Donald Trump just got shut out by the Supreme Court again
The Supreme Court of the United States is well known for its lengthy opinions that set precedents on a wide range of important issues. But, often enough, the Court paves the way to progress through its inaction. We saw this recently when the Court slammed the door on Texas’ frivolous attempt to magically overturn the will of the people in four states because, essentially, the voters preferred Joe Biden.
In just the past week, we saw this again, as the Supreme Court sent two more ill-conceived legal disputes to the jurisprudential graveyard. Had either one of these cases been allowed to proceed, the conservative Court could have later ruled on the merits in a way that would push America even further toward becoming a nation that prides itself on bigotry and hate.
The Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from the State of Indiana regarding the rights of same-sex parents. At issue was a state law that barred same-sex parents from being listed on a child’s birth certificate. By choosing not to hear the appeal, the Supreme Court passively let the Seventh Circuit’s decision stand and the law be invalidated. This is a major win for LGBTQ families, who have been in limbo with this issue for years, according to reporting from Slate.com.
On Friday, the Supreme Court again passed on an opportunity to rule, this time concerning the legality of Donald Trump’s plan to exclude residents living in the United States illegally from the census. Although the Court’s dismissal means Trump remains free to pursue his plan, the Court did not give the plan the thumbs up he wanted.
On the contrary, the six conservative justices behind the unsigned majority opinion criticized the Trump administration’s arguments as “riddled with contingencies and speculation.” The justices also conceded that they “simply do not know whether and to what extent” Trump would be able to pull off his plan of “excluding the estimated 10.5 million aliens without lawful status.”
Not surprisingly, the Trump administration has mostly given up on this issue, according to the Los Angeles Times. Realistically, the worst possible scenario at this point is that Trump will try to exclude only the tens of thousands of immigrants awaiting deportation. However, it would then be up to the Biden administration to carry out Trump’s plan, which is a bit hard to imagine. In any event, the much smaller number of exclusions from the census would likely not change how Congressional representatives are apportioned within a state.
Trump managed to nominate three justices to the Supreme Court in his single failed term, handing them off to a salivating Mitch McConnell who then rammed them through to tilt the court to a 6-3 conservative majority. Despite all this, the Supreme Court didn’t overturn the election for Trump, and the justices aren’t Trump worshippers bending over backwards to serve the gluttonous creature the heaping portion of wins he foolishly expected. Trump is supremely screwed.
Ron Leshnower is a lawyer and the author of several books, including President Trump’s Month