Justice Kagan Won 70% of the Time
That's according to the end-of-term statistics compiled by the website SCOTUSblog. Also notable: 42% of rulings this year were unanimous, which is down slightly from the past two years, but it isn't far from the average of the past two decades. Another 24% of cases produced lopsided decisions, 8-1 and 7-2 (or else 7-1 with a recusal).
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CNN
11 minutes ago
- CNN
Trump urges Supreme Court to let him fire members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission
President Donald Trump's administration on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to step in on an emergency basis to permit the firing of three members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, as the White House continues to attempt to assert more control over independent agencies. Trump dismissed the three Joe Biden-appointees in May, but a federal district court last month ordered their reinstatement. The administration is asking the Supreme Court to pause the lower court order, a move that would take the three commissioners off the board again. The appeal is the latest to reach the high court dealing with the administration's power to fire board members at agencies Congress set up to have independence from the whims of the White House. The court has been receptive to Trump's arguments in earlier cases, giving his administration more control over those agencies – at least in the short term. The litigation around the Consumer Product Safety Commission, has 'thrown the agency into chaos,' the Trump administration told the Supreme Court and has 'put agency staff in the untenable position of deciding which commissioners' directives to follow.' The agency is charged with protecting consumers from dangerous products by issuing recalls and taking other enforcement steps. Trump has had considerable success with similar claims over independent agencies at the Supreme Court. In May, the court, in an unsigned opinion, allowed Trump to fire officials at two independent federal labor agencies that enforce worker protections. The Department of Justice heavily cited that outcome in its appeal to the high court Wednesday. 'Because the Constitution vests the executive power in the president,' the court wrote in its opinion at the time, 'he may remove without cause executive officers who exercise that power on his behalf, subject to narrow exceptions recognized by our precedents.' Writing for the dissenting justices, Justice Elena Kagan said the majority had effectively overruled a decades-old Supreme Court case, Humphrey's Executor v. US, that allowed Congress to require presidents to show cause – such as malfeasance – before dismissing board members overseeing independent agencies. In the Consumer Product Safety Commission case now pending, the Richmond-based 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rejected Trump's appeal – despite the outcome in the earlier case. In a concurring opinion, US Circuit Judge James Wynn noted that the Supreme Court had not yet technically overturned Humphrey's Executor. 'That precedent remains binding on this court unless and until the Supreme Court overrules it,' wrote Wynn, who was nominated to the bench by former President Barack Obama. In its filing Wednesday, the Trump administration urged the Supreme Court to issue an immediate 'administrative stay' that would let Trump keep the members off the board for a few days while the court considers the case. The board members fired back rapidly with a brief Wednesday rejecting the need for that outcome. Because the board members are 'currently serving and have been since June 13,' they told the court, 'an administrative stay would disrupt the status quo.'
Miami Herald
23 minutes ago
- Miami Herald
Supreme Court's conservative majority keeps giving Trump the power he wants
At a time when the United States is more ideologically divided than at any time since Reconstruction, what will it mean to have a Supreme Court that has so consistently and solidly come down on one side of that divide? The court's October term 2024, which had its last decisions released on Friday, June 27, presented a number of cases to the justices that posed politically controversial issues concerning the actions of President Donald Trump and our current culture wars. Time and again, the court came down on the conservative side, in 6-3 decisions. Perhaps the most important case of the term was a stunning restriction on the power of the federal courts to restrain unconstitutional actions by the president and the federal government. In Trump v. CASA, the Supreme Court held that no longer can federal courts issue nationwide injunctions to stop unconstitutional presidential actions and federal laws. This is a radical change in the law that greatly lessens the power of the federal judiciary. It means that there will have to be separate constitutional challenges in all 94 federal districts. It means that even after several federal courts deem a presidential action unconstitutional, he can continue it elsewhere. It means that there will be great inconsistencies across the country, with presidential policies and federal laws restrained in some places but not others. The court left open the possibility of class action suits, but those are often difficult if not impossible. Simply put, the Supreme Court's conservative majority greatly weakened a crucial guardrail of democracy: the ability of the federal judiciary to halt unconstitutional presidential actions. Repeatedly, though not in every instance, the court upheld unprecedented actions of the Trump administration that are inconsistent with basic constitutional principles. These matters came to the Supreme Court on its emergency docket (often called the 'shadow docket'). The cases are decided without the benefit of briefing and oral argument, often with no opinions or only very short explanations. An example of great judicial deference to Trump occurred on June 23 in Department of Homeland Security v. D.V.D. A federal district court had issued a preliminary injunction to keep the Trump administration from deporting individuals to South Sudan. Federal law is specific as to where people can be deported to: only if no alternative exists does the government have the power to pick its own place. It was clear that the Trump administration was violating this law, but the court — once more in a 6-3 decision — reversed the lower court and ruled for the government. It was stunning that there was no explanation whatsoever from the court, while Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a blistering dissent. This was also a term when the culture wars came to the court and the court repeatedly came down on the conservative side. On Friday, for example, the court decided Mahmoud v. Taylor, which involved a challenge to Montgomery County, Maryland's curriculum about sexuality and gender identity. A group of parents objected on religious grounds, saying that it infringed their free exercise of religion for them to not have notice of the curriculum and the opportunity to opt their children out of the instruction. The court, 6-3, agreed with the parents. This decision is an enormous expansion of the protections of free exercise of religion. Never before had the Supreme Court held that mere exposure to materials that parents find objectionable is enough to violate the Constitution. This will also be deeply problematic in practice: Does it mean that schools must give parents notice and the chance to opt out every time evolution is taught, or when an English class reads a book with witches or anything else some parents might find objectionable on religious grounds? Also, on Friday, in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, the court upheld a Texas law that requires age verification for access to websites with more than one-third sexually explicit content. Previously, in cases such as Ashcroft v. ACLU (2004), the court struck down such age verification requirements on the ground that the government cannot restrict access to speech for adults so as to protect children. Now, however, the court has empowered states to do just that. Yet another case directly from the culture wars was United States v. Skrmetti, where the court upheld, again in a 6-3 ruling, a Tennessee law prohibiting gender affirming care for transgender youth. Twenty-six states, all with Republican-controlled state legislatures, have adopted such a law. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, stressed that the court should defer to the legislatures on this matter. The court abandoned its long tradition of protecting minorities from the political process. At a time when our country is so divided, I still optimistically hope that the court might play a moderating — and even unifying — role. That so clearly didn't happen this year, as the conservative majority repeatedly chose sides. The court's legitimacy — and ultimately the country — is sure to suffer.
Washington Post
34 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Trump asks Supreme Court to remove 3 Democrats on the Consumer Product Safety Commission
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to remove three Democratic members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission , who were fired by President Donald Trump and then reinstated by a federal judge. Trump has the power to fire independent agency board members, the Justice Department argued in its filing to the high court, pointing to a May ruling by the Supreme Court that endorsed a robust view of presidential power.
