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This had to happen. The state of affairs prior to this ruling is that any of 700 district judges could unilaterally block the president from exercising his auth
by paulvnickerson 1y ago
This had to happen. The state of affairs prior to this ruling is that any of 700 district judges could unilaterally block the president from exercising his authority under the constitution pending a review, including matters of national security, based on their own subjective politics. It broke the proper functioning of the government. This restores a proper functioning balance of powers.
- jayd16 1y ago> based on their own subjective politics. You mean like under their own judgement?
- pjc50 1y agoYou're just stating that the President, and his federal government, should be above the rule of law again.
- stefan_ 1y agoThats why the government can just skip ahead and call the Supreme Court, and then the Supreme Court lifts it because apparently being unable to do illegal things is Irreparable Harm (actually makes a mockery of the concept of course). In the meantime, when I sue John Doe and get an injunction, they are enjoined from their conduct everywhere; but when I sue the government, it should only apply to me? Makes no sense.
- vkou 1y agoThe state of affairs is that: 1. The executive is doing something illegal to hundreds of thousands of people. 2. Dozens and hundreds of people sue them. 3. The executive loses in court. 4. The executive does not appeal to the supreme court the cases it lost. 5. Thus, no binding precedent that stops the illegal action in #1 is set. This is actual lawless lunacy, and this enshrines it as SOP going forward. Is this the country you want to live in? Do you think this is how it should run? Here's a wild idea. If the executive disagrees with the federal courts on the merits of whether or not its decisions are illegal, it can appeal up to SCOTUS, and win a case on its merits. It can't do that because even under this SCOTUS, their case has no merits. > exercising his authority under the constitution pending a review That is the entire bloody point of checks and balances. You are cheer-leading the complete destruction of them. The government, when challenged on the legality of what its doing, needs to win their case in court, because the courts are the final arbiters of written law.
- stateaffairs 1y ago[flagged]
- vkou 1y ago> Of course, because innocent until proven guilty. The purpose of courts litigating the legality of executive actions is not establishing innocence or guilt, so what you're saying is completely irrelevant. The president doesn't go to prison because some court found that he signed an illegal executive order. (But it sounds like you maybe think that should be the case. It's hard to tell, because you aren't saying anything coherent.) > The POTUS doesn't need to ask for permission to politicized local judges Let's play a simple game. If he signs a blatantly unconstitutional and illegal EO ordering the US Marshals to have you and your family arrested, tortured, and shot tomorrow, whose permission do you think he should need? Which parts of the government would be able to stop him? You seem to think that no 'politicized'[1] judge should be allowed to say "Whoa, hold on there, that may be illegal." --- [1] What the hell does 'politicized' mean? Is there a single person in government who is not 'politicized'? Is SCOTUS somehow not 'politicized'? Is the executive?
- anigbrowl 1y agoIt's not worth replying to incoherent comments. Just DV or flag them.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- esseph 1y agoIts "politicized" when it's something someone doesn't like. It can't just be, I don't know, a plain reading of the fucking law. It's time to Balkanize.
- stateaffairs 1y agoMost of these blocks have been overturned, and important government action has been unnecessarily delayed.
- acoustics 1y agoIn this case, the president does not have the authority under the constitution to purport to invalidate the citizenship of natural-born citizens. It is the executive that broke the proper functioning of the government.
- thatfrenchguy 1y agoI know words are just words, but trying to re-interpret "subject to the jurisdiction" is such a ridiculous over-reach. Enjoy the chaos though, because some later administration as a revenge will very likely strip the rights of folks who can't show a naturalization certificate in the same way.
