be a contest wherein women the world over should compete to drop anchor babies on US soil?
I argue it’s the logical conclusion for an era of “basically anyone can come here if they want”, yes.
“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.”
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Again, until 1882-1891, reasons other than “you’re Chinese” didn’t exist in US immigration.
We didn’t even bar felons or people with contagious diseases before that act. Pregnancy certainly wasn’t disqualifying.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1882
> It imposed a head tax on non-citizens of the United States who came to American ports and restricted certain classes of people from immigrating to America, including criminals, the insane, or "any person unable to take care of him or herself." The act created what is recognized as the first federal immigration bureaucracy and laid the foundation for more regulations on immigration, such as the Immigration Act of 1891.
The quotas you describe didn’t come until the 1920s. Well after the amendment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924?wprov=...
> The amendment was quite obviously targeted at Native Americans and slaves…
Just to return to this for a moment… this is quite incorrect. Native Americans were explicitly not included. That came later.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_Un...
"Consistent with the views of the clause's author, Senator Jacob M. Howard, the Supreme Court held that because Indian reservations are not under the federal government's jurisdiction, Native Americans born on such land are not entitled to birthright citizenship. The 1887 Dawes Act offered citizenship to Native Americans who accepted private property as part of cultural assimilation, while the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act offered citizenship to all Native Americans born within the nation's territorial limits."
SCOTUS did rule on the anchor babies thing, in 1898.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Wong_Kim_Ark
Indeed, how terrible! Those kids who then grow up in other countries outside the US will eventually be adults who have to pay taxes without sucking up any physical resources of said United States, whatever will we do about this huge drain on our resources? </sarcasm>
Why am I supposed to be mad about people doing this, exactly? Because of hazy "rules are rules" talk?
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Of course there isn't.
There's no written rule that the boss's son is gonna get the cushy VP slot, but everyone knows it.
Where was SCOTUS when https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_O%27Connor issued all his nationwide injunctions?
Well, that's very cynical and maybe you'll be right, but for now the California AG agrees with me. Per a quote in the WSJ [1]:
> California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a co-plaintiff, looked for a silver lining: Red states, which sought universal injunctions to stymie Biden administration policies, would encounter obstacles pursuing that strategy under a future Democratic president, he said.
Call me a crazy, glass-half-full centrist, but I prefer to look at this as a clawing back of extremely broad powers from rather partisan judges. It's been maddening that circuit court judges in a few hyper-partisan districts basically push every decision to the Supreme Court.
[1] https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/scotus-birthright-citizenshi...
> California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a co-plaintiff, looked for a silver lining…
Sure, and Susan Collins thinks Trump "learned his lesson" with his first impeachment. Looking for the silver lining is what we sometimes call "cope". He lost. As a politician, he's obliged to put some spin on it.
> It's been rather maddening that circuit court judges basically push every decision to the Supreme Court.
It is. This sort of thing should've died before ever becoming an EO, and at every level of the judiciary as clearly unconstitutional. That it didn't is a big problem.
Well, if we're predicting the future, here's mine: since they're already basically telegraphing it (and also because it's pretty clear-cut), I predict that they'll overturn the whole thing in a future case, and then the left will be crowing about how mean-ol Mr. Trump was taught a lesson in capital-D Democracy by our powerful system of government.
There’s also nothing in the ruling that binds the Supreme Court to uphold it when and if there’s another Democratic administration.
No, stare decisis is not binding. Nor does it still exist.
> No, stare decisis is not binding. Nor does it still exist.
If it was not binding, did it ever exist?
Anyway, there's nothing that binds any Supreme Court to do anything at all. This argument terminates in noise. It's just partisan fretting.
> There's nothing that binds any Supreme Court to do anything at all.
We agree. So your remark about “nothing in the ruling says. . .” was actually irrelevant to the broader point. From a lacuna in a decision we can conclude nothing.
We agree that if you assume a world where there's no precedent at all, then our system of government doesn't work.
Beyond that, no. We also don't agree that that world is the one that we live in.
That is actually what is going on and how right wing justices think.
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 injunctions) when they were aimed at a Democratic president. See, e.g. Biden's student loan forgiveness executive order.
> The Supreme Court has pointedly not ruled or said that the president has the authority to redefine birthright citizenship.
Yep, agreed. I already added an edit saying exactly the same thing.
Because they weren’t challenged on that basis.
They were.
"C. The District Court’s Remedy Was Improper" is a section of the petition for cert in The mifeprestone case from the Biden admin[0], where the SC overruled the district court's PI, but declined to address the question of whether it's PI was reasonable.
[0]: https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/...
I think that comment is referring to Trump v. United States, where the court said that a president cannot be held accountable for using a Constitutional authority to break the law. It is very literally "a blank mandate to break the law".
For example, a president is granted authority to command the military and issue pardons. They have absolute immunity for any act performed using these authorities, including illegal acts such as assassinating or deporting a political opponent or accepting bribes in return for pardons. This is not a matter of opinion or a controversial interpretation, these consequences were discussed during the case and in the opinion, and the court accepted them.
This was also discussed in the Constitutional Convention, where the participants decided the impeachment process, and failing that, four-year terms, were a sufficient remedy.
Surely the President could simply prevent congresspeople from voting to impeach via various means.
Sure, that was a concern: a sufficiently large faction of Senators might combine to protect a bad President, or destroy a good one unjustly.
> Mr. MADISON, objected to a trial of the President by the Senate, especially as he was to be impeached by the other branch of the Legislature, and for any act which might be called a misdemeanor. The President under these circumstances was made improperly dependent. He would prefer the Supreme Court for the trial of impeachments, or rather a tribunal of which that should form a part.
> Mr. PINKNEY disapproved of making the Senate the Court of impeachments, as rendering the President too dependent on the Legislature. If he opposes a favorite law, the two Houses will combine agst. him, and under the influence of heat and faction throw him out of office.
Ultimately it was decided that "in four years he can be turned out", so it was not worth addressing further. Indeed some argued that the President should not be impeachable at all because of this.
> Mr. KING expressed his apprehensions that an extreme caution in favor of liberty might enervate the Government we were forming. He wished the House to recur to the primitive axiom that the three great departments of Govts. should be separate & independent: that the Executive & Judiciary should be so as well as the Legislative: that the Executive should be so equally with the Judiciary. Would this be the case, if the Executive should be impeachable? It had been said that the Judiciary would be impeachable. But it should have been remembered at the same time that the Judiciary hold their places not for a limited time, but during good behaviour. It is necessary therefore that a forum should be established for trying misbehaviour. Was the Executive to hold his place during good behaviour? The Executive was to hold his place for a limited term like the members of the Legislature: Like them particularly the Senate whose members would continue in appointmt the same term of 6 years he would periodically be tried for his behaviour by his electors, who would continue or discontinue him in trust according to the manner in which he had discharged it. Like them therefore, he ought to be subject to no intermediate trial, by impeachment. He ought not to be impeachable unless he held his office during good behaviour, a tenure which would be most agreeable to him; provided an independent and effectual forum could be devised. But under no circumstances ought he to be impeachable by the Legislature. This would be destructive of his independence and of the principles of the Constitution. He relied on the vigor of the Executive as a great security for the public liberties.
Incorrect. Congress has a multitude of means to check the president.
>According to the Supreme Court, that's exactly what it does. The President simply isn't accountable.
The president absolutely is accountable. The problem is the Congress for their own reasons refuse to hold it to account. The Congress could remove any president in less than 24 hours with simple majority for no reason whatsoever.
They cannot. It requires a simple majority in the House followed by a 2/3 majority in the Senate. This is basically impossible to achieve.
Also, any time anyone actually brings up any details about Presidential elections you'll quick get many people rushing to explain how the people do not in fact directly elect the President and how this is such an incredibly brilliant idea.
Except voting this person to the presidency has given just over 1000 convicted criminals a pardon, as promised in advance. It’s an unlimited and irreversible power.
The Court has long considered that the president has a duty to follow the law, but also that the Court can’t compel the president to follow the law. That is a political question. Congress alone can stop a president by impeaching and removing them from office. Not only can’t the Court initiate impeachments, impeachment is unreviewable by the Court.
If there’s a servile Congress, it means voters can elect a law breaker as president. They are going to get a president who breaks the law.
And this is what’s happening. People voted for an abuser, a rapist, a felon, a conspiracy theorist who lies about the outcome of elections, lies that VPOTUS can and should overturn them, and even sent a mob to have that VPOTUS assassinated for refusing to comply with that illegal order. Then boasted he’d pardon all those criminals who were in his service. And despite all of this, people voted for him again.
The people got exactly what they voted for.
It's so silly to blame the American people though, considering the vastly greater resources required to politically organize millions of people to counter the what a handful of people in the executive branch or a couple dozen people in the legislative branch can do with a flick of the wrist.
