Do you remember Trump v. CASA? Remember the 6-3 opinion that said lower courts had “likely“ overstepped in ordering universal injunctions blocking many of the president’s policies?
Many of us reacted by saying “sayonara” to nationwide injunctions, and let’s get real again. Well, I guess that someone didn’t get the memo or read the opinion. The “nationwide injunction” specialists are back and will continue until the chief justice makes a move.
This is the story from Benjamin Weingarten:
While the Court’s 6-3 opinion in Trump v. CASA appeared to disarm Trump’s opponents of perhaps their most potent legal weapon, his adversaries had other ideas.
In the weeks since, Trump’s challengers have seized on the ruling’s openings – especially the use of class-action suits in which a handful of plaintiffs may allege harm and seek relief on behalf of all similarly situated parties – to continue leveraging lower court judges to block the president’s orders.
Norm Eisen, one of the architects of a so-called “rule of law and shock and awe” strategy to blanket the administration with dozens of lawsuits, quickly helped bring a case before New Hampshire’s district court. The suit aimed to enjoin the president’s ban on birthright citizenship not only with respect to five named plaintiffs, but for “a nationwide class of all other persons similarly situated.”
On July 3, the district court ruled in the plaintiffs’ favor in that case, over the Trump administration’s objections. Other plaintiffs prevailed in a separate case in the D.C. District Court challenging the president’s crackdown on asylum claims at the southern border.
Scholars on both sides of the universal injunctions issue agree that CASA’s impact may be limited.
Limited? Really? So what’s the point of having a Supreme Court if its opinions are not going to be respected?
It puts President Trump in a difficult place. He is supposed to wait for the Supreme Court to opine and then respect its opinion. The other side has selective respect. If leftists like it, like Roe v. Wade, then it’s “the law of the land.” If they don’t like it, then we are going to engage in legal gymnastics to get around the opinion.
So it’s up to the chief justice. He can step back and turn his opinions into meaningless papers. Or he can clarify his opinion by putting the district judges in their place. I hope he will do the right thing, or we may remember that story about President Jackson and the Supreme Court: “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!”
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Image via Picryl.