5 ms·

It increasingly seems like the Supreme Court of the US is becoming a political theatre because Congress can't get its act together. Supreme Court shouldn't legi

It increasingly seems like the Supreme Court of the US is becoming a political theatre because Congress can't get its act together. Supreme Court shouldn't legislate but it is forced to as lawmakers in Congress can't do their job.

ceejayoz 6y ago
What was legislated here? They ruled that the White House didn't follow the existing legislation.
- koolba 6y ago
  DACA itself was not legislated. It was an executive order issued by President Obama. Live by the sword, die by the sword. It's well within the power of the President to rescind a previous President's executive orders. Honestly the court copped out of addressing the issue. The correct ruling would be to uphold the rescinding of DACA and force Congress's hand to act on the issue. Just because the intermediate outcome is not pretty does not mean an action is wrong.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    > It's well within the power of the President to rescind a previous President's executive orders. To a point. The SCOTUS opinion here decides that DACA constituted a new program, and that the APA establishes legal requirements when canceling a program that the Trump administration did not follow. They didn't decide either way on whether the Trump administration can rescind the program - it's likely they'd decide Trump can. They just decided he didn't follow the rules properly when he did it.
    - koolba 6y ago
      > They didn't decide either way on whether the Trump administration can rescind the program - it's likely they'd decide Trump can. They just decided he didn't follow the rules properly when he did it. That's why this is such a terrible decision. They went out of their way to find a reason to not address the case itself. If the precedent this sets is that subsequent President's executive actions will take more than a full term to work through the courts to rescind, you can be damn well sure that Trump will take advantage of that on the way out.
      - ceejayoz 6y ago
        > They went out of their way to find a reason to not address the case itself. I wouldn't put this on the Court. They're not supposed to rule on questions that aren't before them. DACA opponents are welcome to file suit against DACA alleging it was illegally created/implemented. That they relied on Trump to just rescind it, and got burned by the administration's incompetence in doing so, is on them, not the Court.
- kyrra 6y ago
  My understanding is that DACA originally was entirely created out of an executive order, ie: there is no legislation backing it. The main argument I've seen is that it was created out of the executive, so any future executive should be able to come forward and revoke it, assuming they follow the proper comment process and notices.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    That'd be the Executive legislating, not the Court. The Court said the procedure for revoking that order didn't follow the Administrative Procedure Act. They didn't rule at all on the legality of the order itself, in either direction.
  - lisper 6y ago
    The legislation requires the administration to justify its actions. The creation of DACA provided such a justification, the repeal didn't. So stopping the repeal is just temporary. The Trump administration will try again, just like they did with the Muslim ban, and eventually they will succeed unless the clock runs out first.
    - rrss 6y ago
      > The creation of DACA provided such a justification Did the Court have an opinion on this in this ruling? I thought it didn't, in which case the creation of DACA has never been held to this "arbitrary and capricious" standard.
      - lisper 6y ago
        I don't know. It's possible that the justification for the creation of DACA was just as deficient as that for its repeal but that no one ever bothered to challenge it in court. I don't know the history. But given how rabid Republicans have been at challenging everything else Barack Obama ever did, that seems improbable to me.
        rrss 6y ago
- HideousKojima 6y ago
  What existing legislation? There was none to begin with
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    The Court says the White House violated the Administrative Procedure Act in how they rescinded the DACA order.
  - rrss 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_Procedure_Act_(United_States) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_Procedure_Act_(...
thoughtstheseus 6y ago
The Supreme Court is inherently political. They deal with cases where judges before them disagreed. That said briefs are useful to understand their arguments. Congress should do more... but they consistently do not.
threatofrain 6y ago
Why ought judges not legislate? https://law.lclark.edu/live/files/9581-lcb111peabodypdf https://law.lclark.edu/live/files/9581-lcb111peabodypdf "I recognize without hesitation that judges do and must legislate, but the legislatures should be hampered by limitations only if they are found in the plain words of the constitution." -- Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.
- HideousKojima 6y ago
  Because judges are not elected officials are are not accountable to the voting public for their actions. They shouldn't legislate from the bench for the same reasons that unelected dictators are considered a bad thing
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    They're absolutely accountable. The process is intentionally difficult - we'd have to push our elected representatives to impeach (or pack the court), and that's a high bar - but they're hardly dictators.
    - threatofrain 6y ago
      Also most judges are elected, and there's a blurry line on legislative powers and duties between all three branches of US government.
      - masonic 6y ago
        Most state judges have to stand for election at some point.
- andrewla 6y ago
  Where is that quote from? In his dissent in Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen, Holmes said "I recognize without hesitation that judges do and must legislate, but they can do so only interstitially; they are confined from molar to molecular motions." Assuming a plain reading of his analogy through chemistry, he's saying that they can "legislate" when the law leaves a situation undefined and they must reason through analogy.
regulation_d 6y ago
The opinion here reads very much like the Court is a high school teacher disappointed in the efforts of a lazy student. The Administration should have known the rules and followed them. They didn't and got called out for it. There is literally nothing stopping the DHS from actually following the rules, but in order to do so they're going to have to detail the affects of their proposed rule change on the DACA recipients.
brandmeyer 6y ago
I've heard argument pretty often, usually as rationale for the policy decisions taken by the Obama administration. Its flat wrong in the case of DACA. Congress has acted as a deliberative body and discussed wide-ranging immigration reform packages several times over the last two decades. They couldn't come to an agreement specifically because the legislature's makeup correctly reflects the disagreements among their respective constituents. Not-a-bug / working-as-intended.

