SCOTUS

[BlueK]

You serious ?

They revoked legal status of 500k recently

They tried to deport one or two or more green card holders

I give it a week

I agree. They know eventually the court will uphold birthright citizenship so they will try to do as much damage as possible while they can.

[All-American]

It seems counterintuitive to have the judiciary limit the powers of the judiciary. I'm sure there are other examples some of the learned lawyers could point out, but I'm not a fan. In an alternate universe, I'm sure I'd be happy with it.

I disagree. We need each branch policing itself and trying to stay within its constitutional bounds. The executive branch’s failure to do so is what’s causing this mess in the first place. I don’t think you solve executive overreach with judicial overreach.

[All-American]

I don't get the increasingly unjustified reverence for the Court. When it counts they seem to make decisions that enable Trump. The fact that there isn'r more outrage over this from the Right is depressing.

I don’t speak for all of the Right, but I for one am old enough to remember when the president was a democrat and conservatives used universal injunctions to try to limit unconstitutional conduct. The issue happens to have presented itself at a time the president is a Republican, but in the grand scheme of things, this is not a partisan issue, especially considering that the Court is likely to be controlled by republicans longer than the White House.

[Bo Diddley]

I disagree. We need each branch policing itself and trying to stay within its constitutional bounds. The executive branch’s failure to do so is what’s causing this mess in the first place. I don’t think you solve executive overreach with judicial overreach.

To be clear, I'm not advocating for judicial overreach. I say it's counterintuitive because it goes against human nature to police yourself, particularly in a power sharing model. Add to that, one branch of that model is overreaching. It would be akin to Congress voting in term limits.

[Copelius]

To be clear, I'm not advocating for judicial overreach. I say it's counterintuitive because it goes against human nature to police yourself, particularly in a power sharing model. Add to that, one branch of that model is overreaching. It would be akin to Congress voting in term limits.

Congress has already abdicated so much of its power to the executive that it would be hard to police itself more. One of the most frustrating lines in statutory reading is "[agency] shall promulgate rules" to meet some broad overly ambiguous legislative goal. I am fine with letting agencies get into the weeds, but they need far more specific guidance from the legislature, whose job it is to legislate.

A couple thoughts on the opinion itself:

One of the points made in the opinion or perhaps one of the concurrences was the lack of precedential authority from one judge to another in the same judicial district. So then what happens if a judge in the Utah District issues a nationwide injunction and then a judge down the hall rules oppositely? Does that mean that there is a nationwide injunction except for the one case in which a judge said no? It cuts both ways and makes sense that the Court ruled the way it did.

Those who argue that the court should have just gotten to the merits and been done with it, fail to recognize that the Consitution narrowly limited the original jurisdiction of the court. Because the court was acting in its appellate role, the rules required it to address the appeal made and not overstep the question presented. Now I am not an appellate expert, so there may be some rule out there in which the court has discretion to cut to the chase, but if so it is just that, discretion. In my experience when an act by the court is discretionary, courts are very reticent to push the envelope of that discretion, which this would.

[Bo Diddley]

Thank you. Along with everything else, I find the process fascinating.

[All-American]

To be clear, I'm not advocating for judicial overreach. I say it's counterintuitive because it goes against human nature to police yourself, particularly in a power sharing model. Add to that, one branch of that model is overreaching. It would be akin to Congress voting in term limits.

I see your point, but I don’t think it is unreasonable to expect self policing. In the instance of Congress, for example, the constitution itself allows each house to determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behaviour, and, with the concurrence of two thirds, expel a member (which it did as recently as 2023, when it expelled George Santos).

It’s especially important for the court to police itself because of how little policing the other branches can do. The president can pick justices, and congress can impeach and remove them. The other branches can do little else to govern the judiciary. They can (and do) pass laws purporting to regulate judicial ethics, but there is little they can do to enforce those rules. Here too, you end up counting on the court to follow the statutes on its own.

[Bo Diddley]

Great points. Thank you.

[frank ryan]

If the result of the ruling means Trump can curtail birthright citizenship then SCOTUS has let us down. And this is a constitutional crisis.

[Northwestcoug]

I appreciate this deep dive in constitutional law. It’s good to know the theories behind this ruling. Seems like this is a great example of originalists and living constitutionalists(?) duking it out.

if nothing else, it will be a great test to see if the constitution survives Trump and his legacy, whatever interpretation of it you prefer. Prediction? Bearish.

[All-American]

Congress has already abdicated so much of its power to the executive that it would be hard to police itself more. One of the most frustrating lines in statutory reading is "[agency] shall promulgate rules" to meet some broad overly ambiguous legislative goal. I am fine with letting agencies get into the weeds, but they need far more specific guidance from the legislature, whose job it is to legislate.

A couple thoughts on the opinion itself:

One of the points made in the opinion or perhaps one of the concurrences was the lack of precedential authority from one judge to another in the same judicial district. So then what happens if a judge in the Utah District issues a nationwide injunction and then a judge down the hall rules oppositely? Does that mean that there is a nationwide injunction except for the one case in which a judge said no? It cuts both ways and makes sense that the Court ruled the way it did.

