7 crazy court rulings in just one week

Congress left town last week on Wednesday afternoon. In just a few days, the federal courts have accomplished for the Left more than what Republicans have accomplished for conservatives since they assumed control of the House in 1995. Judicial supremacy is the biggest threat to the foundation of our republic, and unless Congress awakens from its slumber to immediately address its role in politics, all politics will remain in the judiciary.

Here is what the courts accomplished for the Left just last week on such important issues as immigration, environmental regulations, and abortion.

1. Ten years are not enough due process for a criminal alien convicted twice of burglary. In the highest-profile case of last week, Sessions v. Dimaya, Neil Gorsuch joined the four liberal justices and the Ninth Circuit in striking down an entire statute dealing with deportation of criminal aliens. It was the first such action of the court and upended a century of precedent stating that due process does not apply against deportation. The decision will have far-ranging consequences, including opening the door for criminal aliens already deported to re-litigate their claims.
2. Last Wednesday, a federal district judge in D.C. ruled that the government must find a less restrictive means of detention for the young illegal aliens who have already turned 18 and are flooding our border with drugs and gangs from Central America. They will now be released and disappear into our communities.
3. Planned Parenthood has a right to taxpayer funding. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals told Ohio that it must fund Planned Parenthood so long as the company says those exact funds will not go toward abortion.
4. A state might be unable to control which private organizations it patronizes, according to the Sixth Circuit, but according to the Seventh Circuit, the states are powerful enough to thumb their noses at federal immigration law and then claim a right to federal law enforcement grants. The Seventh Circuit – all three panel judges GOP appointees – ruled that the DOJ cannot cut off funding to sanctuary cities. Thus, a state can’t control its own funding but can control federal funding. The majority opinion even applied the injunction nationwide. Judge Manion dissented on that part.
5. In 2016, Indiana passed a law signed by then-Governor Mike Pence barring abortion clinics form performing abortions based on the fetus's race, gender, or medical diagnosis of a disability. The state also directed the clinics to treat aborted fetus remains like human bodies. The Seventh Circuit struck again and invalidated the law. All three judges were GOP appointees. Once again, Manion was slightly more restrained and would have upheld the burial regulations, but the hypocrisy is still glaring.
6. We already know that any program Obama concocted is now considered a statute, even if it was created by executive power and is actually lawless. In that vein, a federal district judge in Washington D.C. ordered the Trump administration to continue doling out $800 million in grants to private organizations to prevent teenage pregnancies. This program never existed in this form until Obama, but it must continue because a judge said so.
7. In a growing pattern of courts mandating that Trump continue Obama’s environmental regulations, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued an injunction on the Department of Transportation’s delay of penalties to auto makers that didn’t comply with Obama’s added Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. Two of the three judges on the panel were GOP appointees.

What does this all demonstrate? That almost every circuit is irremediably broken, and many GOP appointees go along with the most insane decisions on broadly political issues that should never be litigated in a court of law but worked out in a legislature. Even if Trump serves for two terms, he won’t be able to flush out the left-wing super-majority on most circuits.

The difference between judicial and legislative powers

Congress might be done with its work for the year even though it’s only April, but the judiciary has just begun its legislative agenda.

There are hundreds of other lawsuits pending that deal with broad political issues and litigation from criminal aliens instead of clear individualized personal grievances from U.S. citizens. Just this week, the Supreme Court will decide whether the president can protect America’s security and follow immigration law to keep out people from specific countries. The court will also preside over the redistricting of Texas. Every deportation and now even denial of entry to a foreign national is litigated in court. Foreign nationals and third-party organizations can sue general political practices and laws, and the courts get to assume the power of all three branches to set national policy.

We can’t go on much longer living in a judicial autocracy and pretending it’s a constitutional republic. When will Congress wake up and understand its own powers? As we’ve noted many times, even if you believe in a robust form of judicial review, that only applies to a legitimate case with valid standing before a court, and the ruling is not meant to set broad national policy over an ongoing political issue.

Just like John Marshall felt that a judge must abide by his oath to the Constitution when studying a law, the other two branches must follow that same oath of office. And when they know that a particular ruling is unconstitutional, they have a duty to use their powers to ensure that the erroneous judgement is not used to create a broadly consequential political rule throughout the country. The entire foundation for the prerogative of judicial review repudiates strongly the very idea of judicial supremacy. The Constitution is the law of the land.

As Lincoln chided Douglas, “Each man was bound to support the Constitution as he understood it. Now, Judge Douglas understands the Constitution according to the Dred Scott decision, and he is bound to support it as he understands it. I understand it another way, and therefore I am bound to support it in the way in which I understand it.”

If modern Republicans fail to interpret the Constitution the way they understand it, we will no longer have borders left, and the only thing remaining unregulated by government will be abortion on demand.

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