Now that Supreme Court is out for the summer, will Congress finally do its job?

USA Today

16 hours ago

Congress is lazy and will inevitably take the path of least effort. The legislative branch needs to reclaim its role as policymakers, rather than allowing the president to usurp its responsibilities.
The Supreme Court's term may have ended, but we'll still be sifting through the fallout of the justices' final decisions for some time.
On June 27, the Supreme Court ended universal injunctions, the controversial orders that judges used to block executive actions.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett was very combative with her liberal dissenters, namely Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, for focusing on the ramifications of this decision, rather than attempting to decipher what the law says.
While Barrett is right to be frustrated with her ideological opposites, it doesn't mean that their pragmatic concerns are not very real. The end of universal injunctions opens doors for the executive branch to further expand its power, if Congress does not step up to the plate.
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Ending universal injunctions has real fallout
Not only have recent presidents become more lawless, but they also have become more ambitious in their lawmaking authority. Rather than going through Congress, the constitutionally intended legislative body, the executive has broadly usurped those responsibilities. The result has been a higher volume of executive orders. These orders also continue to push the bounds of what the president can accomplish with the stroke of his pen.
As brazenly unconstitutional as the Trump administration's position is when it comes to its redefinition of birthright citizenship, the executive action at the center of this case, I completely understand why President Donald Trump's detractors are genuinely concerned about this Supreme Court holding.
The universal injunction had become the primary tool for blocking policies that are as constitutionally suspect as this one, at least until their merits can be evaluated. These injunctions provided instant and broad relief against unconstitutional policies.
However, there is another side to that coin, which is that some perfectly appropriate executive actions get blocked under the broad authority of universal injunctions. This problem is exacerbated in that litigants can bring cases in favorable districts anywhere in the country, and have the resulting injunctions impact the entire United States.
Presidents like Donald Trump and Joe Biden, who both have acted outright lawlessly, haven't helped their case. Presidents who act lawlessly are obviously more likely to have courts block policies that fit that same pattern, rather than give them the benefit of the doubt.
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Surely, as injunctions become the chief tool for combating these actions, the system has developed a level of reliance on them. Now, a new framework for combating executive overreach needs to be developed.
Alternatives to injunctions are more cumbersome
While the Supreme Court said that 'universal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts,' the majority opinion did not rule out the prospect of similar relief being granted when states sue the federal government.
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The primary form of relief expected to fill the void of universal injunctions is class action lawsuits, which are more procedurally burdensome on those seeking relief than the recent history of universal injunctions, but lawsuits still are an effective way for those impacted by unlawful executive orders to challenge them.
However, class actions aren't the only possible alternative. Congressional members, if they ever decide they want to speak up, could also pass legislation clarifying in what circumstances universal injunctions can be levied against executive actions.
The Supreme Court has begrudgingly tossed the ball back into Congress' court, but it's unlikely it will do anything productive with this opportunity.
Instead, members of Congress are likely to allow more and more power to be ceded to the presidency, because the executive is doing much of the work they should be doing. My thesis for years at this point has been that Congress is outright lazy and will inevitably take the path of least effort. Congress needs to reclaim its role as policymakers, rather than allowing the president to usurp its responsibilities further.
However, none of this undermines the idea that the Supreme Court did its job on nationwide injunctions, determining what the law says on the matter. All of this simply reinforces just how damaging it is to our government that Congress refuses to work.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court will continue to be blamed by Americans for the problems that are really created by Congress.
Dace Potas is an opinion columnist for USA TODAY and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science.