Those who argue that the court should have just gotten to the merits and been done with it, fail to recognize that the Consitution narrowly limited the original jurisdiction of the court. Because the court was acting in its appellate role, the rules required it to address the appeal made and not overstep the question presented. Now I am not an appellate expert, so there may be some rule out there in which the court has discretion to cut to the chase, but if so it is just that, discretion. In my experience when an act by the court is discretionary, courts are very reticent to push the envelope of that discretion, which this would.

This comment hits it on the head, both in terms of the problems of universal injunctions and the Court's not addressing the underlying issue of birthright citizenship.

Going a bit further on the second point: it was not necessary for the Court to address birthright citizenship because no party, not even the government, contested the lower court's decision on its merits. If the Court had included a discussion of birthright citizenship in its opinion, it would have arrived at exactly the same outcome that it did.

It is not merely considered inappropriate for the Court to address issues which are not necessary to reach its decision. What the Court says about something that is not necessary to reach its decision is considered dicta, meaning, it is not binding precedent on any future decisions in that or other lower courts. If the Court had said anything about birthright citizenship, there would surely have been a concurring opinion to point out that the analysis was nonbinding dicta, which would give lower courts leave to ignore it (and probably do more to delegitimize the point than anything it could have said in its favor).

As it stands, as far as I can tell (not having spent a ton of time looking into it because, frankly, it doesn't appear to be a close question), no one with any authority or whose opinion matters questions the concept of birthright citizenship. In my circles, this case was never really about birthright citizenship. In fact, I went to a Federalist Society event the day before the opinion issued featuring a lawyer whose practice often involves arguments before the Supreme Court, and while he talked about this case for several minutes, the focus was exclusively on universal injunctions-- I'm not sure he even mentioned the concept of citizenship. And reading the opinions and argument transcripts suggests to me that the Court would easily come down on the side of birthright citizenship once the issue is presented.

The point of this case is what the Courts can do about a President who openly disregards those established rights. And while the Court's decision about the limits of its own powers is persuasive on its merits, it admittedly leaves a series of unsatisfying answers on the question of what can be done.

One answer, of course, is for each party that believes it has been aggrieved to file its own petition for relief with the Courts. That pushes a huge onus on the parties seeking relief; access to Courts is hard and expensive enough as it is.

Another answer is to use the procedural mechanisms already in place for marshalling in other affected parties-- in particular, class action suits. This is already happening. In the hours after the Supreme Court decision issued, an immigrant's rights group moved to certify a class of US-born children of immigrants in a Court in Maryland:

https://www.courthousenews.com/with-...eady-trending/

This is also a pretty unsatisfying answer, though, because class actions come with all kinds of problems of their own. They are cumbersome, require Courts to jump through extra hoops and check extra boxes, and all in all pose additional problems that have to be dealt with before getting the protection the litigants seek.

I'm aware of at least some effort by Congress to come up with a legislative solution, establishing a path for parties seeking relief that would apply beyond the parties. Most of that discussion was headed by Republicans during the Biden administration, and as far as I know, it fizzled out with the change of administration. But the potential remains (though whatever mechanism is presented would have to pass constitutional muster, and Justice Thomas's concurrence signaled some question as to whether it could).

There is also potential for other parties to seek relief that will protect others. States, for example, might be able to assert claims stating that federal action invades the states' legitimate interests in governance, and in seeking protection for their own legitimate interests also end up shielding the rights of its citizens. The Court declined to consider this option in issuing its opinion, since it was enough to state that the universal injunction was inappropriate-- and one of the concurring opinions warned that this path would not be a backdoor approach to allow a state to assert the rights of others. The Court will scrutinize those arguments and ensure that the claims are based on the state's legitimate interests, and grant relief to the extent necessary to protect those interests. If that relief happens to benefit others, so much the better; but it will not go further than that.

The most obvious answer of all, of course, is to not elect people that will openly disregard the rights of citizens. But here we are.

[All-American]

I appreciate this deep dive in constitutional law. It’s good to know the theories behind this ruling. Seems like this is a great example of originalists and living constitutionalists(?) duking it out.

if nothing else, it will be a great test to see if the constitution survives Trump and his legacy, whatever interpretation of it you prefer. Prediction? Bearish.

I've said before, Trump doesn't scare me nearly as much as what comes after Trump. He's not smart enough to take down the country, but he's writing the playbook for smarter people that will come after him.

[Northwestcoug]

I've said before, Trump doesn't scare me nearly as much as what comes after Trump. He's not smart enough to take down the country, but he's writing the playbook for smarter people that will come after him.

Yep. In fact we’re already seeing it in this term. The smart people know how to flatter Trump, and he lets them run with whatever they want to do with the country. All it will take is another demagogue to get citizens behind him. They won’t care about the details next time either, so long as he hates the right people.

[frank ryan]

I've said before, Trump doesn't scare me nearly as much as what comes after Trump. He's not smart enough to take down the country, but he's writing the playbook for smarter people that will come after him.

You're got the Peter Thiels of this world playing him like a fiddle.

[Copelius]

The most obvious answer of all, of course, is to not elect people that will openly disregard the rights of citizens. But here we are.

Imagine that. What a concept.