Earlier today, we reported on a Supreme Court ruling that allowed the Government to deal with Green Card holders who were on welfare instead of working. A Green Card is a work permit, not a welfare pass. Work or go home. But there was another significant point in that decision we’ve yet to cover.
Related: Do District Court Judges Have More Power Than The Chief Justice and Maybe the President?
Significant in that it advances the ball toward the desired goal.
The story begins with years of district courts issuing injunctions of varying scope but primarily nationwide (most recently) because ‘Trump!’ Political rulings to prevent the executive branch from enforcing even existing laws based on the opinion of one judge from anywhere – prodded by politicians or political activists. AG Bill Barr made that habit a focus of a speech last May (video available at the link).
Nationwide injunctions not only allow district courts to wield unprecedented power, they also allow district courts to wield it asymmetrically. When a court denies a nationwide injunction, the decision does not affect other cases. But when a court grants a nationwide injunction, it renders all other litigation on the issue largely irrelevant.
Acts of Congress, other courts, the executive branch, government agents, anyone who is attached to the policy or enforcement, and all of us are affected. By one judge. In one corner of a vast nation. Power the AG notes exceeds, not just the authority of the Chief Justice.
No official in the United States government can exercise that kind of nationwide power, with the sole exception of the President. And the Constitution subjects him to nationwide election, among other constitutional checks, as a prerequisite to wielding that power.
An ‘executive order’ from the bench by some judge in Oakland or New York City whose jurisdiction may not extend beyond a city, county, state, or Circuit should not change the rule for an entire nation.
It is a crippling abuse that Mr. Barr noted requires some attention.
A few months later, SCOTUS ruled 7-2 to overturn a nationwide injunction on another immigration issue by a district court. And now we have this week’s ruling in DHS v NY which includes a direct rebuke by Justice Gorsuch with Justice Thomas concurring.
The real problem here is the increasingly common practice of trial courts ordering relief that transcends the cases before them. Whether framed as injunctions of ‘nationwide,’ ‘universal,’ or ‘cosmic’ scope, these orders share the same basic flaw—they direct how the defendant must act toward persons who are not parties to the case, …
A little more,
“Despite the fluid state of things—some interim wins for the government over here, some preliminary relief for plaintiffs over there—we now have an injunction to rule them all: the one before us, in which a single judge in New York enjoined the government from applying the new definition to anyone, without regard to geography or participation in this or any other lawsuit. The Second Circuit declined to stay this particular universal injunction, and so now, after so many trips up and down and around the judicial map, the government brings its well-rehearsed arguments here,” Gorsuch noted.
“It has become increasingly apparent that this Court must, at some point, confront these important objections to this increasingly widespread practice. As the brief and furious history of the regulation before us illustrates, the routine issuance of universal injunctions is patently unworkable, sowing chaos for litigants, the government, courts, and all those affected by these conflicting decisions,”
This is a shot across the bow for District or Circuit courts, as well as the politicians who go shopping in search of a Judge that will exercise a power (if only temporary) for which it was never intended.
I have a feeling they won’t want to listen, which hints at the likelihood that the entire US Supreme Court may have to make the case in stronger language that even liberal judges will understand.
We can only hope.
| PJ Media
