Latest news with #GOP-appointed
Yahoo
6 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Law Professor Nails The Exact Thing Missing From GOP Senator's 'Anomalous' Trump Talk
Kate Shaw, a University of Pennsylvania law professor and an ex-Obama White House lawyer, schooled Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) Tuesday over his claim on nationwide injunctions against President Donald Trump's administration. Hawley, in a testy moment during a Senate judiciary subcommittee hearing, turned to an Axios graph showing how federal district courts issued 64 injunctions against Trump in his first term, a figure that well exceeds the number of rulings that froze policies under both Barack Obama and Joe Biden. 'You don't think it's a little bit anomalous?' asked Hawley of the graph. 'A very plausible explanation, Senator, you have to consider is that he is engaged in much more lawless activity than other presidents, right? You must concede that is a possibility,' Shaw hit back. There were at least 25 nationwide injunctions against the Trump administration from the start of his second term through late April, per a Congressional Research Service report. That figure is just one short of the total of combined nationwide injunctions against both of Obama's administrations and the Biden administration, according to Harvard Law Review data. Their clash comes as the Trump administration continues to face challenges in the courts with executive orders ranging from its deportation efforts to tariffs. Trump and his allies have proceeded to relentlessly attack judges and courts who have opposed the administration's agenda in his first few months of office. Hawley later claimed that judges appointed by Democratic presidents 'love' imposing injunctions against the Trump administration. While Harvard's figures show that a majority of such rulings were issued by the opposing party's appointees in Trump's first term, Shaw noted that GOP-appointed judges did just that against the Biden administration. Moments later, Hawley sarcastically declared there shouldn't be nationwide injunctions with a Democrat in the Oval Office, but the decisions are 'absolutely fine, warranted and called for' with a Republican in the White House. 'How can our system of law survive on those principles, professor?' Hawley asked. 'I think a system in which there are no constraints on the president is a very dangerous system,' Shaw replied. Trump Admin Sends 'Ominous Signal' On Emergency Abortion Care Guidelines Man Accused Of Faking Trump Death Threat In Attempt To Get Witness Against Him Deported Elon Musk Gets Roasted Online After Attempting To Dodge Trump Interview Questions
Gulf Today
01-06-2025
- Politics
- Gulf Today
Fundamental rights shouldn't depend on your ZIP code
Ronald Brownstein, Tribune News Service One of the most powerful trends in modern politics is the growing separation between red and blue states. Now, the Supreme Court looks poised to widen that chasm. Over roughly the past decade, virtually all Republican-controlled states have rolled back rights and liberties across a broad front: banning abortion; restricting voting rights; censoring how teachers can discuss race, gender and sexual orientation; and prohibiting transition care for transgender minors. No Democratic-leaning state has done any of those things. The result is the greatest gulf since the era of Jim Crow state-sponsored segregation between the rights guaranteed in some states and denied in others. The Republican-appointed Supreme Court majority has abetted this separation. Its decisions eviscerating federal oversight of state voting rules (in the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder case) and rescinding the national right to abortion (in 2022's Dobbs decision) freed red states to lurch right on both fronts. In oral arguments this month, the GOP-appointed justices appeared ready to push the states apart in a new way: by restricting federal courts from issuing nationwide injunctions. Concern about nationwide injunctions has been growing in both parties. Such injunctions remained relatively rare during the two-term presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, but Trump faced 64 of them in his first term and Joe Biden 14 in his first three years in office, according to a Harvard Law Review tabulation. Through the first 100 days of Trump's second term, federal courts have already imposed 25 nationwide injunctions against him. Trump has been uniquely vulnerable to this judicial pushback because he has moved so aggressively to challenge—and, in many instances, disregard — previously understood limits on presidential