- indil 1y agoYour news sources have woefully misinformed you. Trump's argument is that it's not enough to be born here, you have to also be a charge of the country: "Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." Note the "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof". Trump's argument is that people born in America to tourist parents here for a few weeks (for example) aren't subject to the jurisdiction of America. It's a valid argument to make, even if you come down on a different side. Even the author of the 14th amendment said that was the point of that clause. Even in logical terms it makes sense: You can't just let anyone in to give birth and then collect benefits; it's unsustainable. However, this case wasn't about citizenship. It was about the broader issue of lower courts issuing restraining orders outside their jurisdictions. It's a recipe for chaos. There's a reason why there are multiple jurisdictions, and courts are limited to their jurisdictions. What happens when two lower courts issue conflicting nationwide orders? The only court in the US that has jurisdiction over the entire country is the Supreme Court. This was a losing battle. There's a right way and a wrong way to go about addressing problems. Court cases are sometimes more about the core issues involved than the concrete circumstances. Sure, birthright citizenship was the reason for the suit, but the core issue was judicial overreach. Don't get mad because the way your side was "winning" was by cheating, and they were stopped. Try having an actual good argument, and doing things the right way by arguing the actual case in a court.
- tshaddox 1y agoI'm personally much less worried about genuine national security matters getting temporarily blocked than I am about general authoritarianism from the President (any President). Given the impotence of Congress, what checks on executive power are we left with?
- ReptileMan 1y agoPrayer mostly. Or actually fixing the congress.
- ceejayoz 1y agoTrump did once note an additional option. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/10/us/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/10/us/politics/donald-trump-...
- sorcerer-mar 1y agoLiberals really should arm themselves before these people finally classify "disagreeing with daddy" as a mental disorder. [0] It is obviously hilarious to think the "conservatives" and "2A enthusiasts" would possibly help defend lefties' right to bear arms at this point, as they've shown themselves to be utterly devoid of actual values. People across the political spectrum have an obscene amount of faith in "can't happen here" beliefs being an actual impediment to authoritarianism. [0]: https://davidson.house.gov/2025/5/rep-warren-davidson-introduces-the-trump-derangement-syndrome-tds-research-act-of-2025 https://davidson.house.gov/2025/5/rep-warren-davidson-introd...
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- toomuchtodo 1y agoIf you’re not armed yet, you’re already behind the curve. No one is going to protect you except you and potentially your sphere/community.
- moogly 1y agoI don't think you understand what the word "balance" means.
- thatfrenchguy 1y ago"balance" is when the people you agree with get more power than they should right?
- Almondsetat 1y agoAny judge in the country based on their own subjective politics can also create a precedent by ruling a certain way, and that single precedent might be used even a hundred years later. So by the same logic, this also should go away since it means any judge anywhere at any time can basically sediment history with their opinion
- williamdclt 1y agoMany people do think this should go away yes. Common law VS statutory law is a constant debate
- Almondsetat 1y agoArguing for or against common law wasn't the point (personally I'm not a fan of it). The point is that the same reasoning calls for the abolition of common law, so GP should take that into consideration
- tzs 1y ago> Any judge in the country based on their own subjective politics can also create a precedent by ruling a certain way, and that single precedent might be used even a hundred years later. District courts do not create precedent. Precedent comes from appellate courts.
- wnoise 1y agoThey do not create binding precedent. They can create so-called persuasive precedent -- something other courts (and the same district in subsequent opinions) can and do cite when they don't disagree.
- aaomidi 1y agoThe balance of powers have been broken for over a century at this point with ever increasing “emergency” declarations that don’t go away, giving the executive branch immense power.
- root_axis 1y ago> The state of affairs prior to this ruling is that any of 700 district judges could unilaterally block the president from exercising his authority under the constitution pending a review This ruling does not "restore" a functioning balance, it damages it. This has never been a problem in the past because previous administrations (regardless of politics) didn't take illegal actions daily. Framing it as "politics" is disingenuous as many of the judges ruling against Trump were appointed by him. The system was working as intended to check an executive acting outside of the law, but once again, the supreme court continues to empower the executive.
- tw04 1y agoWhen the Supreme Court has multiple members who have and continue to openly break the law themselves, they have a vested interest in keeping a party in power who is also openly corrupt.
