The Supreme Court Has Finally Found a President It Likes
'Since May, federal district courts have ruled against the administration 94.3 percent of the time,' Adam Bonica, a political scientist at Stanford, writes in a June 25 Substack essay. 'The Supreme Court, however, has flipped that outcome, siding with the administration in 93.7 percent of its cases. The Supreme Court is now in open conflict with the lower courts over cases involving the Trump administration.'
District court judges 'who see the evidence firsthand and hear directly from those affected,' Bonica adds, 'overwhelmingly find the administration's actions unlawful. Circuit (Appeals) courts split more evenly (68.2 percent against Trump, 31.8 percent for Trump) but still lean against the administration. Then the Supreme Court — furthest from facts, closest to power — reverses almost automatically.'
Mark Graber, a law professor at the University of Maryland, described the situation by email. 'Both Republican and Democratic judicial appointees have found numerous constitutional and statutory flaws with Trump Administration policies.'
Faced with this surge of lower court rulings against Trump and his appointees, Graber continued,
The Supreme Court almost without exception has been braking the lower federal courts rather than the Trump Administration. This has been done largely through rulings without accompanying reasons explaining why the lower federal courts were so wrong. The result is in some cases all lower federal courts have to guide them is a sense that the Roberts Court majority does not want lower federal courts interfering with the Trump Administration.
'Universities," Graber wrote, 'fear being tied up in litigation for years. Even if they eventually win every case in the Supreme Court, the costs are likely to be substantial. If the Supreme Court permits Trump to implement his version of the law for two to three years, universities that oppose him will be damaged significantly.'
In addition, Graber said, 'The Roberts court's pro-Trump series of decisions creates reason for thinking that you might lose, even as every professor in your law school tells you the law is on your side.'
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