I vote but have little influence because I won't join a party and live in a state with closed primaries where the real selection process is carried out. If the remaining 30 closed states cared about civic engagement they'd switch to one of the established open primary models.
There is also the damage done by the Supreme Court ending the Voting Rights Act, had the act been in place in 2024, Kamalah would have won by a landslide. Millions of minority voters were targeted for disenfranchisement in 2024.
Huh? Kamala lost because Trump made in-roads in Latino and Arab voting population in Michigan and Wisconsin. Almost half of Latinos voted for Trump [0] and more Arabs voted for Trump than Kamala [1] and [2] and [3]. Quite the opposite of minority voters were disenfranchised - minorities exercised their right to vote the way they wanted.
[0] https://www.as-coa.org/articles/how-latinos-voted-2024-us-pr... [1] https://www.voanews.com/a/in-historic-shift-american-muslim-... [2] https://www.npr.org/2025/03/03/nx-s1-5249686/arab-muslim-vot... [3] https://thewash.org/2024/11/07/arab-american-voters-shift-to...
between that one and citizen's united the GOP takeover was assured.
Not until the one-two punch of Obama not insisting on his SCOTUS nominee being pushed through, and RBG not retiring in time for him to have a second. You could put it as late as the DNC pushing Clinton as the 2016 presidential nominee and/or pushing for Trump to be the GOP nominee (with the rationale that he'd be easy to defeat).
What *meaningful* action would you have people take?
Remember, force is out of the question because it will provide justification for the oppression and make people more willing to accept it.
Force is never out of the question.
The illusion some want you to believe, is that it is.
Brian Thompson's death didn't seem to have any major consequences along those lines. Targeted assassinations seem to be kosher for avoiding crackdowns. If someone were to shoot Peter Thiel in the head, do we REALLY expect to see a sudden descent into oppressive authoritarianism? Or, as with Thompson, do most people say, "Eh, he had it coming," and keep it moving?
Voting and engagement is not the issue. Trump would have won even if all eligible voters voted.
https://www.npr.org/2025/06/26/nx-s1-5447450/trump-2024-elec...
The problem is that Dems are just culturally irrelevant. Most people don't care about issues, policy or the economy, they just want to cheer for a team and will justify everything their team does regardless of efficacy or outcome. Trump is the fun underdog team that everyone is talking about, the Dems are the boring party-pooper team we all love to hate. During covid, that boring became a source of needed stability, but after boring stewarded us through the crisis, nobody wanted to be associated with them again.
There is some compelling research from Princeton that for 90%+ of the American voting population, there opinions have zero impact on federal policy. It's all lobby driven money.
“The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”
https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba
And they actively vote against the will of their constituents 35% of the time. http://promarket.org/2017/06/16/study-politicians-vote-will-...
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/2024/10/29/podcasts/the-daily/electi... (“On the Ballot: An Immigration System Most Americans Never Wanted”). Americans never asked to import tens of millions of people from the third world. When Congress reformed the immigration system in 1965, they promised that wouldn’t happen. But for decades, there’s been a coalition of pro-foreigner liberals and pro-cheap-labor conservatives that have facilitated massive immigration that average americans never asked for.
Trump, ironically, is a reaction to the very thing the Princeton study identified.
> 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 day to day.
Systematic voter suppression plus gerrymandering etc may win you rigged elections, but ultimately voting isn’t about the system in place it’s avoidance unrest. We’re entering uncharted territory with how strongly people disagree with what the government is doing, which is where the general public actually has a say, namely by destroying the existing power structures rather than voting. It’s not even a question of insurrection, not having kids plus 60’s style dropping out at scale is ruinous.
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.
> 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 day to day.
It does tell you something. For example, if people mostly disagreed with the elites, but the elites got their way anyway, that would be a different situation.
> We’re entering uncharted territory with how strongly people disagree with what the government is doing
You’re overestimating how much people care about any of this stuff. I’m in a blue state and I hear almost nothing about it other than from some overly empathetic people on facebook. The “protests” recently were tepid and nearly all elderly liberals with nothing better to do.
A big chunk of the country really wants mass deportations, and for the most part, folks in the broader left don’t care much to oppose it.
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.
> this is exactly what more then half the people wanted
Donald Trump received only 49.8% of votes in the 2024 United States presidential election.
You’re really pulling at straws. Despite what Michelle Obama says, this is exactly “who we are” and who we have always been from slavery, to Jim Crow, to the dog whistles of Reagan to Willie Horton, to “Obama is a secret Muslim who wants to bring Sharia law”, to “the Haitians are eating our pets”, to the segregated proms that have happened in the rural south as late as the early 2000s.
This is what the American people voted for.
I'm not grasping at straws, because I don't have any particular conclusion in mind. It looked to me like you were specifically contrasting the electoral college with the popular vote while explicitly claiming that Donald Trump received more than half of the popular vote. I responded with a correction to your technicality.
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If your contribution is to quote an old rap song and make a meta complaint about how people will react to you, then you're right - you don't deserve a positive reaction.
I did two things this year that had nontrivial effects on my state of mind.
1. I quit drinking for the time being. This had a modest but real effect on my mood and general wellbeing. It has pros and cons, but on balance it's a win for where I'm at and what I'm trying to do. I might choose differently in the future.
2. I installed GrapheneOS and built NixOS, from source, with fairly extreme choices about networking. This had a staggering effect on every aspect of how I think and feel: cutting the surveillance capitalism at the network level is like having a mass of rage and angst and blurry confusion taken out of my head. I will never, ever go back to that.
Its time for everyone to cut the cord. Get a Pixel, an 8a open box at best buy can be 200-300, install Lineage or Calyx or Graphene, and reclaim ownership of your brain.
Absolutely, and they discussed this. The “problem” with that is the results of a class action are binding on the class, win or lose. So it’s possible that you’re a member of the # Million person class-action claiming to be exempt from deportation because of X (because you didn’t opt-out) and the class could lose. The Universal Injunctions were a one-way rule. If the government lost any one case, the rule would apply again the government in every other instance. However, if the government won, only that one person would be deported and the opposition would be free to try the same argument again against a different judge.
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.
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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Sounds like you now need to start lawsuits in every state?
> Sounds like you now need to start lawsuits in every state?
Every federal judicial district (that's one per state in smaller states, but more in larger states—California has four.)
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.
Not that recently; the change from 2 to 4 was in 1966.
https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/about-federal-...
Well, I'm confident the number will go back to 2 by the end of this current presidential term.
They need to do two things:
1. File a suit in every circuit
2. Request an injunction type that's more appropriate
Given the number of babies being born every day it shouldn't be hard to do.
The thing is, the US doesn't issue citizenship papers. So I suppose they need to apply for an SSN and get denied (since the baby is a non-citizen), which will show immediate harm.
It also begs the question: if that baby is illegal can it be deported?
> and get denied
The thing here is that instead of officially denying it, the administration will just "coincidentally" slow-walk everything indefinitely, then illegally exile the baby to Sudan when ICE notices they don't have proof of citizenship.
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One upshot may be that the law will be drastically different in the several circuits and (unless SCOTUS plans to handle everything on the emergency docket — as it did here) it will stay that way so long as SCOTUS lets the issues percolate through them (using them as laboratories, as Justice O'Connor was fond of saying).
My understanding is that the administration's position is that at least one of the parents needs to be a citizen or a legal resident. If that's the case the answer to your question is: yes - together with the parents.
I suppose the recourse the Supreme Court is offering is that the baby (or more likely the parents) can sue when the citizenship is denied. At which point I'd just expect ICE to arrest and deport them when they show up to court for their lawsuit.
but the amendment doesn't say that, it's a very simple Amendment at its heart.
And if the parents are on valid non-resident visas? Suddenly the child has no status?
Moreover, there is literally no mechanism to prove that your parents are citizens.
Millions of citizens will be at the whim of whatever racist thug decides to hurt them that day.
Welcome to Fascist America.
Most of the world doesn't have unconditional birth right citizenship. It somehow functions and is not fascist.
The bit that’s fascist is that birthright citizenship is guaranteed in the US Constitution, and the current administration is openly flouting it.
The debate is over what "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" means, it's misleading to simply announce it's guaranteed - the whole legal argument is over whether it is guaranteed.
If these folks aren't subject to our jurisdiction, how does one manage to deport them?
as soon as you step foot in the USA you are subject to its jurisdiction. Just like if you go to Canada or Zimbabwe and break a law there. You would be laughed at with much gusto for breaking the law and telling them they don't have jurisdiction.
> it's misleading to simply announce it's guaranteed.
Let's not pretend all assertions are equally worth entertaining. Maybe it's "misleading" if you're Stephen Miller, but every court case where it's ever been heard and the legislative record at the time of adopting the 14th amendment show that citizenship is guaranteed. The Trump administration hasn't even raised it in appeals!
The author of the clause didn't think it applied to the children of aliens, so it doesn't seem crazy to me.