- firesteelrain 1y agoIn our system, the judicial branch interprets the law, but it doesn’t direct executive enforcement decisions Constitution would have to be changed
- jonstewart 1y agoJudges have never been able to make rulings based on their own subjective politics. They must justify their rulings under the law. I could extend some merit to the idea that injunctions should be limited in complex cases where case law is thin and the law is less than clear. When executive orders are clearly unconstitutional, however, I do not then see any reason for limits.
- ReptileMan 1y ago>They must justify their rulings under the law. The law that states that growing wheat on your own land is interstate commerce.
- raincom 1y agoJudges make use of reasonableness, superset of rationality, all the time. The issue is what is reasonable to 30% is not reasonable to another 25%. As long as there is a political backing for their reasonable decisions, they are fine. One can call it subjective or political. That’s why judges do judge and provide good reasons that can be defendable by 20% of those who vote and have political sway.
- Amezarak 1y agoIt's astonishing how many people fail to address the legal argument in the SCOTUS opinion, disregard the legal question altogether, and apparently want the courts to decide how things "should" be, regardless of legality. IANAL but I read SCOTUS opinions regularly and this one is hard to argue with. If things should be different then we need legislative/constitutional changes.
- magicalist 1y ago> If things should be different then we need legislative/constitutional changes lol, yes, like birthright citizenship written plainly into the constitution. What good are your further legislative/constitutional changes worth if the executive can just ignore them except for the single individuals who file suit?
- 827a 1y agoThe ruling today very explicitly and clearly does not touch the birthright citizenship issue.
- EasyMark 1y agoThe only reason the avoided is to avoid countering Trump, it's dead obvious that Trump is forbidden by law to do what he's doing. It's going to take months to years for a real 14th amendment case to reach them, meanwhile he's shipping people off to "3rd nations" to imprison them there in the worst conditions imaginable and indefinitely with no court process or trial. Why should an illegal immigrant go to prison, potentially for the rest of their life just because they illegally crossed the border?
- 827a 1y agoThe judicial still has significant tools to stop an executive branch that is clearly acting illegally. So does the legislative. If these branches don't leverage those tools, or those tools don't work, we have bigger problems. Guess what: You're living in the world of bigger problems.
- BriggyDwiggs42 1y agoIn practice we’ve had the opposite problem, plain and simple.
- everforward 1y agoFrom my reading and understanding, they still can, it just involves an _immense_ amount more paperwork. The ruling is basically that judges can only provide injunctions for the named party in a case, not universal injunctions. So instead of one injunction, each person impacted by the EO will have to file for their own injunction. Which will likely be granted due to similar injunctions already granted. So it reads to me like we've ended up in a similar spot, but with the requirement that an insane amount of paperwork happens.
- peddling-brink 1y agoNot all people affected by an EO have an equal opportunity to generate that paperwork. Going to court or getting involved in the legal system have costs, of both time and money. Not something all people have enough of to spare.
- paulryanrogers 1y agoWe don't have enough courts. The population has grown yet the courts haven't, and now it's effectively pay to play.
- everforward 1y agoAhh, I mistakenly thought some form of public defenders were appointed in deportation cases. The free lawyers I’ve seen must have been from non-profits. That is indeed a big issue.
- malcolmgreaves 1y agoNo it’s not the same spot at all. No one will file injunctions. There is also the possibility that another’s court case for the same reason won’t be decided the same way. What this means is that it’s now ok for the orange man to break the law. Rule of law will only be upheld in very limited circumstances in very limited areas.
- elAhmo 1y agoNot a single decision so far was related to national security. The checks and balances exist and they are/were working, and this is an attempt to circumvent that.
- NPC82 1y agoBut don't forget the emergency narrative: "We're being invaded!" and "Governors (bureaucrats, etc.) aren't doing what I want them to do it's now an emergency!". This is not only how our dictatorial executive overreaches, but also how its supporters justify the means in their minds.
- EasyMark 1y agobut instead of a few cases, now there will be dozens of cases because now each state/district has to fight Trump's authoritarian tendencies, and in the meantime he can imprison (just for starters) illegal immigrants in "3rd countries" known for torture and the worst prison conditions impossible, and seemingly he prefers to do that.
