Alarm sounds as Roberts Supreme Court boosts Trump again and again

[B.See]

Alarm sounds as Roberts Supreme Court boosts Trump again and again - Rawstory via MSN

Led by Chief Justice John Roberts and packed with three Trump nominees and two other conservative justices, the Supreme Court rightwing bloc has favored the Trump administration in 21 out of 23 cases on its “shadow docket,” which allows the court to rule on urgent requests without oral arguments and with limited briefings, according to a new report from Court Accountability, a judicial advocacy group.

As the Trump administration looks to execute executive orders on issues including deploying the National Guard in major cities, deporting student visa holders for political speech, and limiting birthright citizenship, the Department of Justice is “going straight to the shadow docket whenever an appeals court stands in the administration's way of defying acts of Congress,” said Mike Sacks, senior adviser with Court Accountability.

“Supreme Court precedent reflects this administration's confidence that they have the Roberts Court in their pocket,” Sacks continued.

“This administration has no patience for the usual appellate process and wants to operate at its full anti-constitutional capacity, and this Supreme Court has virtually every time given this administration the green light to do exactly that.”

[Fiendish Thingy]

1. Their loyalty is to their ideology, not to Trump the man.

Trump is but an instrument of their anti-democracy aspirations.

[bigtree]

5. if that were true, they'd vote on principle and precedent

...but they've run away from 'strict interpretation' or strict' constitutionalism' in favor of enabling this president, right after they took away executive actions made by the Democratic one that preceded him.

If their ideology was the dismantling of the Constitutionalist state, merely establishing the primacy of the autocratic over the democratic then why put limits on Biden's exercise of those?

If you're talking about a partisan political effort to defend this republican president priorities over his Democratic opponents, then I might agree.

But there's too much inconsistency in these rulings to call them ideological, as the effects and consequences are decreasingly conservative; the tariffs and corporate protections and financing bordering on the socialistic.

so...

A major question for the Supreme Court: Will it treat Trump as it did Biden?

During Biden’s presidency, conservative majorities made it harder to fight climate change under existing law and blocked several actions related to the coronavirus pandemic.

The court ended a pause on evictions, prohibited a vaccine mandate for large businesses and rejected Biden's $500 billion student loan forgiveness program.

In each case, the court held that Congress had not clearly authorized an action of economic and political significance, a legal principle known as the major questions doctrine.

A separate group of small businesses cited Justice Amy Coney Barrett's opinion in the student loan case to make the point that in relying on IEEPA for the tariffs, Trump “asserts ‘highly consequential power ... beyond what Congress could reasonably be understood to have granted.’”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/a-major-question-for-the-supreme-court-will-it-treat-trump-as-it-did-biden/ar-AA1PIsUZ



from Science Of Politics for the Niskanen Center, Matt Grossman:

Many thought the second Trump administration would feature a confrontation between a Supreme Court intent on limiting executive discretion and an empowered president flaunting the rules. Instead, the Supreme Court has largely acquiesced to Trump’s moves, using the shadow docket to overturn lower court actions limiting Trump, even those from Republican judges. Adam Bonica finds that Trump has sought to purge and cut more liberal agencies but has been repeatedly shot down by lower courts. Yet the Supreme Court alone has often sided with the administration, making the courts much less of a check on executive power.

Adam Bonica of Stanford University about his tracking of the early administration and court actions at his blog on data and democracy::

I did a big statistical quantitative analysis of judicial quotes about the administration for cases that were in the broader data set of the executive judicial conflict. And the judges are just pointing out there is no merit to this case and pointing to there’s no way that this has any legal standing. They talk about how disingenuous the lawyers are, how they’re outright lying in a lot of these cases. One judge, Judge McConnell said, “It’s very clear when the administration was freezing these congressional funds that the executive puts itself above Congress.” which is a big statement. A lot of the statements the judges are making are about specific separation of powers claims, where they’re saying you’re impeding on the powers of either Congress or the courts in ways that you would expect the courts to defend their institutional power in this case.

And they are very much at the lower level. But when it’s being appealed to the Supreme Court, we’re just seeing the opposite pattern. So there’s a period between April through May where of the cases that were being ruled on by district courts, if you remember that slew of cases that were ruled against the administration. It was like 90% of them at the lower level were being decided against the administration. And these were, if you read the cases, they’re not… Well, the legal precedent is not on the side of most of them. But then when they go to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court has been ruling in favor of them almost with the exception of one case earlier on.

The Supreme Court has been ruling pretty much uniformly in favor of the administration and often in ways that they provide no context to why they’re ruling that way, but they’re granting this relief and it’s really quite striking when you see the statistical evidence that it’s hard to draw any conclusion other than the Supreme Court is doing whatever it can without going too far to advance the broader efforts, especially when it comes to dismantling the existing constitutional order. It’s really quite striking. And again, I think some of the best context for this comes from what these judges are saying. They’re ringing the alarm bell pretty loudly.

https://www.niskanencenter.org/the-supreme-court-is-enabling-trumps-executive-power/

[Fiendish Thingy]

6. Not sure why you think they'd rule on principle and precedent

This corrupt, craven majority isn’t just enabling Trump’s executive power, they are enabling all executive power, for all presidents and their minions.

Their ideology views the executive branch as superior to the legislative branch, and their rulings serve to unshackle that executive power, specifically Article II powers, knowing full well that congress is hamstrung by the 2/3 requirement for removal.

We shall see how their upcoming ruling unfold - tariffs, Trump’s appeal of his fraud convictions, and his appeal of the E. Jean Carroll damages award. The last two would be good cases to measure their loyalty to Trump the man vs their ideology.

[bigtree]

7. read carefully

...you can't find anywhere that I've said any such thing that I 'think they'd rule on principle and precedent.'

You supposed they're more concerned with ideology than Trump (ie politics).

I disagree. As I said above, ideology would suggest there's some principle to their rulings, but that wouldn't come out of their decisions which have been inconsistent with conservative ideology; favoring Trump's executive actions, and tempering or nullifying Bidens, as the articles I bothered to provide as examples cite in detail.

They are ruling out of a desire to elevate this republican president, just as they, conversely, ruled to stifle or nullify the preceding Democratic president's executive actions and authority.

Their 'ideology' is a craven protection of republicans and republican favored initiatives. That's not ideology, it's politicization of justice and the law

[Fiendish Thingy]

8. It seems we disagree on semantics

Indeed, their ideology is focused on expanding executive power to republican administrations, rather than, say, strict originalism or constructionism.

My point is their primary allegiance is not to Trump the man, and the court cases I mentioned should prove or disprove that notion.

[Katcat]

2. Why be a SCJ

If you’re going to rule yourself out of a job? Or is it that THEY (some) are in the EFILES.

[spanone]

3. Kings abhor oversight by anyone or anything.

[gfarber]

4. The Roberts Court's Shadow Docket

There once was a court cloaked in night,
Where rulings escaped public sight.
With briefs short and terse,
They’d favor Trump first—
Then vanish 'fore morning’s full light.

No hearings, no long-winded talk,
Just whispers behind the court’s lock.
Twenty-one times they’d say,
“Trump, you may have your way!”—
Justice speed-run around proper rock.

When blocked by the law’s old refrain,
The DOJ boards the “shadow” train.
“Appeals take too long!
Let’s skip to the strong!”
And presto—Trump wins yet again.

Said Sacks, “They’re snug in his coat,
Where reason and fairness don’t float.
The Court’s been inclined
To help Trump unwind
The limits that Congress once wrote.”

With orders that strain every clause,
They danced round the rule of the laws.
The Court kept the beat,
Made Trump’s power complete—
And the Constitution paused for applause.