> Howard said that the clause "is simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land already, that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States."[30] He added that citizenship "will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons"[30]—a comment which would later raise questions as to whether Congress had originally intended that U.S.-born children of foreign parents were to be included as citizens.[32]
> The author of the clause…
That'd be a deeply ironic thing to cite as evidence for this court.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textualism
"Textualism is a formalist theory in which the interpretation of the law is based exclusively on the ordinary meaning of the legal text, where no consideration is given to non-textual sources, such as intention of the law when passed, the problem it was intended to remedy, or significant questions regarding the justice or rectitude of the law."
Legislative intent didn't save the Voting Rights Act, or the EPA.
> He added that citizenship "will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons"
yes, exactly, if you're born to an ambassador in the US, you aren't subject to the jurisdiction.
Meanwhile:
> The proposition before us, I will say, Mr. President, relates simply in that respect to the children begotten of Chinese parents in California, and it is proposed to declare that they shall be citizens. We have declared that by law; now it is proposed to incorporate the same provision in the fundamental instrument of the nation. I am in favor of doing so. I voted for the proposition to declare that the children of all parentage whatever, born in California, should be regarded and treated as citizens of the United States, entitled to equal civil rights with other citizens of the United States. . . . Here is a simple declaration that a score or a few score of human beings born in the United States shall be regarded as citizens of the United States, entitled to civil rights, to the right of equal defense, to the right of equal punishment for crime with other citizens; and that such a provision should be deprecated by any person having or claiming to have a high humanity passes all my understanding and comprehension.
(the "declared that by law" is referring to the Civil Rights Act of 1866 that Howard used as the basis of the 14th amendment: "all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States")
The Supreme Court explicitly rejected this reasoning in Plyler v. Doe (1982).
> This Court's prior cases... cannot be distinguished on the asserted ground that persons who have entered the country illegally are not "within the jurisdiction" of a State even if they are present within its boundaries and subject to its laws. Nor do the logic and history of the Fourteenth Amendment support such a construction. Instead, use of the phrase "within its jurisdiction" confirms the understanding that the Fourteenth Amendment's protection extends to anyone, citizen or stranger, who is subject to the laws of a State, and reaches into every corner of a State's territory. Pp. 457 U. S. 210-216.
It’s curious you don’t link to a source even though you pasted something that contains references - I suspect you know that you are misinterpreting this willfully.
> The author of the clause didn't think it applied to the children of aliens, so it doesn't seem crazy to me. >> Howard said that the clause "is simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land already, that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States."[30] He added that citizenship "will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons"[30]—a comment which would later raise questions as to whether Congress had originally intended that U.S.-born children of foreign parents were to be included as citizens.[32]
that doesn't matter, they also don't have a 14th amendment that is very easy to read and understand, even for those with fascistic tendencies.
I would assume that the child would be registered with the embassy that the parents are citizens of and there would be an application for a non-resident visa that would be fast tracked.
Greenland, Finland, Norway and Sweden all have no concept of Jus Soli and as far as I know, kids born to non-residents aren't being deported from the hospital.
>Moreover, there is literally no mechanism to prove that your parents are citizens.
I would think a birth certificate would work....
> I would think a birth certificate would work....
You'd probably be wrong.
> Still, Immigration and Customs Enforcement kept Watson imprisoned as a deportable alien for nearly 3 1/2 years… Watson was correct all along: He was a U.S. citizen.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/08/01/540903038...
Bonus: They held him long enough the statute of limitations to sue expired.
> On Monday, an appeals court ruled that Watson, now 32, is not eligible for any of that money — because while his case is "disturbing," the statute of limitations actually expired while he was still in ICE custody without a lawyer.
Even a passport isn't enough:
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamedaleaziz/us-born-ma...
> A US-born Marine veteran who served in Afghanistan had his US passport, a REAL ID driver’s license, a military ID card, and his US Marine Corps dog tags with him when he was arrested by police in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which held him for three days before his lawyer demanded his release, according to the ACLU of Michigan.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-ice-detained-c...
> In her study, she found that, on average, U.S. citizens detained by ICE spent 180 days behind bars.
> I would think a birth certificate would work
Without birthright citizenship, a birth certificate no longer implies citizenship.
> I would think a birth certificate would work....
Many Americans have no birth certificate. My mother, for example.
Right but those countries also don't have a 14th amendment either
>I would think a birth certificate would work....
Remember when the whole entirety of the US right-wing lost their goddamned minds for a year or so re: a sitting president's birth certificate?
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An excerpt from They Thought They Were Free:
"What no one seemed to notice," said a colleague of mine, a philologist, "was the ever widening gap, after 1933, between the government and the people. Just think how very wide this gap was to begin with, here in Germany. And it became always wider. You know, it doesn’t make people close to their government to be told that this is a people’s government, a true democracy, or to be enrolled in civilian defense, or even to vote. All this has little, really nothing, to do with knowing one is governing.
"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.
"This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter. (https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.htm)
It seems like it was ruled that instead of 1000, much more local, people able to protect constitutional rule with the force of the judiciary, we now have 9.
If you analyze only based on power changes, now fewer people have more power.
It's wild that that the supreme court can just avoid ruling on the actual patently illegal and unconstitutional action that this administration is taking and instead solely focus on a procedural mechanism that is being used to stop that illegal action.
Oh but the high court of chancery in england! They didn't have them, so we can't either! Never mind that is 2025, we're a different nation, the federal government has a lot more power, and we have these injunctions for all of Biden's term and they had plenty of opportunity to stop them but said nothing when it was for protecting gun rights or denying women's healthcare.
I've been waiting for it, and here it is: the Enabling Act of 1933. Trump can now make his own laws. 1934 is right around the corner.
Shouldn’t it say US Supreme Court affirms constitutional powers?
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 plainly unlawful policies unless doing so is necessary to afford the formal parties complete relief. That holding renders constitutional guarantees meaningful in name only for any individuals who are not parties to a lawsuit. Because I will not be complicit in so grave an attack on our system of law, I dissent."
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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.
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 Corrections Act of 1994 extended it to children of US citizens who are born outside the US.
Well, okay, but none of this applies to the children of illegal immigrants.
Most illegal immigrants are not foreign diplomats or members of foreign armed forces stationed in the US.
This is false, per US v. Wong Kim Ark, and the attempt to reinterpret "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" was shot down by courts in Plyler v Doe.
https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-14/
Nope.
> 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.
It does not mean that in broad strokes. It very specifically was meant to exclude folks such as children of diplomats, as decided in United States vs Wong Kim Ark 169 U.S. 649 (1898): https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/169/649
A great summary: https://law.stackexchange.com/a/33057
In short the phrase “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” excludes three and only three groups of people:
1.Children born to foreign diplomats here on diplomatic business, who have diplomatic immunity to US Law
2.Children of members of an invading army that has occupied and controlled some part of US territory, born on that occupied area, who are obviously not subject to US Law (which has rarely happened in the US, although Guam was occupied during WWII, and parts of Alaska, and small parts of Maine during the War of 1812); and
3. Members of Native American tribes, subject to the jurisdiction of their tribal governments, who do not pay US taxes. (This was true when the 14th amendment was passed, but it no longer is. See section below on the act that changed it in 1924.)
That's a common misconception.
https://www.heritage.org/immigration/commentary/birthright-c...
Using the Heritage foundation as a source says a lot. The tree where all the liars and conmen in this administration have come from.
Yes, it's terrible people can disagree with you. How about addressing his points?
Neither you nor that heritage foundation (an incredibly biased and anti-immagrant organization) have read the supreme court decision which I linked to. To save you time, I will quote the relevant commentary by the justice:
> [T]he Fourteenth Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and under the protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens, with the exceptions or qualifications (as old as the rule itself) of children of foreign sovereigns or their ministers, or born on foreign public ships, or of enemies within and during a hostile occupation of part of our territory, and with the single additional exception of children of members of the Indian tribes owing direct allegiance to their several tribes. The Amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born, within the territory of the United States, of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States.
What do you suppose "in the allegiance and under the protection of the country" means?
I am sure you would love that same standard to apply to the second amendment
Who's citizenship did Trump take away?
Was it taken away illegally or by the book?
Without citing sources or arguments to that, then it literally it IS FUD.
Per the policy directive of https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/prot... citizenship has been taken away from anyone born from parents of targeted classes as of Jan 20, 2025 with a 30-day order for all executive departments and agencies to enact the policy.
Giving citizenship away to millions in order to, in effect, "elect a new people", should be considered treason.
Ironically the largest number of immigrants have been Latinos, who come from a fairly traditional and conservative culture. Ask any Mexican outside of the capital how they feel about abortion or trans women using women's bathrooms. These are not destined to be voters for the Democrats in the long term.
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
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.
Hold up.
If you're born here
And I'm born here
.... ??????????
It's right there in the fucking Constitution!
