Whew! The Supreme Court voted 7-2 to overturn another Obama judge. This time it was the 9th Circuit Court’s John Tigar and his nationwide injunction; thereby allowing President Trump’s asylum rule to go into effect. The framers of the constitution must be smiling, because they never intended a few lone-wolf activist judges to so gum up the government.
A pox upon the activist district judges who have ordered 40 national injunctions in 30 months, making them the secret weapon of the Trump resistance. A pox upon their rogue orders, which the Supreme Court keeps overturning because they aren’t constitutional. And a pox upon lone-wolf “liberal” judges, who presume their “appointed” status grants national power.
As a matter of principle, the constitution does not grant Derrick Watson sweeping authority to project his influence beyond concrete controversies within his district. Yet, the federal district judge in Hawaii stopped Trump’s Muslim Ban shortly after the inauguration; which, as this blog predicted, the Supreme Court reversed after a year of litigation.
Democrats should be ashamed of this assault upon the constitution, but they believe the end justifies the means. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) believes President Trump “engaged in so many blatantly unconstitutional actions…that are weakening the presidency with his stupid legal arguments.” Lieu’s hypocrisy is sickening because the resistance is THE unconstitutional party in this kerfuffle.
Shame on this arrogant Democrat, who knows Democratic lawyers sought friendly judges to hear arguments against the President’s orders. Mr. Lieu knows it’s easy to find a sympathetic “liberal” ear, because 330 of 673 district-court judges were appointed by Clinton and Obama. As bad as “shopping judges” might seem, that’s not the constitutional issue.
The problem is the district judge who projects an injunction across all 94 judicial districts, and for obvious reasons. These districts are scattered across 50 states, which are hardly of a singular mind on social and economic matters. The constitution intentionally did not grant a district judge in San Francisco the authority to ban fracking in western Pennsylvania, which has its own district court.
Attorney General Barr noted this in the Wall Street Journal: “shrewd lawyers have learned to ‘shop’ for a sympathetic judge willing to issue [an] injunction. These days, virtually every significant congressional or presidential action is enjoined – often within hours – threatening our democratic system and undermining the rule of law.”
Watson’s authority is limited to Hawaii, but he tried to end-run the normal order of judicial review. That “normal order” is a bubble-up process, wherein rulings hold in a single district and inform the other courts (ultimately the Supreme Court). Yet, Watson and Tigar tried to undermine the authority of the President by allowing “liberal” lawyers to force national orders through a judicial gauntlet before taking effect.
General Barr hinted the DOJ will take this to the Supreme Court, where the 5-4 originalist majority will not rule national injunctions are the purview of district courts. Justice Thomas said as much when the Supremes ruled against Hawaii in Trump v. Hawaii: “[nationwide injunctions] are legally and historically dubious [and] if federal courts continue to issue them, this court is duty-bound to adjudicate their authority to do so.”
Imagine America if Clinton had installed activist judges, instead of Trump installing 150 originalists: more legislation from the bench and less respect for the other branches of government. There is a constitution, and the DOJ must get a case before SCOTUS to stop lone-wolf activist judges from issuing national injunctions once and for all.