Lots and lots of well-prepared lawyers

[Gob]

Government? You call this fiasco "government"?

[Lord Jim]

Government? You call this fiasco "government"?

yrs,

Stropato

[Guinevere]

The lawyers win again!

EO which purports to remove federal funding from "Sanctuary Cities" is blocked by federal court judge in Northern California!

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/25/politics/ ... index.html

Will have to read the decision (and find a link) later tonight.

[Long Run]

Looks like similar reasoning to the ruling on the ACA Medicaid expansion where the federal government could use the threat of withholding focused grant money, but could not threaten to withhold unrelated federal dollars to force a state to take action.

[Burning Petard]

This business of 'sanctuary cities' is another follow the money. The feds pass a law about picking up undesirable aliens but include no money to enforce it. Cities balk at providing police services to ICE without any money to pay for it. The locals (very reasonably, and in actual conformity to other federal laws, IMNSHO) say sure we will hold these people for the feds, just show us a warrant. ICE says no warrant--we are too busy to do the paperwork, YOU take care of all that for us. The locals say 'go piss up a rope.'

Details, all the pesky regulations our deal-making wonderful president is gonna do away with so we can have the much more efficient government by decree. No more judge on some island in the Pacific telling the PresidentOfTheMostPowerfulNationInTheWorld He can't do what he wants. It will be beautiful. Better than you can imagine.

snailgate.

[RayThom]

Scroll down to the end of the column for a PDF of Judge Orrick's opinion in County of Santa Clara v. Trump. Case 3:17-cv-00574-WHO Document 98 Filed 04/25/17 Page 1 of 49

http://reason.com/blog/2017/04/25/feder ... inistratio

[Burning Petard]

WOW! ! ! I followed Ray's link and near the beginning of the official judicial pronouncement the judge summarized the president's legal representative:

"The Government does not respond to the Counties’ constitutional challenges but argues that the Counties lack standing because the Executive Order did not change existing law and because the Counties have not been named “sanctuary jurisdictions” pursuant to the Order. It explained for the first time at oral argument that the Order is merely an exercise of the President’s “bully pulpit” to highlight a changed approach to immigration enforcement."

Our beautiful president's own minions think His Executive Orders are just preaching from His bully pulpit--don't really mean anything.

How can He go on with such constant betrayal?

snailgate

[Sue U]

How can He go on with such constant betrayal?

He'll just start referring to the Justice Department as the "Judas Department."

[Lord Jim]

It's a fake court ruling...

[Econoline]

How can He go on with such constant betrayal?

He'll just start referring to the Justice Department as the "Judas Department."

I doubt he's that clever. He'll just go with the "so-called Justice Department'...his usual generic insult.

[Lord Jim]

Maybe he'll call it "the injustice department"...

[Big RR]

Or the Fake Justice Department

[Guinevere]

And the Trumpanzee goes down in flames in the Fourth Circuit, 10-3.

Will SCOTUS take the case?

[Lord Jim]

And the Trumpanzee goes down in flames in the Fourth Circuit, 10-3.

Will SCOTUS take the case?

I suspect they will, because there's a very important issue to be decided here, that goes well beyond this EO:

A central question in the case was whether courts should consider Trump’s past statements about wanting to bar Muslims from entering the country as evidence that the policy was primarily motivated by the religion.

Trump’s administration argued that the court should not look beyond the text of the executive order, which doesn’t mention religion.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/wo ... e35114024/

(Quote and link taken from an earlier post by Scooter)

The question of whether the Constitutionality of a Presidential EO should be determined just on the four corners of the EO, or if some larger context can be legally applied to reach that determination, would seem to be a fairly important issue for the Supreme Court to resolve...

[Guinevere]

An EO isn't a contract, which is where the "four corners" notion comes from. I'm also not so sure that's a terribly important issue. And there are other cases that discuss interpretation of an EO.

[Sue U]

No reason for SCOTUS to take the case unless and until there is a split in the Circuit Courts. There's plenty of First Amendment law that looks beyond the words of the enactment to determine the actual purpose. If they do take it, it will be a naked political act and not justified by the principles usually governing grants of certiorari.

[ex-khobar Andy]

My money is on SCOTUS saying - nothing to see here. If I understand correctly (and I know I will be corrected if necessary) four of the seven justices who participate in the "cert pool" have to agree to hear the case. As the 'cert pool' does not include Alito and Gorsuch, there seems to me to be a likelihood that they will leave it alone.

[RayThom]

Lord Dampnut will have an better shot issuing Immigration Ban EO#3 rather than petition the Supreme Court.

I don't see any tweets yet -- he's probably suffering from jet lag and bloviation exhaustion. I'm sure he'll resume as soon as he's done venting his spleen at the G7 summit.

[Lord Jim]

There's plenty of First Amendment law that looks beyond the words of the enactment to determine the actual purpose.

Regarding Presidential Executive Orders?

I'm also not so sure that's a terribly important issue.

I completely disagree there...

I think there are two very important issues regarding Presidential power involved here. First, the extent of Presidential discretion to regulate immigration, and second whether (and to what extent and under what circumstances) it is appropriate to consider statements made by a President (or others involved) outside the text of an EO in determining the meaning and intent of the order.

If the SC takes the case, it might decide this is never appropriate, it might decide this is always appropriate, or (as I think would be most likely) it would rule that it can be appropriate in some situations, and set down some guidelines on this for lower courts to apply in reviewing EOs.

We live in a country which for years now has been governed to an ever-growing extent by EOs, and I believe it is of vital interest to the American people that the SC consider important issues related to them when they arise in the judicial process.

Rather than seeing taking this appeal as a "nakedly political act", I believe that if the Supreme Court fails to accept this appeal it will be because of the Court's well-known institutional predilection to avoid making rulings in controversial cases if it can find any excuse to do so.(In this case the lack of a split between the Circuit Courts)

ETA:

Certainly in this particular instance, a very strong case can be made that the public statements made clearly and overwhelmingly indicate a certain intent behind the order...

But going beyond this one EO, there will certainly be others (issued by this President and subsequent Presidents) where the record of public statements are more ambiguous and/or contradictory.

If federal judges are going to be permitted to sift through these statements and arrive at their own conclusions as to which ones to use and which ones not to use, and how to interpret the ones they choose to include when they are ruling on the Constitutionality of an EO, then some sort of standards and guidelines are needed specifically to prevent the process from becoming a "nakedly political" one...

[Big RR]

Lord Dampnut will have an better shot issuing Immigration Ban EO#3 rather than petition the Supreme Court.

He'd have had a better shot using this time to put together a cogent screening policy (and screening apparatus as needed) rather than fight for the need of this blanket ban. It's been over 4 months since the first EO issued, and that should have been enough time to do that (at least it should be, based on the administrations statements about the timing), but then clarity and particularity are not in Trump's vocabulary or mind, nor is the following of any particular policy toward any desirable end, other than to promote himself.