Tag Archives: nationwide injuctions

A Significant Year For The Supreme Court

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On July 3rd, The Epoch Times posted an article listing the nine key Supreme Court decisions this term.

Here is the list:

1. Nationwide Injunctions

The Supreme Court issued a landmark opinion on June 27 in which it ruled against the practice of judges issuing nationwide injunctions.

2. Gender Procedures for Minors

In June, the Supreme Court released its hotly anticipated decision in United States v. Skrmetti, which involved the Biden administration’s challenge to Tennessee’s law banning “gender-affirming care” for minors.

…The court’s 6–3 majority upheld Tennessee’s law.

3. Deportations

Trump scored an initial win when the Supreme Court removed two blocks that a federal judge in Washington had imposed on the deportations.

However, part of the ruling also stated that Trump must provide an opportunity for deportees to seek habeas relief, which is a legal mechanism for challenging one’s detention.

4. TikTok Divestiture or Ban

In 2024, Congress passed the Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.

It required TikTok’s Chinese parent company to either divest its U.S. business or cease operations within the United States because of data privacy and national security concerns.

…The Supreme Court ultimately upheld the law on Jan. 17.

In a unanimous decision, the court said that the law satisfied a standard known as “intermediate scrutiny,” noting that it served the important government interest of preventing TikTok’s Chinese parent company from capturing the personal data of American users.

5. Mexico Gun Lawsuit

U.S. gun makers successfully avoided liability in a lawsuit that the Mexican government brought over the flow of U.S. firearms to cartels.

Under the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, gun companies can usually avoid liability for how people use their firearms.

…Writing for the majority, Justice Elena Kagan said that Mexico’s lawsuit did not plausibly allege that the gun companies “aided and abetted unlawful sales routing guns to Mexican drug cartels.”

6. Straight Woman Wins Discrimination Case

A heterosexual woman’s win at the Supreme Court established that non-minorities may sue on an equal footing with minorities in employment discrimination lawsuits.

7. Opting Out of LGBT Storybooks

Parents won the right to sue to opt their young children out of school storybooks that promote LGBT lifestyles in a Supreme Court ruling on June 27.

8. Porn Age-Verification Laws

State laws requiring pornography websites to verify the age of users will remain in place following a Supreme Court ruling on June 27.

9. South Carolina Defunds Planned Parenthood

States have greater leeway to defund Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, following a Supreme Court decision on June 26.

I think it has been a good year for common sense.

Asking The Right Question

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One of the cases before the Supreme Court this week dealt with whether or not district judges have the authority to make rulings that impact the entire nations. On Thursday, The Federalist posted an article about a question asked by Justice Thomas.

The article reports:

In Thursday’s hearing, Thomas asked Sauer (U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer) — who represented the Trump administration — about the history of nationwide injunctions and when courts first started issuing such orders. The solicitor general answered by citing Thomas’ concurring opinion in Trump v. Hawaii, a 2018 case that resulted in SCOTUS reversing “a lower court’s decision to uphold a nationwide injunction on Trump’s travel ban,” according to The Federalist’s John Daniel Davidson.

In his concurrence in that case, Thomas noted how nationwide injunctions by lower courts “did not emerge until a century and a half after the founding.” He further observed that these injunctions “appear to be inconsistent with longstanding limits on equitable relief and the power of Article III courts.”

“These injunctions are beginning to take a toll on the federal court system — preventing legal questions from percolating through the federal courts, encouraging forum shopping, and making every case a national emergency for the courts and for the Executive Branch,” Thomas wrote.

In his response to Thomas, Sauer highlighted several examples of universal injunctions that he said began emerging in the early 1960s.

“So we survived until the 1960s without universal injunctions?” asked Thomas, to which Sauer replied, “That’s exactly correct.”

Sauer added, “In fact, those [injunctions] are very limited and very rare even in the 1960s. It really exploded in 2007 in our cert petition in Summers v. Earth Island Institute, we pointed out that the Ninth Circuit had started doing this in a whole bunch of cases involving environmental claims.”