That's what I'm saying, it's one of the most simple Amendments in terms of understandability, yet people will completely ignore that somehow. If the 14th can be loop-holed, we might as well chuck all copies of the constitution in the Potomac and just declare Trump dictator
What about children born to those on work Visas such as H1B. Does this apply to them?
Citizen or immigration status does not matter, it depends if they are in a state with the case being litigated in federal court or if they live one of the twenty eight states that did not join the case. The Trump admin can make up whatever rule they want for the other twenty eight states. The Supreme Court just narrowed the specifity of injunctions to solely the litigants which opens up a huge can of worms in American legal system.
Federal judges' can't block EOs indefinitely. The WH can appeal to a circuit court, and so on up to the Supreme Court. But it does prevent the Admin from implementing an unconstitutional EO while they wait to be challenged in all states/districts.
I'm not particularly happy about nationwide injunctions, but this is much worse if you have a president who is not shy to "break the law now and fight it in court later". And now that Trump has shown the way, you can be sure future presidents will follow.
Another terrible outcome is that you then have federal orders applied differently from state to state (or more accurately, federal district to district). If you're in Nevada you won't get citizenship, but in Oregon you will.
This is right up there with the Presidential Immunity in terms of terrible decisions by this SCOTUS.
> If you're in Nevada you won't get citizenship, but in Oregon you will.
They're 100% coming for Obergfell and it's clear now how. They'll arrest a legal US citizen who has naturalized citizenship from illegal parents, born in a state that received an injunction but residing in a state that has not.
The representative of that person will say that they by being a citizen in the other state, they must be respected as a citizen in the other. They will cite Obergfell.
The SCOTUS will revoke their ruling on Obergfell and say, no, you are not a citizen just because there's an injunction in that other state.
The astute reader may notice that this is literally a replay of Dread Scott.
This is up there with Citizens United. This road is dark.
It’s Trump’s world we are just living in it (as NPCs).
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.
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 citizenship is a fundamental and clear cut right. Any attempts to overturn that must meet a high burden of justification. Temporarily suspending such attempts until the matter can firmly be decided causes the least amount of harm and should be allowed.
> Birthright citizenship is a fundamental and clear cut right.
That's pre-2025 thinking. Now, in 2025, there are no clear cut rights, other than, maybe, gun ownership.
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What are you even talking about? I can't make any sense of your argument.
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You don’t squirt out infants… please.
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Quite difficult to file a lawsuit from a prison in El Salvador.
It ain't no cakewalk from a torture prison in Sudan either.
Before today’s ruling nationwide injunctions were granted. Not sure how you can now claim “that’s how the court system works” when nationwide injunctions were fine before today’s ruling.
A President can now issue blatantly unconstitutional executive orders and the burden for obtaining relief will rest on each individual person (or small class of people). Prior to today rules/laws that caused harm could be temporarily prevented from being enforced while the matter is litigated. Now parties that will be harmed are much more likely to be harmed before the matter is resolved. This is a sad state of affairs.
If the next President issues an order confiscating guns from people the champions of today’s ruling will want nationwide relief while the matter is litigated.
If someone is going to be deported they can file a case and stop the deportation.
And you accuse OP of not paying attention!
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.
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.
Universal injunctions were a Band-Aid fix, one of the very few avenues our system permitted for there to be any rapid institutional response to illegal and immediately harmful policy. But that is no more.
As an exercise, what happens if a president issues a "throw enemies in the woodchipper" executive order? How many hours or days would it take the other branches of government to legally nullify the order? (What they can do in practice is another question.)
It's an extreme example, but a future admin could use the current admin's reasoning to unilaterally confiscate guns and force you to be a plaintiff in federal court to get relief.
>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 court below supreme court can, and routinely do, block cases from getting to supreme court. And More. In short UK judiciary is institutionally corrupt with the elected and unelected the one and the same but press won't say it.
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.
The UK is all about 'appearencea' hence why they came up with 'justice must not just be done but be seen to be done'
With ref to your point 1 and 2 , they are not needed. HRA 1998 covers that.
Point 3 - the supreme court was previously within the House of Lords and the one day they got their own building.
The primary and secondary legislation, and leading case law is fine in the UK. Its just that the Judges know what are really there for and routinely falsify the outcomes.
No one sees the case files, no one sees the transcript, only the judges judgement is published and that we all have to pretend is never anything other than perfect...
>I feel your points are valid but don't really express enough detail.
I run a non profit trying to change this, can talk about it for hours. Volunteers welcome!
You have multiple international agencies thinking of exactly those questions. Here's just one who calls the US a flawed democracy:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/democracy...
> 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!?
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.
> Individuals can't (practically) secede
Neither can states, either practically or legally.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_v._White
Yeah that's completely meaningless as far as the possibility of secession is concerned. All it means is that if you secede and reenter then all the legislation you did as a separate state is void which is completely reasonable.
The US constitution is outdated. There is a whole host of historical experience around totalitarian subversion of democratic constitutions of similar design to the US one. That experience has never been used to update the way the US works. In other words, the manual to overturn the system from the inside has been out there for a long time.
The three branch system allows any two to gang up on the third. Parliamentary systems don't have any checks like this and trend towards unitary authoritarians.
In modern parliamentary systems, political leaders are not in direct control of the executive branch. Politicians may issue priorities and guidance, but career civil servants run the show. Department heads serve fixed terms that are independent of the election cycle, and they cannot be removed without a criminal conviction. If politicians want major changes, they can change the law. And in many countries, the constitutionality of proposed legislation must be established in advance.
The descent to authoritarianism usually begins with a party gaining enough power that it can override the checks and balances. Which often involves rewriting the constitution.
An authoritarian unelected deep state is even worse.
No. The three branch system allows any two to gang up legally against the third. But, as we are seeing, all the actual power relies with the executive. They can simply ignore the actions of the other two.
What actually happened is that all four branches were held by Republicans, so none of them is going to hold any of the others accountable.
If the collective elected government agrees on policy, is that not democracy working well?
Who cares about the constitution, he said he has a mandate!
Every country has a constitution, usually it's ignored. The value of a piece of paper is only as much as the people that comprise the system that upholds it. If you completely ignore the people and just whine at them about constitution this and that they're going to ignore it and rip it up. Society is also a compact and if the supermajority wants something they're going to get it.
True.
The US system has power more fragmented than most. In Europe, the Senate often doesn't wield any power (it rubber stamps anything the legislature approves). The executive is a part of the legislative.
In parliamentary system, individual MPs are "whipped" into voting with the party, and can basically be pushed out of power if they don't go along with it. If the party in power has a large majority, there is nothing but the courts to stop them from passing whatever they want.
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.
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The most depressing thing COVID made clear is even in the "land of the free and home of the brave" people will just do what they're told by the authorities.
What if those people consider what they're being told by the authorities, understand that it makes sense, and choose to take that action because it's important for the public good?
Why are people who prioritized public health during a temporary pandemic "sheep", but the President's supporters who demonstrate exceptionally cult-like behavior, "free thinking individuals"?
You can't have it both ways.
> Why are people who prioritized public health during a temporary pandemic "sheep", but the President's supporters who demonstrate exceptionally cult-like behavior, "free thinking individuals"?
You nailed it. Both extremes are sheep.
Instead of listening to some randos on the internet who "did my own research"?
In that case there seemed to be bipartisan consensus—the liberals and civil rights fanatics seemed to largely agree with President Trump's shutdown policies.
Decisions by courts are often enjoined based on a balancing test as well as the likelihood that the issue will succeed or not.
So, deporting people to a third-country (another decision SCOTUS allowed this term) has a simple balancing test: stay here and be fine or possibly deport a Chinese citizen to El Salvador, which could cause incredible harm. So even ignoring th elikelihood of how the issue is decided, the balancing test favors enjoining third-party deportation.
So in this case, we had a universal injunction against an executive order removing birthright citizenship. This fails on two fronts:
1. As justices noted, it's highly unlikely that the order will be held up as constitutional. There is case law on this. The language of the 14th amendment is clear. The exact issue was discussed at the time. This has no hope in a non-corrupt court of succeeding.
2. Given other decisions, bona fide US citizens could be deported to CECOT and detained indefinitely with no due process. So it should be stayed because of the potential harm.
What SCOTUS did today was say the order revoking birthright citizenship was unlikely to succeed but it allows the administration to proceed anyway while hte issue is litigated in the courts, which could take years.
That's how corrupt this court is.
People have been fed this propaganda that Supreme Court justices are apolitical legal scholars who come down from their tower to issue judgements and keep things in check. It couldn't be further from the truth. Supreme Court justices are political appointees that dress up their political positions in legalese.
Example 1: this court invented the "major questions doctrine" whereby the court decides a matter is large enough that the court gets to override both the administrative and legislative branches.
Example 2: they also invented the "historical traditions doctrine", which is used selectively. For example, abortion was completely legal 200+ years ago. Ben Franklin even published at-home instructions on how to perform an abortion [1].