- Salgat 1y agoMind you this simply meant that, if important enough to temporarily block, an appeal would be needed to ensure that what the President was doing was legal, which is entirely reasonable. This was simply an extra legal check on the president to keep the president inline with the law.
- OneDeuxTriSeiGo 1y agoI may be mistaken but this is under the assumption that the government chooses to appeal their losses in these lower courts. So if the govt gets to choose between just not appealing and not having to deal with these injunctions or appealing and risking an injunction, why would they appeal in most cases?
- tmountain 1y agoThis implies that executive orders should be the status quo, which deviates from the design of the American system of government. The courts should not be routinely blocking the president because the president should not be routinely ruling by executive order. This change paves the way for additional power concentrated in the executive branch which is already far too powerful. It is the next step towards an authoritarian regime and no good will come from this ruling.
- nradov 1y agoHaving a strong federal government in the first place deviates from the design of the American system of government. We ought to eviscerate federal government power and devolve most executive power back to the several States. That would make national politics far less contentious.
- krapp 1y agoWe tried that. It was called the Continential Congress, and it was a spectacular failure. If you want the US to be a loose confederation of 50 sovereign nations, fine. Just hope you live in California, New York or Texas, because every other state is going to devolve into the American equivalent of Eastern Europe.
- int_19h 1y agoThe Continental Congress failed because it gave the federal government too little power, but that was fixed with the US Constitution. There was that long time period between that and Wickard v. Filburn, you know.
- AnimalMuppet 1y agoTrue. And yet, in that world, what we would have is judges blocking acts of Congress instead.
- majormajor 1y agoIt stretches credibility to claim that the "proper functioning of the government" is broken today requiring a change by something that is ... quite old. (I think there's a MUCH stronger argument to be made that the proper function of the US government has been broken by Presidents changing thing by executive order because nobody has enough votes to do much in the Senate. It seems like "nobody has the votes to make big changes" should be an indicator that not making big changes is the proper result.) The status quo would be "issue a ruling, it may or may not get put on hold while the government appeals, eventually it gets to the Supreme Court if necessary." Seemed to be working. Republicans obviously have used this to challenge stuff themselves. It is unclear why there is a need for giving the government an escape hatch to let them say "sure, we lost this one case, we'll stop enforcing things against these few people, we just won't appeal and will continue to do whatever we want nationally instead."
- tshaddox 1y ago> It seems like "nobody has the votes to make big changes" should be an indicator that not making big changes is the proper result. "Nobody has the votes" seems like a weird way to put it, because is implies that everyone wants to make changes, they just can't agree which changes to make. On the contrary, I think the issue is that most congresspeople do not want to make changes. Changes are scary. If your name is associated with a change, and that change becomes unpopular, it might threaten your reelection!
- majormajor 1y ago> "Nobody has the votes" seems like a weird way to put it, because is implies that everyone wants to make changes, they just can't agree which changes to make. On the contrary, I think the issue is that most congresspeople do not want to make changes. Changes are scary. If your name is associated with a change, and that change becomes unpopular, it might threaten your reelection! The split in Congress is driven by the split in the people and the people DO want actions taken. Just - different actions for each faction. If there was only one fairly unified party of voters in the country and a Congressman was refusing to vote to do what the voters wanted them to do, they'd get voted out. "Not doing anything to be careful" is a bug enabled by the population being split.
- laughing_man 1y agoAgreed. The system simply cannot work if any district judge anywhere can veto the president's policies. In theory it's just an injunction, but the reality is this kind of stuff takes forever to get hashed out in the courts, and Trump will be well out of office before it gets settled. I have no problem with SCOTUS injunctions, but there are too many district courts for this to work. The way things were heading the president was going to be forced to start ignoring injunctions, and he would have been right to do so. The Roberts court had to make this ruling for the government to function.
- Rapzid 1y agoHe would have been wrong to do so.
- laughing_man 1y agoNot at all. The president has to protect the powers of his office, and when the courts overstep he doesn't have an obligation to give them deference.