The article concludes:

During one exchange with Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Sauer attempted to answer the Obama appointee’s inquiries regarding executive compliance with injunctions handed down by the judiciary. Instead of permitting Sauer to address her concerns, Sotomayor cut off the solicitor general, prompting Chief Justice John Roberts to interject and subtly suggest that the associate justice allow Sauer to answer.

“Can I hear the rest of his answer?” Roberts asked.

A decision in the case is not expected until the final weeks of the Supreme Court’s current term, which will end in late June-early July.

Nationwide injunctions are simply the latest tool in the effort to prevent President Trump from implementing his agenda. President Trump was elected. He needs to be allowed to run the country.

The End Of Nationwide Injunctions?

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On Monday, Hot Air posted an article about a case the U.S. Supreme Court will be hearing on Thursday.

The article notes how the political opponents of President Trump have repeatedly used the courts to try to prevent him from implementing his agenda:

Since President Trump took office, federal district courts have issued 37 nationwide injunctions against the Executive Branch.  That’s more than one a month.  By comparison, during President Obama’s first two years, district courts issued two nationwide injunctions against the Executive Branch, both of which were vacated by the Ninth Circuit.  And according to the Department’s best estimates, courts issued only 27 nationwide injunctions­ in all of the 20th century.

Some say this proves that the Trump Administration is lawless.  Not surprisingly, I disagree.  And I would point out that the only case litigated on the merits in the Supreme Court—the so-called “travel ban” challenge—ended with President’s policy being upheld…

The Constitution empowers Congress to create lower federal courts, and in designing a system of 93 judicial districts and 12 regional circuits, Congress set clear geographic limits on lower-court jurisdiction. In our system, district-court rulings do not bind other judges, even other judges in the same district…

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. Think about what that means for the Government. When Congress passes a statute or the President implements a policy that is challenged in multiple courts, the Government has to run the table—we must win every case. The challengers, however, must find only one district judge—out of an available 600—willing to enter a nationwide injunction. One judge can, in effect, cancel the policy with the stroke of the pen.

The article reports:

And the era of nationwide injunctions could come to an end later this week when the Supreme Court hears a case on birthright citizenship. The case probably won’t decide whether birthright citizenship is legal under the 14th Amendment. What the case is really about is the nationwide injunctions different courts have used to block Trump’s executive order on the topic.

I firmly believe that one of the things President Trump is trying to do is to bring America back to the country our Founding Fathers created. We have wandered so far from our Constitution that the road back is going to be bumpy and clogged by people who are making too much money the way things currently are. It would be wonderful if President Trump could bring us closer to the system of government our Constitution created.

May 15th

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On Saturday, PJ Media posted an article about a case that will be argued before the Supreme Court on May 15th. Generally, the Supreme Court does not hear cases in May.

The article reports:

The U.S. Supreme Court is preparing to weigh in on one of the most significant legal power plays in recent memory: whether individual federal trial judges can continue issuing nationwide injunctions that derail national policy. The high court’s move could mark a turning point in the Trump administration’s effort to rein in what it sees as activist judges stifling the will of the elected government.

John Yoo, a law professor at UC Berkeley and former Justice Department official, broke down the issue during an appearance on Fox News, where he explained the gravity of the situation and why the Supreme Court is now stepping in.

“This is about who controls all those… and there’s about 675 federal trial judges spread out all over the country,” Yoo said. “And some of them have been bringing the federal government, bringing President Trump’s agenda to a screeching halt, even though they don’t have anybody, say, who works for the government or any of the illegal aliens or any of the spending in their own courtrooms.”

In recent years, liberal activists have filed lawsuits in strategically chosen jurisdictions where they know they’ll find a sympathetic judge. The result? Leftist district judges, with no direct connection to the underlying policy or parties involved, have been able to issue injunctions blocking Trump administration directives nationwide—from immigration enforcement to federal spending priorities.

The important quote in the article:

“Whether you agree or disagree with President Trump’s order on birthright citizenship,” Yoo said, “they may not even get to the question, because the key thing here is for the Supreme Court to put an end to the 675 trial judges who all think they can run foreign policy, spending and hiring throughout the federal government.”

Stay tuned.