Judges appointed by Trump keep ruling against him. He’s not happy about it.
Judges appointed by Trump keep ruling against him. He’s not happy about it.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/06/trump-judges-ruling-against-him-00595511
Tag: courts
Reagan-Appointed Judge Slams Trump’s Crackdown on Pro-Palestinian Students
“Young’s ruling came in response to one of the Trump administration’s signature policies, its attempts to shut down Palestinian solidarity protests by deporting Palestinian students and their supporters. The American Association of University Professors and the Middle East Studies Association sued a few days after the arrest of Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, arguing that the policy violates freedom of speech, both by intimidating foreign academics in America and preventing American academics “from hearing from, and associating with, their noncitizen students and colleagues.”
Ruling that administration officials indeed “acted in concert to misuse the sweeping powers of their respective offices to target non-citizen pro-Palestinians for deportation primarily on account of their First Amendment protected political speech,” Young promised to hold a hearing on the specific measures he will order. He wrote that “it will not do simply to order the Public Officials to cease and desist in the future,” given the current political environment.
…
The ruling itself meticulously outlined how several different activists—Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk, Mohsen Mahdawi, Yunseo Chung, and Badar Khan Suri—were targeted for deportation and how the administration justified it, both internally and publicly. Although Secretary of State Marco Rubio repeatedly claimed in the media that the deportations were meant to target “riots” on campus, Young shows that the students were often targeted based on their opinions alone, with vague chains of association linking them to violent protests.”
https://reason.com/2025/10/01/reagan-appointed-judge-slams-trumps-crackdown-on-pro-palestinian-students/
Judge pauses cuts to US Agency for Global Media
“A federal judge has paused the Trump administration’s plan to lay off more than 500 employees of the U.S. Agency for Global Media — most from Voice of America — while warning that senior officials there had repeatedly failed to comply with his orders to preserve the international broadcaster’s key operations.”
The Trump administration is defying the courts.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/29/judge-pauses-cuts-to-us-agency-for-global-media-00586081
SCOTUS Is Now Poised To Overrule Humphrey’s Executor, a 1935 Precedent Limiting Presidential Power
“In 1935, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that President Franklin Roosevelt acted illegally when he tried to fire an anti-New Deal commissioner from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The FTC “cannot in any proper sense be characterized as an arm or an eye of the executive,” declared the Court in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States. “We think it plain under the Constitution that illimitable power of removal is not possessed by the President in respect of officers of the character of those just named.”
But that was then. More recently, the Supreme Court has all but announced that Humphrey’s Executor faces imminent judicial execution, an outcome that would allow President Donald Trump (and every president who succeeds him) to fire “independent” agency heads at will.”
https://reason.com/2025/09/25/scotus-is-now-poised-to-overrule-humphreys-executor-a-1935-precedent-limiting-presidential-power/
Supreme Court allows Trump to fire FTC member while court mulls future of independent agencies
“The Supreme Court is allowing President Donald Trump to keep a Biden-appointed member of the Federal Trade Commission out of her post for at least three more months, despite a century-old federal law aimed at limiting the president’s power to fire such officials for political reasons.
The justices said Monday they will hear arguments in December about whether that law unconstitutionally interferes with the president’s ability to control the executive branch. If the court strikes down the law — as many legal experts expect — it will further hobble Congress’ ability to insulate the leaders of regulatory agencies from political pressure.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/22/supreme-court-ftc-trump-firing-00575714
Supreme Court keeps in place Trump funding freeze that threatens billions of dollars in foreign aid
Why have a Congress if the president can just ignore its laws? Why have a Constitution if the president can just ignore it? The power to spend is clearly given to Congress. The President is supposed to execute that spending. This is the president refusing to faithfully execute those laws, clearly violating the division of powers spelled out in the Constitution.
“The Supreme Court on Friday extended an order that allows President Donald Trump’s administration to keep frozen nearly $5 billion in foreign aid, handing him another victory in a dispute over presidential power.
With the three liberal justices in dissent, the court’s conservative majority granted the Republican administration’s emergency appeal in a case involving billions of dollars in congressionally approved aid. Trump said last month that he would not spend the money, invoking disputed authority that was last used by a president roughly 50 years ago.