Example 3: in the wake of the Civil War there was huge violence not from the freed slaves but from white people towards former slaves, most notably with the Colfax massacre. The Supreme Court went on a white supremacist tear during Reconstruction, notably gutting the federal government's ability to prosecute hate crimes like Colfax [2].
Example 4: The Tiney court in the 1850s made what is perhaps one of the worst decisions ever made (ie Dred Scott), arguing from a legal and constitutional perspective that black people weren't "people".
Example 5: the Roberts court decided that moeny equals speech, gutting any legislation around campaign spending, which is a big part of how we got here.
Example 6: the presidential immunity decision will go down in history as one of the 10 or even 5 worst decisions ever made. It completely invented far-reaching immunity that essentially made the president a king, in a country that was founded on the very idea of rejecting monarchs.
Example 7: in 1984, the Supreme Court decided that in any areas of ambiguity in legislation, trial courts should defer to the agency empowered by Congress to enforce that legislation. This is the so-called "Chevron deference".
More than 40 years passed through 7 presidents (4 Republican and 3 Democrat) where both parties at different times controlled Congress. Congress declined to legislate away Chevron deference despite having ample opportunity to do so. Moreso, they intentionally wrote legislation with Chevron deference in mind yet this court decided to reverse Chevron. Yet on other cases, the court has deferred to Congress's inaction as intent.
Fun fact: Chevron v Natural Resources Defense Council was previously known as Natural Resources Defense Council v. Gorsuch [3]. That's not a coincidence. The suit involved Reagan's head of dthe EPA, Anna Gorsuch, mother of current Supreme Court justice Neil Gorsuch, who was humiliated and ultimately fired from the EPA while trying to destroy it from within.
[1]: https://www.npr.org/2022/05/18/1099542962/abortion-ben-frank...
[2]: https://www.theroot.com/what-was-the-colfax-massacre-1790897...
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_Resources_Defense_Coun...
This is essentially an ad hoc Constitutional Convention being carried out by 6 people, 3 of whom were hand-picked by the sitting president and another of whom is arguably the most corrupt Supreme Court Justice in our history. Nothing is off the table. Anyone who thinks the Constitution can protect them should think again.
It's amazing how much people love unlimited authority as long as they perceive that they are on the winning team.
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No. It’s better to have a court that does its job. Reasonable people can accept a decision even if they disagree if the reasoning is not solid than “lol we can so suck it up”.
And yes, anything close to a majority nominated by the sitting president is a constitutional crisis, in a regime where one is supposed to check the other.
The courts only have so much power because congress is dysfunctional and kicks every issue to the courts so they don't have to be accountable to voters.
Well yeah. That is a problem as well. The whole US government is a steaming mess right now, just because we cannot mention everything that’s wrong every post does not mean that we should not discuss any specific example.
Yes, congress also abdicated its power. At the moment you have an executive branch ignoring law, precedent, and court orders, the legislative branch that is subservient to the executive and a judiciary in a state of civil war. None of that is right. None of the top-level institutions are working as they should.
The Supreme Court has literally been usurping power from Congress by refusing to read the laws they've passed as written, kicking them back or neutering them knowing that Congress is locked down.
And in this case they're refusing to do their actual job, which is defending the constitutional foundation of our country.
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You have no idea, you don’t know me and that was not the point I was making.
To clarify, do you think you're uniquely better at this than most / the folks here, or is that not an intended implication? Do you further think this phenomena is specific to here, or was that not an intended implication? Just trying to figure out what your scope is.
Birthright citizenship is literally in the Constitution
The "i like bagels -> oh so you hate croissants, huh?" framing strikes again.
This is what things going to shit looks like. You may be completely justified in acting the way you are, it just so happens that that's of very little help. Spiraling is pretty tough to prevent at that point.
And yes, very obviously people have an easier time understanding things when they're better aligned with their thinking.
> ad hoc Constitutional Convention being carried out by any random activist judge appointed by any of the previous political opposition?
yes because the admin can appeal to a higher court; it at least pauses it so it can be more thoroughly evaluated as to its constitutionality
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I'm talking more broadly about this court and its decisions, of which this decision is one of many that are obliterating precedent and directly empowering the sitting president.
Want to ban nationwide injunctions against student debt relief? Sure, I can agree with that. Want to ban nationwide injunctions against ACA enforcement or some other similar type thing? I have no problem either way.
Banning a nationwide injunction against birthright citizenship is inherently different. It’s a fundamental constitutional right we are talking about. Banning birthright citizenship should not be allowed to be enforced until SCOTIS decides the matter.
Unfortunately, the US seems to be rapidly sliding into a combination of effectively/mostly one-party rule, oligarchy, corporatocracy, and to a lesser but visible extent, theocracy.
With the US Supreme Court strongly tilted toward all four, its an extremely difficult hole to climb out of.
I don't see a dictatorship (anytime soon). Not out of any abundance of optimism, but simply that all four of those constituencies and the Supreme Court's dominant wing itself, are highly aligned with each other, and would all lose out if it goes that far.
There's no legal reasoning. If there's a D president again, this gets reversed early on.
Nationwide injunctions were saught and used by (self-proclaimed) conservatives to slow down and stop Biden immigration policies.
You need to actually read the decision. There's plenty of legal reasoning. You may not agree with it, but your opinion is irrelevant.
One thing they didn't talk about was structural: the court system is split up into X circuits, and each circuit is independent. Normally each circuit uses rulings from other circuits as a basis for its judgements, but circuits are pretty independent from each other. The Supremes weigh in when the circuits conflicted with each other.
The national injunctions issued by the lower court allowed the lowest level court to have more authority than an appeals court. An appellate court's decision was only binding on its circuit. Why would a lower court have more authority than an appeals court? That makes no sense.
That's outside of all the reasoning the court used to stop this practice.
That said, if an affected individual brought a suit the may be able to get an injunction, since the court ruled that universal injunctions were inappropriate.
If the law is universal then it makes sense that courts can rule universally. If the law is arbitrary and every judge is basically a ruler of their own domain, which directly conflicts with the idea of Rule of Law, then it would be invalid for a lower court to make universal rulings.
It is precisely the universality and supremacy of the law which gives the lower courts the authority to make universal rulings. Just because something is federally illegal in one federal district doesn't mean it is legal in another.
The lower court doesn't have more authority than the appellate court if the appellate court can overturn the lower court.
No court has the "authority" to make arbitrary unlawful rulings.
>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.
> What makes no sense is the newly possible situation in which an action violates the U.S. Constitution in one district but not another
That's not new. It's called a circuit split, and generally results in the cases being combined when SCOTUS hears them to sort out the difference.
>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.
> this gets reversed early on.
Through what legal avenue?
That’s true, they have no power of the Supreme Court like the Rs do…oops
Why would a D president reverse it? It gives a D president more power, not less.
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So what do you want 2A supporters to do exactly? Start shooting government officials? Because I guarantee you would call them nut job terrorists if they did.
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.
To be fair, that is exactly what 2A supporters have claimed they're willing, ready and able to do, and what the 2A is intended to allow. Every single time there's a mass shooting or other such event, they're the first to start lecturing people on how that violence a price worth paying to have an armed populace around keeping the government in check, and that the threat of popular violence is the only thing keeping the government in check. An armed society is a civil society, and what not.
So yeah. Do a "water the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants," already. The gun people were more than willing when they thought a Democrat was stealing their votes or Bill Gates was putting microchips in vaccines.
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Please don't cross into personal attack. It only makes everything worse.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
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> 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 case law, their tendency to craft non-textual and ahistorical reading of the Constitution to suit their short-term political goals, and their seeming bottomless capacity for subservience and deference to an obviously unlawful executive branch that has repeatedly evinced contempt for the judicial.
So, given the extraordinary depths that the majority is sinking to, her dramatic dissents are more justified than you think.
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 that something is required or forbidden by the constitution, they mean that it is beyond the power of congress to permit or prescribe it; it is is completely outside of democratic control.
The majority of the court today have a judicial philosophy which was common to the court for most of its history whereby one would only, in extremely certain cases, rule an issue entirely outside of the democratic process -- ie., decided entirely by the constitution alone, as interpreted by 9 people.
It isnt the job of the SC to make america moral, or require the whole of the US to follow how you wish things to be -- their constitutional role is to prevent the operation of democracy in extremely clear cut cases.
As for presidential immunity -- all constitutional centres of power (congress, the courts, the president) have immunities in the exercise of that power. These are required to enable them to function as balances of power against the other. Eg., if the president could arrest a judge for a bad judgement, the courts would not balance the executive.
The court confirmed only that the president has no more or less the necessary kind of immunity that each branch has -- and this is a clear requirement of the balance of power system set up in the constitution.
They left open, very widely, grounds on which a president acting outside of the duties of the office, could be prosecuted. And they clearly believed trump could be on at least some of those grounds.
> 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.
