Monday, June 26, 2017

SCOTUS-Palooza, 2017 Edition

If it's the last Monday in June, it's time for the big Supreme Court rulings for the end of spring term, and as with 2014's awful Alito Hobby Lobby decision, 2015's Scalia EPA decision wrecking President Obama's clean power plant initiative,  and 2016's Breyer strikedown of Texas's TRAP laws regulating abortion clinics out of business , this year's final rulings were big news that will have lasting effects for years.

The big ruling is actually a future one: the Supreme Court will take up Trump's Muslim travel ban in October and for now has issued a messy partial stay, partial enforcement on the ban.

The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it would decide whether President Trump’s revised travel ban was lawful, setting the stage for a major decision on the scope of presidential power. 
Mr. Trump’s revised executive order, issued in March, limited travel from six mostly Muslim countries for 90 days and suspended the nation’s refugee program for 120 days. The time was needed, the order said, to address gaps in the government’s screening and vetting procedures. 
Two federal appeals courts have blocked critical parts of the order. 
The administration had asked that the the lower-court ruling be stayed while the case moves forward. The court granted part of that request in its unsigned opinion. 
We grant the government’s applications to stay the injunctions, to the extent the injunctions prevent enforcement of” Mr. Trump’s executive order “with respect to foreign nationals who lack any bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.”

Which means family members of US citizens or employees of US companies can't be banned, but that means that it looks like the burden of proof of said "bona fide relationship" would have to be on the person wishing to enter the US.  That's going to be spectacularly messy to enforce.

Worse, the Supreme Court even taking this up is a majorly bad sign.  We'll see in October when SCOTUS hears the case, but my guess is a ruling would come sooner rather than later given the Trump regime argument involving national security import that the Court clearly believes is relevant here.

We'll see where this goes.

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