authority. But there's no question that each party now views nationwide injunctions as a critical weapon to stymie a president from the other party. Coalitions of red and blue state attorneys general have become especially reliant on the tactic. Each side has grown adept at challenging the incumbent president's actions primarily in district and circuit courts dominated by appointees from their own party, notes Paul Nolette, a Marquette University political scientist who tracks the state AG lawsuits. This aggressive forum shopping usually produces the desired result. Looking at the district court level, the Harvard analysis found that judges appointed by presidents of the other party imposed almost 95% of the nationwide injunctions directed against Biden or Trump in his first term. At the appellate court level, Adam Feldman, who founded the Empirical SCOTUS blog, calculated that the conservative 5th Circuit was much more likely to block presidential actions under Biden than Trump, while the liberal 9th circuit was, to an even greater extent, more likely to block Trump than Biden. These stark outcomes capture how the Supreme Court's verdict on injunctions could widen the distance between the states. If the Supreme Court hobbles their use, it will virtually guarantee that more federal courts simultaneously issue conflicting decisions to uphold or invalidate presidential actions. Trump's executive orders would be enforced in some places and not others. In the most extreme example—which plainly troubled the Court at its hearing—children born in the US to undocumented parents potentially would become citizens in some states, but not in others, depending on which courts allow Trump to overrule the 14th Amendment's guarantee of birthright citizenship. The Supreme Court would surely try to resolve more of these disputes, since conflicting appellate rulings are a big reason why it accepts cases. But the court would face practical limits on how many such disagreements it could referee. Across Trump's first term and Biden's four years combined, the Supreme Court considered only about 1 in 10 cases brought by attorneys general from the party out of power, Nolette calculates. Even if the court addressed more cases through its emergency docket, banning nationwide injunctions would likely result in more unresolved conflicts among the circuits on core questions of both presidential power and basic civil rights and liberties. That would harden the red-blue divide. Though the overlap isn't perfect, most Democratic-leaning states are covered by federal circuits in which Democratic presidents appointed most of the judges, and vice versa for Republican-leaning states. (The principal reason for this correlation is a Senate tradition that makes confirmation votes for federal district court nominees contingent on their home-state Senators' approval; the Senate applied that rule to federal appeals court nominees as well until 2018.) The protection of Democratic-leaning circuit courts could allow blue states to mostly fend off Trump's attempts to erase basic rights (like birthright citizenship) within their borders, or blunt his efforts to force them to adopt conservative social policies (as he is attempting by threatening their federal funding.) Conversely, the receptivity of Republican-leaning circuit courts would likely allow Trump to impose his agenda across red America, except in the (probably rare) cases when the Supreme Court intervenes to stop him. The nation's legal landscape would trend even more toward a patchwork. 'We've seen a huge divergence in red and blue states in policy and law ... and a potential ban on nationwide injunctions would just accelerate this trend,' said Jake Grumbach, a University of California at Berkeley political scientist who has studied the growing differences among the states. In a long arc spanning roughly from the Supreme Court decision banning segregated schools in 1954 to its ruling establishing nationwide access to same-sex marriage in 2015, the courts and Congress mostly nationalized civil rights and limited states' ability to curtail them. Now we are reverting toward a pre-1960s nation in which your rights largely depend on your zip code. Nationwide judicial injunctions are a flawed tool, and in a perfect world the two parties would collaborate on bipartisan reforms to limit them for future presidents. At some point, it would make sense to consider proposals that have emerged in both parties to require that a three-judge panel, rather than a single judge, approve any nationwide injunction. But to abruptly ban them now risks further unraveling the seams of an already fraying America.