The Justice Department sought the high court’s intervention after U.S. District Judge Amir Ali ruled that Trump’s action was likely illegal and that Congress would have to approve the decision to withhold the funding.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/supreme-court-keeps-place-trump-204620328.html
Amy Coney Barrett’s Case for Originalism Falls Short
“Her key example of this alleged judicial malfeasance is the case of Lochner v. New York (1905), in which the Supreme Court struck down a state economic regulation on the grounds that it violated the right to economic liberty that was secured by the Fourteenth Amendment. “Courts owe deference to legislative majorities in determining how to handle economic and social problems,” Barrett writes in opposition to Lochner. The Supreme Court “must not infringe on the democratic process by entrenching issues that the Constitution leaves open.”
Barrett thus favorably invokes, and cites, the Lochner dissent written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., who thought the Supreme Court had no business second-guessing the decisions of state regulators and should instead adopt a thoroughgoing posture of judicial deference.
For an originalist, the central question raised by Lochner is whether or not the Fourteenth Amendment, as originally understood, protects an unenumerated right to economic liberty.
According to the Holmes-Barrett view, the Fourteenth Amendment does not.
But the historical evidence says otherwise. According to the principal author of section one of the Fourteenth Amendment, Rep. John Bingham (R–Ohio), “the provisions of the Constitution guaranteeing rights, privileges, and immunities” include “the constitutional liberty…to work in an honest calling and contribute by your toil in some sort to the support of yourself, to the support of your fellow men, and to be secure in the enjoyment of the fruits of your toil.”
Furthermore, as I’ve previously noted, “even those who opposed the passage of the 14th Amendment agreed that it was designed to protect economic liberty from overreaching state regulation—indeed, that was a big reason why they opposed the amendment in the first place.” When both the friends and foes of a constitutional provision agree in real time about what it meant, their agreement counts as important historical evidence for the provision’s original public meaning. In this case, such evidence supports the position of the Lochner majority and undermines the position of the Lochner dissent.
Alas, Barrett’s book doesn’t mention any of this relevant historical material. Instead, she basically just echoes Holmes’s ahistorical dissent and leaves it at that.
That’s too bad. As Barrett herself put it, “interpreting the Constitution today require[s] us to understand its historical meaning.” Yet Barrett neglects to do that very thing in one of the main cases she invokes to support her position.”
https://reason.com/2025/09/16/amy-coney-barretts-case-for-originalism-falls-short/
Judge says she can’t help deportees Trump admin sent to Ghana, despite torture fears
“Lawyers for the men say that as soon as they reached Ghana, they were informed that they would be quickly transferred to their home countries, even though they had won protection from U.S. immigration courts from being returned to their homes for fear of persecution or torture.
…
“For over three decades, through five presidential administrations, this country has adhered to its obligations to treat refugees humanely and to comply with the Constitutional requirement of due process, which is afforded to all persons present in this country, regardless of their citizenship status. In recent months, the government has embarked upon a series of deportations which signal a drastic change of course,” Chutkan wrote.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/15/ghana-deportations-trump-administration-ruling-00565188
Legal Scholar Says Supreme Court Could Become a “Pointless Institution” | Amanpour and Company
One reason that the Supreme Court gets so much power is that it’s the branch that gives reasoned explanations for why it makes the heavy decisions it does. With the shadow docket, which currently holds a majority of Supreme Court decisions, the court gives no explanations for its sometimes momentous decisions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IkaMdt3Dbw
Trump’s Tariffs Face a Major ‘Major Questions’ Problem at the Supreme Court
“both the U.S. Court of International Trade and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal District have leaned on the “major questions” doctrine. Under that legal theory, the executive branch can only exercise powers that Congress has explicitly granted. The U.S. Supreme Court invoked that doctrine in other recent high-profile cases, including the 2023 ruling that struck down then-President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness scheme.
There is no doubt that Congress has, in fact, granted huge tariff powers to the executive branch. But the narrow question before the Supreme Court is whether the law Trump has invoked to impose these tariffs—the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA)—grants such broad authority. The law does not contain the word “tariff” and has never been used to impose tariffs before now.”
https://reason.com/2025/09/08/trumps-tariffs-face-a-major-major-questions-problem-at-the-supreme-court/