Just as the president cannot hold law-makers or judges liable for their actions in law-making, likewise, can neither branch criminalise or prosecute actions of the president which belong to the president under their constitutional authority. It is an absolutely obvious ruling, as obvious as judicial immunity -- the constitution gives the president powers that congress nor courts can criminalise or constrain. That is the only impact of that ruling. It had nothing to do with criminal actions by trump, indeed the ruling clearly gave a pathway to criminal review of trump's actions.
Today's result also does not prevent state-wide injunctions, indeed, that's what they court has basically suggested. And K's concurrence lists the innumerable number of ways the executive can be universally constrained.
Your entire understanding of the SC here, under trump, has been completely distorted by emotionally-disregulating media narratives designed for those purposes. This is not a pro-Trump court.
> federal statute
Congress can just change the statue. As it does a very large number of times every year.
> 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.
> misogynist
? I'm entirely unaware of your sex. I imagine many of the hysterical people in this thread are men.
> That's not how the Constitution is supposed to work.
Correct, the SC is supposed to resolve that. And in this judgement, they affirm that they will.
> What's the point of the changing the statute
If the SC wanted to make bribery constitutionally permissible, they would not have made the ruling statutory. By making a ruling on statutory interpretation they are explicitly inviting congress to over-turn their ruling by amending the law. That's deliberate.
> So if the president conspires with the AG to illegally prosecute a political enemy...
No, this is illegal and prosecutable. A "political enemy" of the person of the president (eg., trump) is a private action. You can read the decision, it has nothing to do with allowing the person-who-happens-to-be-president to do whatever they want. A very wide class of criminal actions of this person are still criminal, this is explicitly there in the judgement.
They even clearly imply many of the things trump has done are prosecutable, and iirc, this is raised in oral arguments.
I don't know where you're getting your information, but it has little to do with these SC judgments or their reasoning. The constitutional powers afforded to the president (, congress, courts) are the very foundation of the constitution. All "immunity" here means is that insofar as these powers are concerned, *obviously*, they can only be changed via a constitutional amendment.
The actions of the president, to form the executive, constitute his presidental power. Just as, eg., writing a court opinion is the power of a judge. A judge cannot "make illegal" constitutional actions of the president, just as the president cannot arrest a judge for a judgement.
Presidental immunity in this case has nothing to do with immunity of the person of the president from criminal action taken to further his private interests, that is explicitly illegal in the ruling
> ? I'm entirely unaware of your sex. I imagine many of the hysterical people in this thread are men.
How is that relevant? The fantasy that any opinion that differs from yours is based in emotional interests, whereas your opinion is objective and logical is the root of many misogynistic attacks.
> Correct, the SC is supposed to resolve that. And in this judgement, they affirm that they will.
Your argument is tautological. You're saying "SCOTUS's job is to interpret the Constitution, and there is no appeal to their decision, therefore their interpretetation must be correct." Your position makes it impossible to ever find that SCOTUS is incorrect. So what's the point of your argument?
> If the SC wanted to make bribery constitutionally permissible, they would not have made the ruling statutory. By making a ruling on statutory interpretation they are explicitly inviting congress to over-turn their ruling by amending the law. That's deliberate.
What's deliberate is they opened the door to official corruption, despite the obvious intent of Congress to make that activity illegal. When their judgement goes against the plain language and intent of the written law, SCOTUS is wrong. Now, those wishing to commit official corruption have a clear, SCOTUS-approved blueprint of how to do it. They have, with their decision, ensured that only the most inept cases of official corruption can be prosecuted. And they know full well that Congress, in its current state of disfunction, will not ammend the law.
> No, this is illegal and prosecutable. A "political enemy" of the person of the president (eg., trump) is a private action. You can read the decision, it has nothing to do with allowing the person-who-happens-to-be-president to do whatever they want. A very wide class of criminal actions of this person are still criminal, this is explicitly there in the judgement.
You have clearly not read the decision. Any official act using powers vested in the presidency gets presumptive immunity. Conferring with the AG is an official act. All the president has to do is claim a good-faith attempt to enforce the law, and the act cannot be used as evidence in any prosecution against him.
> They even clearly imply many of the things trump has done are prosecutable, and iirc, this is raised in oral arguments.
I don't believe they did. Please provide a citation from the decision.
> I don't know where you're getting your information, but it has little to do with these SC judgments or their reasoning. The constitutional powers afforded to the president (, congress, courts) are the very foundation of the constitution. All "immunity" here means is that insofar as these powers are concerned, obviously, they can only be changed via a constitutional amendment.
This is completely irrelevant. No one is talking about changing the powers, only requiring that they be used lawfully. The president takes an oath to carry out the law; your position, and that of SCOTUS, seems to be that that oath has no meaning.
> The actions of the president, to form the executive, constitute his presidental power. Just as, eg., writing a court opinion is the power of a judge. A judge cannot "make illegal" constitutional actions of the president, just as the president cannot arrest a judge for a judgement.
Again, a tautalogical argument: if his act is Constitutional, then it can't be illegal. That's missing the point. The president can have the Constituional power to command the army, while still not having the legal power to command the army to murder Joe Biden. Do you honestly not see the difference between a means granted by the Constitution and an illegal use of that power? Well, if you don't, you belong on the SCOTUS.
> Presidental immunity in this case has nothing to do with immunity of the person of the president from criminal action taken to further his private interests, that is explicitly illegal in the ruling
This interpretation is not to be found in the ruling.
Based on your responses, I'd say that you are the one letting your emotions get the best of you. You're clearly in the bag for Trump and are willing to distort reality in order to justify your preconceived position.
> This interpretation is not to be found in the ruling.
Then you haven't read it. It's explicit.
> they opened the door to official corruption,
Their job is not to make America moral, that's the job of the congress and the democractic process of government. If they say a statue means A rather than B, it is then the job of elected representatives to clarify they mean B. Or else you believe 9 unelected people should govern the country. Congress often modifies law in light of SC rulings to make these clarifications.
> Your position makes it impossible to ever find that SCOTUS...
I don't think you've understood my point. My point was only that today's ruling asserts what you are asserting. The SC has explicitly said that they will still impose universal injunctions, still invalidate executive orders, etc. Only that district courts cannot.
There is nothing in this principle which means that the courts can no longer constrain the executive. The constitution only prescribes one court, the supreme court -- all others are created by congress and must therefore be granted these powers by congress.
What the SC has said is that these powers were not given to district courts by congress. They still can be if congress wishes. So congress can grant these powers.
All of this is irrelevant anyway, as K explains in his concurrence, that there are many ways to universally challege this order that do not require extraordinary powers to be given to district court judges, powers never given to them by congress.
>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 losing more broadly.
Seems like the takeaway here for any would-be executive-overreachers is "lose a couple cases affecting a handful of plaintiffs and ignore those loses."
IIRC the general trend for getting a class certified for a class action is also in the "make it harder to do" direction.
Not necessarily, though I'd guess what Kavanaugh imagines is that many states will obtain state-wide injunctions that make executing an order like this practically impossible (indeed, that is what the SC has said should happen next) -- and, imv, he believes there is a nation-wide class in-play and this will go to a nation-wide class action. At which time the executive will be entirely boxed in. Given this, the executive has to ask the SC to stay some of these, or grant cert., or there's practically no EO in play.
It's important to remember here that states are relevant parties to these suits against the federal government, and there are enough of them to enjoin any practical excerise of executive action.
The SC has basically asserted that only it will, temporarily or permanently, review those cases where there is a federal-level split on these issues requiring a universal solution.
I have a feeling he's also hinting that the SC will, in light of this, look at how it handles temporary orders -- he has, at least said, it is now obligated to be very proactive in these areas and take on all such temporary requests to enjoin the executive
There's also the APA question, I don't fully understand judicial review in these cases -- but iirc, the APA grants courts to order the executive to stop (or to take) action on such policies. So when the EO has a "policy implementation" people can bring suits under the APA to enjoin, which is equivalent to a universal injunction.
In that case than this change seems entirely pointless. Obviously there are plenty of states that are highly partisan in either direction. So it seems like the judicious thing to do would've been like "the status quo is fine, rulings that higher courts think are egregious can still be stayed pending appeal."
It's hard to believe it's so innocuous given that (a) it is such a new approach to the issue for a not-new feature of US law and (b) the broader literature being pushed by the people pushing for this change.
Instead it feels like the song and dance around how some Senators would try to get SC justice nominees to say they wouldn't overturn Roe v Wade - distractive performance that's utterly non-binding and an obvious smokescreen.
The SC was asked to consider a relatively narrow question of what the limits on equitable remindies in the discrict courts are. In a significant majority of cases they've exceeded their clear authority on anything like a plausible reading of what non-constitutional courts are supposed to do.
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 remedies are supposed to do, this would be one rare case where the action of the courts could be legally defensible.
However, the SC was extremely fed up with district courts sending inumerable number of cases their way -- trigger happy judges at the distict level deciding they're going to rule for the whole US in a federal system. So, by this point, they've tried many times to stop it, and it hadnt worked.