- Rapzid 1y agoIt's not the role of the executive to determine that, it's up to the judicial and legislative. Ignoring court orders is wildly inappropriate.
- kelnos 1y agoExcept this president thinks he has the powers of a king. Which he doesn't, and courts are right to slap him down. There's no such thing as "courts overstep" in our system. The courts are the final word on things in the US. By definition, they cannot overstep. You or I can disagree with their rulings, but they have the force of law, unless overturned by a higher court.
- dalyons 1y agoAre the courts overstepping or is he just issuing blatantly illegal orders?
- diek00 1y agoI would bet if the democrats did this, the collective right's head would explode. I love how selective Trump is with following the constitution and its amendments, his supporters as well. They will die on their sword for 2A, but 1A when it suits their agenda and all others are just loosely worded suggestions
- beej71 1y agoI don't remember who it was who pointed this out, but it would appear as though the right considers hypocrisy to indicate a position of power. These are the rules for you, but not for me, because I'm more powerful.
- acdha 1y agoFrom another perspective, this is what is commonly referred to as Wilhoit’s Law: > Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: > There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect. > There is nothing more or else to it, and there never has been, in any place or time.
- mindslight 1y ago> They will die on their sword for 2A No, they will not. Remember when Breonna Taylor was summarily executed for Kenneth Walker exercising his second amendment right to night time home defense - one of the exact scenarios the gun-fundamentalists are always fantasizing about - but then the Trumpists came out on the side of licking the jackboots? Personally, I think it is likely that sometime during this Trump "presidency" we will see him call for more national gun control (obviously framed in terms of hurting some vulnerable group). We will see most of his supporters fall right in line, just as they have been doing on everything else. There will be heaps of rationalization about how it won't affect them of course, and they might even be right. Morals, values, and other lofty ideals mean nothing to these people, beyond being trotted out as dishonest justifications to try and trick reasonable people into supporting their movement. I'm sure they meant something at some point, but that has been long forgotten. Their only real desire appears to be unrestrained power for their team, demonstrating it by hurting people who aren't on their team. This is why it has been impossible to have an actual discussion about what they actually want, or how Dear Leader and his policies fail at everything they claim to want - there is literally nothing of substance there.
- consumer451 1y agoHow is it that the country appears to have been functioning pretty well for quite some time, until now? What has changed?
- ARandomerDude 1y agoThe post-WW2 bureaucratic state became so massive that it was first possible, then desirable, to weaponize it against your opponents. This is why we should have small government. If the government has a narrowly scoped role, the fear of the other side getting elected goes away. With huge government comes great concern about who’s in it. As proof of that principle, how many people are really fired up about who is elected locally? How about nationally? The reason is the federal government has way too much power.
- rickydroll 1y agoDefine small government. My list starts with: -fund basic research in science and engineering -fund nascent beneficial commercial efforts where private interests fear to tread - supply infrastructure and services that are useful to most but are natural monopolies are network effects monopolies. (i.e. roads, rail,air, healthcare, research labs, weather services to name a few) - punishing cheating. i.e. fraud, externalities such as pollution, shifting costs onto the public to enhance profitability, and all forms of financial engineering. - protection against catastrophic loss - protection of vulnerable people - limiting corporations and individuals from gaining society distorting power.
- resize2996 1y agoWhere do you suppose that power goes, if not in the hands of the federal government? Do you think it neatly trickles down to the people?
- burnt-resistor 1y ago> The post-WW2 bureaucratic state became so massive Except that's a popular myth of the DOGE chainsaw crowd. The US is half the size of nearly every other advanced economy as % of GDP.