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
The GOP is going after Medicaid and Planned Parenthood at the Supreme Court
Republicans' war on abortion and Planned Parenthood could wind up curbing Medicaid patients' health care for things having nothing to do with abortion — such as cancer screenings, blood work and annual physicals. Whether that happens could become clearer at a Supreme Court hearing Wednesday, which coincides with the broader GOP push for Medicaid cuts nationwide. The technical legal issue before the justices deals with whether people who use the low-income assistance program can choose their providers and sue to enforce their rights. The case started before the Supreme Court's GOP-appointed majority overturned federal abortion rights in 2022. Four years earlier, South Carolina's Republican governor, Henry McMaster, had sought to bar abortion clinics from Medicaid participation, and the state told Planned Parenthood that it could no longer service Medicaid beneficiaries. That raised legal questions under part of the federal Medicaid Act known as the 'free choice of provider' provision, which says states must let anyone eligible for assistance obtain the care from any 'qualified' provider. A federal appeals court panel ruled against the state last year, reasoning that the provision 'specifies an entitlement given to each Medicaid beneficiary: to choose one's preferred qualified provider without state interference.' In a decision written by Reagan appointee J. Harvie Wilkinson, the panel stressed that its ruling was about not abortion but rather 'whether Congress conferred an individually enforceable right for Medicaid beneficiaries to freely choose their healthcare provider.' Wilkinson noted that if Planned Parenthood clinics were to close in South Carolina, 'other Medicaid-funded clinics in the state would be more hard-pressed to meet the demand in family planning care.' Siding with the provider and a woman insured through Medicaid who wanted to go there, the judge said that's 'precisely the prospect Congress wished to avoid.' The state appealed to the Supreme Court, represented by the Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, which litigates abortion and other issues aligned with Republican policies. In its high court petition, the state called the issue one of 'great national importance.' The justices granted review and set oral argument for Wednesday. The Trump administration supports the state. Among Planned Parenthood's backers are Medicaid beneficiaries who told the justices in an amicus brief that they rely on the provider for health care services having nothing to do with abortion, 'including annual physicals, blood work, screenings for various forms of cancer, infertility and prenatal services — indeed, some patients rely on Planned Parenthood for virtually all their healthcare needs.' They wrote that their experiences show 'just how important it is that the courthouse door remain open when States attempt to bar patients insured by Medicaid from seeking care from the qualified provider of their choice.' A decision in the case, known as Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, is expected by July, when the court typically finishes issuing the term's rulings. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in the Trump administration's legal cases. This article was originally published on
CNN
28-03-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Court lets Trump fire labor and worker protection board members while they fight to keep their jobs
A federal appeals court on Friday let President Donald Trump remove for now the chair of a critical 'merit board' that reviews federal firings, and a member of the National Labor Relations Board, handing the president a major win in his efforts to control independent federal agencies and potentially hobbling both agencies by depriving them of a quorum. The emergency order issued by the DC US Circuit Court of Appeals removes Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) chairwoman Cathy Harris and NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox from their posts while their legal cases move forward. They previously argued that Trump can't summarily fire them because federal statutes specify that he can only dismiss them for cause. This is a significant win for Trump, who has now succeeded at firing a number of independent watchdogs within the executive branch. The latest ruling isn't the final word in the matter, but the outcome bodes well for Trump and shows that the judges are receptive to his arguments. These two officials – who were appointed by President Joe Biden – both prevailed at a lower court before today's appeal court decision. This ruling could make it harder for federal workers to swiftly push back against the Trump administration's massive cuts to government jobs, which some judges have concluded were unlawful. Without a quorum, the MSPB and NLRB will be limited in their ability to function. The ruling was 2-1, with two GOP-appointed judges siding against a Democratic appointee. 'The Supreme Court has said that Congress cannot restrict the President's removal authority over agencies that 'wield substantial executive power,' wrote Judge Justin Walker, a Trump appointee. The appeals court isn't scheduled to hold oral arguments on the merits of the case until mid-May. But the MSPB and NLRB officials can appeal the latest decision regarding the stay to the Supreme Court, and try to get their jobs back quickly, while the underlying legal questions are resolved. The MSPB is a critical bulwark against unjustified and politicized firings of civil servants. It has already temporarily overturned some of the Trump administration's earliest attempt to massively reduce the size of the federal workforce by firing newer 'probationary' employees. The three-judge panel that handled the case was Walker, Karen Henderson, a George H.W. Bush appointee, and Patricia Millett, an Obama appointee, who dissented. 'The whole purpose of a stay is to avoid instability and turmoil. But the court's decision today creates them,' Millet wrote in her dissent, referring to the decision to 'stay,' or pause, the lower-court rulings that kept Wilcox and Harris at their posts and maintained the status quo while their lawsuits played out. This is the same three-judge panel that let Trump fire the head of the Office of Special Counsel, who mounted a similar appeal, though there are some key legal differences between that agency and the MSPB. Lawyers for Harris and Wilcox have accused the Trump administration of promoting an extreme interpretation of the law that would ignore generations of Supreme Court rulings. At oral arguments before the appeals court on March 18, Harris' attorney Aaron Zelinsky said, 'the government is asking you to throw out centuries of precedent.' Wilcox's attorney Deepak Gupta claimed Trump 'has no legitimate interest in disabling this body created by Congress.' The Justice Department argued that the lower-court judge usurped presidential powers by limiting his ability to fire top officials from executive branch agencies. They also said Congress went too far when it passed a law saying presidents could only fire these officials for cause. 'They are agency heads that answer to no one but the president,' Justice Department lawyer Eric McArthur said at oral arguments, referring to senior officials at independent agencies.
