Welcome to The Logoff: The Supreme Court today sharply curtailed lower courts’ power to freeze executive branch policies — a decision that will have a limited effect on President Donald Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship but massive ramifications for other parts of the president’s agenda.
That’s really complicated. What’s the context? The case arose from Trump’s January executive order trying to end birthright citizenship, the principle that children born in the US become US citizens, even if their parents aren’t.
That order is an obvious violation of the 14th Amendment, and multiple lower court judges quickly issued “nationwide injunctions” that blocked it from taking effect while challenges worked their way through the legal system. The Trump administration sued to overturn those injunctions, which brought the case to the Supreme Court.
Why did you say this had a limited effect on birthright citizenship? The Court didn’t rule on the constitutionality of the order itself, though the ruling keeps it frozen nationwide for at least another 30 days. Between now and then, there’ll be more legal efforts to stop the order from taking effect anywhere, but we don’t yet know what the outcome will be.
So what did the Supreme Court rule on? The court’s six conservative justices severely limited lower court judges’ power to issue nationwide injunctions, ruling such orders had to be more limited in scope. Nationwide injunctions have previously stymied Trump’s efforts to freeze congressionally mandated funding, block refugee resettlement, attack cities that won’t cooperate with his deportation efforts, and other initiatives.
So what’s the big picture? Nationwide injunctions are understandably controversial — there should be a high bar for a single federal judge to stall the agenda of a president who won a nationwide election.
However, this administration’s modus operandi has been to do illegal things and then try to make their consequences irreversible before anyone can stop it. Nationwide injunctions were a way to keep the legal system relevant in the face of a rampaging president — and now that tool has been blunted.