- pedalpete 1y agoI agree with you, but for a different reason, assuming I am even understanding what is happening here, I'm not American. My reading is that under the previous system, a single district could prevent an order federally, even if every other district judge agreed with the new order. I don't see why a single district should be able to influence the entire country. I would understand that they could limit powers in their district, and potentially challenge laws at a state level, and then federally. Let's look at how this could have impacted a topic that gets my attention in the US, gun laws. I'm definitely left, so let's say a president came in and made some order about changing gun laws and made it harder to get a gun. It seems to me, that if that were to occur, a single judge in a gun-loving district could block the order universally for all the other states? That doesn't seem right. It does make sense that they could say that law doesn't apply to our district, and we will challenge that law being applied to our state and if the state agrees, they could then challenge the law federally. I'm obviously making up a ton of stuff about a system that I don't understand.
- underlipton 1y ago>I don't see why a single district should be able to influence the entire country. Should a single person be able to pull a fire alarm? Or do we need building-wide consensus first?
- pastor_williams 1y agoShould a single person be able to block access to the fire hydrant or do we need consensus?
- pedalpete 1y agoThat's the right take. Thank you. I came up with a much worse analogy.
- bravesoul2 1y agoShould a single person be able to block the decision of the top ranking fire-fighter. That fire-fighter may be good, or may be in the job because he likes things to burn.
- vannevar 1y ago>The state of affairs prior to this ruling is that any of 700 district judges could unilaterally block the president from exercising his authority under the constitution pending a review, including matters of national security, based on their own subjective politics. It would be more accurate to say that prior to this ruling, any of 700 district judges could unilaterally block the president from exceeding his authority under the constitution pending a review, including matters of national security, based on their own subjective view of the law. It may differ in other countries, but under the US Constitution, the judicial branch ultimately decides the limits of executive authority, not the President. If it's truly a matter of national security, the President could always file emergency appeal and it would almost certainly be granted. If it's such a dire and immediate emergency that even those few hours were critical, it's doubtful that any President would feel obligated to obey the injunction anyway. Far from preventing the proper functioning of government, this was one of the few remaining guardrails maintaining the proper functioning of government under unprecedented circumstances.
- pyinstallwoes 1y agoYour premise is false, exceeding is not the limit, because the limit is at the behest of any of the judges; given a judge exceeds their rational, then they exceed their rational ability to limit the executive branches power
- dpe82 1y agoAnd if the judgement is in error, it will be appealed and overruled by a higher court. This is how our system works. We're only seeing it as a "problem" lately because the past few administrations have leaned increasingly heavily on unilateral executive action rather than legislation as the constitution designs, and as we'd been doing successfully for the previous 200 years.
- stogot 1y agoWhat penalty is there for continuous “errors”. Let’s say a judge was known to always apply an injunction for a certain party, can they be penalized or removed? If I become biased or incompetent at my job I’m eventually get fired but do judges ever?
- hayst4ck 1y agoLaw and order is frequently said, but few people separate the ideas. Law is justice while order is the absence of open conflict. They are not the same thing. This is a ruling which chooses order over law. Order without justice is tyranny.
- braiamp 1y agoAs someone said in another comment, constitutionality of an action is national. There's nothing that could be considered unconstitutional in one particular region of the US and not in the others. The nationwide injunction is a tool that needs to happen if the US is ever attempting to be a country of laws.
- agensaequivocum 1y agoPartisan organizations are running to judges late on Friday nights, "randomly" getting judges who issue a TRO before the government even is informed of the lawsuit let alone respond. We are talking about blocking the executive from action before any argument is made in the merits. That's not at all consistent with co-equal branches. If they kept this up, Trump would rightly echo Andrew Jackson "Well, John Marshall has made his decision, but now let him enforce it."
- paulryanrogers 1y agoThe answer to judge shopping isn't making the president a king.
- agensaequivocum 1y agoHe's not but the constitution vests him with all executive power. This is broad. It's also a co-equal branch. The inferior courts don't even need to exist. Congress can dissolve them at any time. It's a gross violation of the separation of powers for a district court to enjoin executive action.
- paulryanrogers 1y ago> The inferior courts don't even need to exist. Do you mean to say we can have a functional judiciary with only a supreme Court to rule on everything?
- agensaequivocum 1y ago
- mmcwilliams 1y agoWhat you're describing is the "check" in the term "checks and balances".
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]