In yet another 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court displayed that too many cases are decided by the ideological divide among the justices rather than Rule of Law. Fortunately, it’s not the five who got this one wrong. The originalist wing of the Court granted the Trump administration’s request for a stay against an injunction blocking its policy to deny U.S. entry to any alien who is “likely at any time to become a public charge.” America’s astounding level of generous benefits attract illegals. Democrats know it, which is why they try so hard to stop the administration’s work to rein in the flow of illegals.
But it was less the merits of the ruling than the importance of comments made by Justice Neil Gorsuch that got our attention. In a blistering five-page concurrence, joined by Clarence Thomas, Gorsuch blasted judges in lower courts who routinely issue nationwide injunctions to obstruct the administration’s agenda. There have been 40 such injunctions during Donald Trump’s first three years in office — twice the number that were issued during Barack Obama’s entire eight years.
“Today the Court (rightly) grants a stay, allowing the government to pursue (for now) its policy everywhere save Illinois,” Gorsuch wrote. “But, in light of all that’s come before, it would be delusional to think that one stay today suffices to remedy the problem. 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.”
He continued, “When a district court orders the government not to enforce a rule against the plaintiffs in the case before it, the court redresses the injury that gives rise to its jurisdiction in the first place. But when a court goes further than that, ordering the government to take (or not take) some action with respect to those who are strangers to the suit, it is hard to see how the court could still be acting in the judicial role of resolving cases and controversies. Injunctions like these thus raise serious questions about the scope of courts’ equitable powers under Article III.”
Read the rest at: Gorsuch