Here all they said is that you can have UIs only where congress makes explicit that courts have this power. They have done something kinda similar in the APA (creating judicial review of exec action), and can do again here (eg., a democratic congress could give the power in immigration cases; I think its plausible something like this happens). They also themselves retain the right to make such orders.
So they have only really moved where in the system such action is taken, retaining district court's rights to still -- very broadly -- give quite wide injunctions. And congress still has the power to empower the courts (though, as per usual, Thomas indicates he's on crazy pills and implies he would prevent congress from doing that -- that's not a serious outcome though).
Given the problems they faced with district courts, something had to give. They were persuaded, plausibly correctly, that there are enough avenues to prevent this executive overreach without empowering the lowest rung of judges to rule for the whole of the US.
> 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 remedies are supposed to do, this would be one rare case where the action of the courts could be legally defensible.
> However, the SC was extremely fed up with district courts sending inumerable number of cases their way -- trigger happy judges at the distict level deciding they're going to rule for the whole US in a federal system. So, by this point, they've tried many times to stop it, and it hadnt worked.
...so you were lauding a "Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I am willing to make" opinion?
We're talking citizenship here, in a time when the executive branch is deporting people as hastily as possible to prevent judicial review. But the supreme court was "extremely fed up" and took a stand...against universal injunctions. How "non-hysterical" of them.
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 issue a universal injunction as soon as the executive takes any issue whatsoever with this process.
> 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.
It cannot proceed for 30 days, in which time they can file a class action case -- and states which want to challenge this can still obtain state-wide injunctions. Neither has happened only because of the UI, not because the UI itself is required to challenge this.
And when this has a policy implementation it can be reviewed by the courts under the APA and that policy declated unconstitutional.
So no, this ruling says nothing about the executive order. An K's concurrence explains all the ways the order can still be challenged.
> 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
> However, the SC was extremely fed up with district courts sending inumerable number of cases their way
Well hold on then.
So you think the Court was wrong in this case? That they were just on tilt? Because if this case is a case for a universal injunction then does the executive have standing to ask about that issue here?
But if Sotomayor is correct on the relevance of a universal injunction here, then why is your "non-hysterical reaction" defending the decision instead?
---
I also find it hard to agree with "judges are creating problems" vs "an increasingly aggresive executive is creating problems." The legislature hasn't been able to do much for a long time because the splits are so close, so presidents try to do more directly. Is enabling that despite how closely split the legislature is ANYTHING like in line with how the US government system is supposed to work?
Cause really, awww, they have more cases than they used to? Welcome to the computer driven future, it sucks for all of us, don't make us suffer because you're tired of it.
Imagine you're a SC judge in this case, and you have to craft a judgement which allows universal injunctions in incredibly narrow and highly specific cases, whilst ruling out almost all of them. And that the area of law you're dealing with is a puddle of mud (equity).
You can either try to do this and roll the dice again on letting district courts interpret this judgement, or just say, basically no -- if you want to do this you have to come to us (or go via one of the other mechanisms). Given there are ~25 recent cases of this in total, its not a very significant number -- but the effects are extremely significant.
They chose the lesser of two evils, and in this lesser world, basically everything is still fine. You can still get the right outcomes.
This is the actual job of the court. There is no right answer. There is only what judgement they can write and what effects it will have, and whether those are the most consistent with the spirit of the constutional order (or statutory order) that has been setup.
its very common for them to rule, "in cases of doubt, just get congress to pass a law allowing this to happen"
They very often actually do amend laws due to SC rulings. Many laws are passed every year, and its very common to see amendements explicitly reply to tell the SC to undo its actions in cases where they've asked congress to be clear.
Just because I think there's a read of "complete equitable remedy" in this case which plausibly allows a district court to issue a UI, does not mean that the SC wasn't right to set a standard which precludes it. Or that asking congress to make this possible isn't the right position for the court to take.
You have to remember that congress is the democratic legislative body, not the courts. Having district courts intrude on US-wide implementation of congress' laws (via the executive) should really require congress to authorise that.
And in any case, they have in the APA -- and the SC can still do it.
> Imagine you're a SC judge in this case, and you have to craft a judgement which allows universal injunctions in incredibly narrow and highly specific cases, whilst ruling out almost all of them. And that the area of law you're dealing with is a puddle of mud (equity).
You can of course, also not take up the issue on this case. I can't find the article offhand, but I believe Steve Vladeck made this point that the SC has passed over a number of egregiously bad universal injunctions, handling them entirely on the shadow docket, and decided to grant full cert and a hearing on this case.
You can maybe argue that that's good in the sense that they're making a strong stand that even in the best example this is disallowed, which is clearer precedent. But also they could have picked a "better" case in the sense of it being a clearer misuse, and used that as the vehicle for the same ruling. Using a Kacsmaryk injunction for the same ruling sends a very different message than this case.
I think there's a clear 7-2 against this EO when its content will be considered. I do not think a lot of them enjoyed making this their stand against UIs; and you can hear in orals robert's frustration with the situation and various desires across the panel to find some way to thread the needle. I dont think any of the 7 trusted the goverment as far as they could throw them. This isn't a pro-trump court, nor one that believes any of this executive behaviour is credible. I think they were not at all pleased with how the case had been brought to them.
It's clear K's concurrence was written as a playbook for how to get to "the right outcome" in this case, and it will be followed. I suspect if that playbook wasnt available, they would have had a much harder time with getting to a judgement.
Can the executive branch force arbitration via presidential order to limit the ability to form class action suites?
No, it isn't that sort of civil class action.
You can see the relevant law here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_23
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.
> If you have any interest in taking a non-hysterical reaction...
What a lovely way to frame a statement and put down people who hold a multitude of opinions that you do not share.
The well has been poisoned by Sotomayor's dissent, and the headlines which come form it. I'm rebuffing a framing that many have taken who haven't listened to the oral arguments, havent read the judgement, and so on.
I don't take people who engage in this emotionally elevated reaction to the issue to have a different opinion, I take them to have no opinion at all -- because their reaction isn't an evaluation of the judgement.
All i'm saying is, "before you go ham on emotionally disregulation based on media reports, go read a few pages of the actual judgement
> I don't take people who engage in this emotionally elevated reaction to the issue to have a different opinion, I take them to have no opinion at all -- because their reaction isn't an evaluation of the judgement.
It's just civil rights and citizenship. Why can't they all be as detached and unimpacted as rich old guy Kavanaugh?
You can not share his opinion but do not have to be hysterical like the talking heads in media.
One can find an opinion at the ready but to be hysterical with opinions is a matter of distance.
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.
They're both excellent judges in non-ideological cases, and many of Sotomayor's majority judgements read well and she's clearly very on-the-ball in orals. It's a shame in these cases -- I think Sotomayor is more of an ideologue than Thomas.
Yeah you can certainly criticize Thomas's legal theories, but his interpretation is logically consistent and he sticks to it even to the point of frequently solo dissenting.
It's important to read his stuff too because it seems to gain more acceptance as time goes on.
Your points on Sotomayor are well taken, her dissents are often way over the top. However I'm starting to think Justice Jackson is potentially worse when it comes to histrionics
You clearly hadn’t read Barrett’s majority opinion. Conceptually broken as anything I’ve read recently.
> If you have any interest in taking a non-hysterical reaction to the ruling
"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.”
Reacting to a (female) judge assessing that there is an existential threat to the rule of law, in an administration that has done everything to break through the boundaries of law and openly violates it is hardly "hysteria", especially when there is a track record of robbing people of due process, which is literally and precisely the executive asserting its supremacy over the judiciary by robbing it of the opportunity to make a ruling.
Yes, that's why I didnt recommend reading Jackson's dissent -- because its design ed to create emotional disregulation in readers and whip up a political storm.
If you read K's concurrence, you'll wonder why there is any issue at all. Since, roughly, there isn't one -- there are a very large number of ways this EO can be challenged universally without requiring UIs
Yes I am aware. Your use of the word hysterical was precisely chosen based on your prejudices.
Hearing that the executive is less constrained and more able to violate the law should make you emotional, especially when one of the nine highest members of the judiciary are assessing it.
The executive was being constrained by district court judges, hundres of them -- many, as we've seen, can be themselves a little crazy.
You don't want your country being run by the craziest common denominator amongst the judiciary. This is about as far away from democracy as you can imagine, and allowed to run rampent, would lead to massive a democractic backfire.
Imagine the political upheval of a democrat president being unable to act because of trump-apointee crazys in florida. The court has just prevented a decade of mass protests and political insability
> Her effect in these cases is profoundly pathological on the public discourse.
I love this. “Everybody that disagrees with me is hysterical and it is actually the dissent’s fault” is a fantastic take. It is literally impossible to simultaneously disagree with you about this and also be of sound mind. I feel like you could have worded this a tad differently, “I am very smart. Possibly the smartest, and the sanest. I am superlatively smart and sane, and my brain is very good.” would have been more succinct.