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Court lets Trump fire labor and worker protection board members while they fight to keep their jobs
A federal appeals court on Friday let President Donald Trump remove for now the chair of a critical 'merit board' that reviews federal firings, and a member of the National Labor Relations Board, handing the president a major win in his efforts to control independent federal agencies and potentially hobbling both agencies by depriving them of a quorum. The emergency order issued by the DC US Circuit Court of Appeals removes Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) chairwoman Cathy Harris and NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox from their posts while their legal cases move forward. They previously argued that Trump can't summarily fire them because federal statutes specify that he can only dismiss them for cause. This is a significant win for Trump, who has now succeeded at firing a number of independent watchdogs within the executive branch. The latest ruling isn't the final word in the matter, but the outcome bodes well for Trump and shows that the judges are receptive to his arguments. These two officials – who were appointed by President Joe Biden – both prevailed at a lower court before today's appeal court decision. This ruling could make it harder for federal workers to swiftly push back against the Trump administration's massive cuts to government jobs, which some judges have concluded were unlawful. Without a quorum, the MSPB and NLRB will be limited in their ability to function. The ruling was 2-1, with two GOP-appointed judges siding against a Democratic appointee. 'The Supreme Court has said that Congress cannot restrict the President's removal authority over agencies that 'wield substantial executive power,' wrote Judge Justin Walker, a Trump appointee. The appeals court isn't scheduled to hold oral arguments on the merits of the case until mid-May. But the MSPB and NLRB officials can appeal the latest decision regarding the stay to the Supreme Court, and try to get their jobs back quickly, while the underlying legal questions are resolved. The MSPB is a critical bulwark against unjustified and politicized firings of civil servants. It has already temporarily overturned some of the Trump administration's earliest attempt to massively reduce the size of the federal workforce by firing newer 'probationary' employees. The three-judge panel that handled the case was Walker, Karen Henderson, a George H.W. Bush appointee, and Patricia Millett, an Obama appointee, who dissented. 'The whole purpose of a stay is to avoid instability and turmoil. But the court's decision today creates them,' Millet wrote in her dissent, referring to the decision to 'stay,' or pause, the lower-court rulings that kept Wilcox and Harris at their posts and maintained the status quo while their lawsuits played out. This is the same three-judge panel that let Trump fire the head of the Office of Special Counsel, who mounted a similar appeal, though there are some key legal differences between that agency and the MSPB. Lawyers for Harris and Wilcox have accused the Trump administration of promoting an extreme interpretation of the law that would ignore generations of Supreme Court rulings. At oral arguments before the appeals court on March 18, Harris' attorney Aaron Zelinsky said, 'the government is asking you to throw out centuries of precedent.' Wilcox's attorney Deepak Gupta claimed Trump 'has no legitimate interest in disabling this body created by Congress.' The Justice Department argued that the lower-court judge usurped presidential powers by limiting his ability to fire top officials from executive branch agencies. They also said Congress went too far when it passed a law saying presidents could only fire these officials for cause. 'They are agency heads that answer to no one but the president,' Justice Department lawyer Eric McArthur said at oral arguments, referring to senior officials at independent agencies.