ceejayoz 6y ago

What was legislated here? They ruled that the White House didn't follow the existing legislation.

koolba 6y ago
DACA itself was not legislated. It was an executive order issued by President Obama. Live by the sword, die by the sword. It's well within the power of the President to rescind a previous President's executive orders. Honestly the court copped out of addressing the issue. The correct ruling would be to uphold the rescinding of DACA and force Congress's hand to act on the issue. Just because the intermediate outcome is not pretty does not mean an action is wrong.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  > It's well within the power of the President to rescind a previous President's executive orders. To a point. The SCOTUS opinion here decides that DACA constituted a new program, and that the APA establishes legal requirements when canceling a program that the Trump administration did not follow. They didn't decide either way on whether the Trump administration can rescind the program - it's likely they'd decide Trump can. They just decided he didn't follow the rules properly when he did it.
  - koolba 6y ago
    > They didn't decide either way on whether the Trump administration can rescind the program - it's likely they'd decide Trump can. They just decided he didn't follow the rules properly when he did it. That's why this is such a terrible decision. They went out of their way to find a reason to not address the case itself. If the precedent this sets is that subsequent President's executive actions will take more than a full term to work through the courts to rescind, you can be damn well sure that Trump will take advantage of that on the way out.
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      > They went out of their way to find a reason to not address the case itself. I wouldn't put this on the Court. They're not supposed to rule on questions that aren't before them. DACA opponents are welcome to file suit against DACA alleging it was illegally created/implemented. That they relied on Trump to just rescind it, and got burned by the administration's incompetence in doing so, is on them, not the Court.
kyrra 6y ago
My understanding is that DACA originally was entirely created out of an executive order, ie: there is no legislation backing it. The main argument I've seen is that it was created out of the executive, so any future executive should be able to come forward and revoke it, assuming they follow the proper comment process and notices.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  That'd be the Executive legislating, not the Court. The Court said the procedure for revoking that order didn't follow the Administrative Procedure Act. They didn't rule at all on the legality of the order itself, in either direction.
- lisper 6y ago
  The legislation requires the administration to justify its actions. The creation of DACA provided such a justification, the repeal didn't. So stopping the repeal is just temporary. The Trump administration will try again, just like they did with the Muslim ban, and eventually they will succeed unless the clock runs out first.
  - rrss 6y ago
    > The creation of DACA provided such a justification Did the Court have an opinion on this in this ruling? I thought it didn't, in which case the creation of DACA has never been held to this "arbitrary and capricious" standard.
    - lisper 6y ago
      I don't know. It's possible that the justification for the creation of DACA was just as deficient as that for its repeal but that no one ever bothered to challenge it in court. I don't know the history. But given how rabid Republicans have been at challenging everything else Barack Obama ever did, that seems improbable to me.
      - rrss 6y ago
HideousKojima 6y ago
What existing legislation? There was none to begin with
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  The Court says the White House violated the Administrative Procedure Act in how they rescinded the DACA order.
- rrss 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_Procedure_Act_(United_States) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_Procedure_Act_(...

thoughtstheseus 6y ago

The Supreme Court is inherently political. They deal with cases where judges before them disagreed. That said briefs are useful to understand their arguments. Congress should do more... but they consistently do not.

threatofrain 6y ago

Why ought judges not legislate? https://law.lclark.edu/live/files/9581-lcb111peabodypdf https://law.lclark.edu/live/files/9581-lcb111peabodypdf "I recognize without hesitation that judges do and must legislate, but the legislatures should be hampered by limitations only if they are found in the plain words of the constitution." -- Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes.

HideousKojima 6y ago
Because judges are not elected officials are are not accountable to the voting public for their actions. They shouldn't legislate from the bench for the same reasons that unelected dictators are considered a bad thing
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  They're absolutely accountable. The process is intentionally difficult - we'd have to push our elected representatives to impeach (or pack the court), and that's a high bar - but they're hardly dictators.
  - threatofrain 6y ago
    Also most judges are elected, and there's a blurry line on legislative powers and duties between all three branches of US government.
    - masonic 6y ago
      Most state judges have to stand for election at some point.
andrewla 6y ago
Where is that quote from? In his dissent in Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen, Holmes said "I recognize without hesitation that judges do and must legislate, but they can do so only interstitially; they are confined from molar to molecular motions." Assuming a plain reading of his analogy through chemistry, he's saying that they can "legislate" when the law leaves a situation undefined and they must reason through analogy.

regulation_d 6y ago

The opinion here reads very much like the Court is a high school teacher disappointed in the efforts of a lazy student. The Administration should have known the rules and followed them. They didn't and got called out for it. There is literally nothing stopping the DHS from actually following the rules, but in order to do so they're going to have to detail the affects of their proposed rule change on the DACA recipients.

brandmeyer 6y ago

I've heard argument pretty often, usually as rationale for the policy decisions taken by the Obama administration. Its flat wrong in the case of DACA. Congress has acted as a deliberative body and discussed wide-ranging immigration reform packages several times over the last two decades. They couldn't come to an agreement specifically because the legislature's makeup correctly reflects the disagreements among their respective constituents. Not-a-bug / working-as-intended.