There's clearly a profound level of emotional disregulation in this thread. Half of the replies are flagged, and votes are going wild both ways.
None of this is grounded in the details of the ruling. It's a symptom of how the dissent has been presented in the media.
I cannot see on what basis my comment is wrong.
> I cannot see on what basis my comment is wrong.
Paul Graham made a useful chart for judging whether or not your rhetoric is actually aimed downrange: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Graham_(programmer)#/medi...
You could have started with a refutation of the point if you wanted to impress us. Instead we're 40 comments deep in a flagged comment chain because you wanted to put your ad-hominem foot forward. When you editorialize your language like that, you dilute the point to something anyone could argue over.
I arrived to a thread in chaos. I don't take it to have been my foot forward.
Perhaps I could've better phrased it, "Given the emotional disregulation caused by the dissents, go read K's concurrence" -- however this is what I meant to say, still mean to say, and said.
I don't take the only legitimate aim of a comment to be "arguments" in this sense. One can comment on the psychology of the environment one finds oneself in without this being ad hom.
Remain possible in the same way amendments are still possible. Technically true but realistically…
> After reading her dissent one could not imagine anything Kavanaugh said would even be possible, yet he writes a concurrence with the majority.
What? Seems like you're working backwards from wanting to spout about Sotomayor. This is exactly the gamesmanship she pointed out the majority allowed the Trump administration to play with.
Look at all these fun, lengthy, expensive legal remedies you can attempt over the next few years to protect your basic rights while the executive branch enacts plainly unconstitutional policies. Someone count the number of nationwide injunctions during the last four years where the majority could have stepped in to swat down the trend but didn't, but instead chose this one.
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> 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
Judges were using injunctions to avoid putting their name behind a ruling.
They can absolutely still strike down a law or executive branch policy.
This forces judges to actually do their job., instead of a nationwide injunction while they decide if they want to do their job later.
It doesn’t actually alter some fabric of our democracy or checks and balances, because the judges had already gone beyond what the constitution and congress prescribed.
Every issue that any partisan has with this country is because one branch isn’t doing their job.
The disruptive aspect of this - with concern to the birthright case that hasnt been ruled on yet - is just another example of this. Judges not doing their job.
> Every issue that any partisan has with this country is because one branch isn’t doing their job.
It's impractical to rule on a subject before allowing parties to formulate coherent prepared arguments. Ruling on circumstantial evidence is a temporary stop, leaving the ruling up to an appellate which will invalidate it due to it being founded on circumstantial evidence. The injunctions were the practical way to allows all parties to formulate their case and make a legal reasoning for a ruling. Written law has to be incremental and narrow for interpretation. Otherwise it's an interpretive dance free for all in every case.
You have repeatedly implied that the jobs of Judges are something other than what you they are. Ofc you don't think they are doing what you think they should be. That's inconsequential.
How are they not doing their job?
A judge's job is to *judge*. They have basically zero ability to gather evidence, that is the responsibility for the parties to the case.
Would you have them issue a ruling before being presented with evidence? That makes no sense. But at the same time harm can come from not issuing a ruling. Thus we have injunctions--if a judge feels a case is likely to prevail they can issue an injunction prohibiting actions which inflict harm that can't be remedied by the resolution of the case.
> Judges were using injunctions to avoid putting their name behind a ruling.
What? That makes no sense. You can lookup which court and judge (or panel of judges) issued the injunctions. I do not understand why this non-existent anonymity would motivate a judge to issue an injunction.
> They can still strike down a law or executive branch policy.
Federal courts will only look at cases if there is a party with standing who engages in a lawsuit. If someone is being deported without due process, it will be hard for them to bring suit.
> This forces judges to actually do their job., instead of a nationwide injunction while they decide if they want to do their job later.
In general there are two reasons why these temporary restraining orders which have been issued. The first being that not doing so would cause irrevocable (or ridiculously difficult to revoke) harm (e.g., deporting people to a foreign jail). The second is that the TRO is used to stop something which seems illegal on its face (e.g. deporting people to countries from which they have never been).
> It doesn’t actually alter some fabric of our democracy or checks and balances, because the judges had already gone beyond what the constitution and congress prescribed.
It does alter the power dynamic of our democracy. Now, the executive branch can repeatedly perform illegal acts and only needs to stop its behavior in cases which have been decided. This checks and balances isn’t about stopping each other branch in a vacuum, the intent is to stop the government from overreaching on its citizenry. By crippling all of the lower courts, the Supreme Court has created a bureaucratic bottleneck for itself, allowing the executive branch to effectively DDoS the judicial system with case after case.
> The disruptive aspect of this - with concern to the birthright case that hasnt been ruled on yet - is just another example of this. Judges not doing their job.
No, it was the judge telling the executive branch that the executive branch must recognize the citizenship of children born on US soil. Instead of actually appealing the TRO on grounds of the legality of their actions, the executive branch has decided to complain about the legality of a court telling the executive branch to stop.
Who is supposed to tell the executive branch to stop doing something illegal, congress? Part of the point of the executive branch was to allow for some expedience, congress is slow. A judge is in a perfect position to tell the executive branch to stop, they don’t need to wait on committee and are not beholden to the president. Without the ability, the executive branch can quite literally do whatever the president wants.
this seems more emphatic than convincing.. Can you rewrite this so that it addresses the legal principles at hand, instead of repeating "judges dont do their jobs" ?
I read the ruling, my post is an accurate summary including my opinion of the circumstances
This is far overdue. The lower courts arent the scotus.
It’s ridiculous that any President (whether he’s from your favorite team or not) has to appease 300+ judges is ridiculous. There will always be biased judges who will only rule to obstruct.
> has to appease 300+ judges is ridiculous
They don't, they appeal straight up to the 9 judges that they actually have to appease
If you don't do a bunch of illegal shit that violates people's rights, you don't end up in court as much. It's not that hard to figure out.
And one guy gets to decide what's legal?
Yes, this is literally the entire job description of a judge: to "judge" if someone broke the law. Details on what judges have jurisdiction over differ (in some countries they can't rule on constitutional matters), but this is basically how it works everywhere. You have appeals processes and whatnot to deal with mistakes. This is civics 101 separation of powers stuff.
"It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is."
- Marbury vs Madison, 1803
"judicial department", not one person.
When that one person, who is part of the judicial branch and operating within its jurisdiction, has a trial placed in front of them? Yes. That's literally their job.
The quote is from a landmark case that established the judiciary as being the ultimate arbiters of the interpretation of the laws that have been passed by the legislature and signed by the executive.
What was issued was a temporary restriction from implementing the executive order until the matter is decided. No one issued an order declaring the executive order illegal.
You mean like the President? The President of the United States of America whom is deciding that parts of our constitution, our founding legal document isn't actually legally binding?
Those 300 judges are only a temporary check. They get to say 'hold on, we're going to put this on pause while we make sure it's constitutional'. The 9 people that determine what are legal can then unpause that pause at any time if it is not based on sound thought.
Do you feel that temporary checks (that can be easily reversed) to ensure the government is behaving in a constitutional way are ridiculous?
And the final check today but the Supreme Court said those judges were wrong and don't get to do that anymore.
And they are wrong to do so. Right now a child born in one district in the U.S. will have birthright citizenship while children in every other district won’t. This is an inherently stupid state of affairs.
An injunction is not a judgment. It is temporary. A new rule or law is passed. It might be unconstitutional or otherwise not enforceable. Until this can be sorted out sometimes the law/rule is blocked until it is sorted out. Since the law/rule was not in place before the suit it is sometimes ok to temporarily block the rule until it’s legality can be determined. One goes by the principle of causing least harm.
It causes the least harm to block the birthright executive order until it’s legality can be determined. Therefore it should be blocked nationwide.
So why didn’t it happen to such extent before?
It absolutely did. The Biden administration was hit with so many nationwide injunctions that they also requested that the SC limit them.
Limiting and doing away with them aren't the same thing.
I'd love to see higher requirements for issuing them, and an expedited appeals process to review them. I'd like to see protections against judge shopping (as endorsed by both Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer: https://www.texastribune.org/2024/04/11/judge-shopping-texas...) We know SCOTUS can move very fast when they feel like it.
trump estimation so far: 81-103 biden estimation: 14-28
You are incorrect.
>trump estimation so far: 81-103 biden estimation: 14-28 >You are incorrect.
You are clearly partisan. The GP says nothing about the number, but is instead the impact.
You should also consider normalizing the number of injunctions to the number of executive orders per term.
> You should also consider normalizing the number of injunctions to the number of executive orders per term.
That paints an even more stark picture for the Trump administration.
Two reasons I'd guess: Trump has signed as many EOs as biden did in his entire presidency already [1]. Presumably when your executive order contradicts existing law you're more likely to be hit by an injunction.
[1] https://www.federalregister.gov/presidential-documents/execu...
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