San Francisco is a favorite venue of the Resistance to Trump because appeals go from there to the Ninth Circuit, which Obama packed with seven lifetime appointments. The liberal California senators have failed to allow Trump to fill six vacancies on that circuit, which has long been notorious for being reversed, often unanimously, by the Supreme Court.
The Ninth Circuit even issued decisions by activist judge Stephen Reinhardt after he died on March 29th of this year, including a July 24th decision in which the other judges on the panel stated that Reinhardt had agreed with the court opinion even though he had died nearly four months earlier. Perhaps because a party complained, the Ninth Circuit later withdrew that decision.
Trump’s Solicitor General Noel Francisco is doing what he can to combat the judicial supremacy. He has taken the extraordinary step of asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear certain appeals without first awaiting decisions by the U.S. Circuit Courts that are packed with Obama nominees.
The Supreme Court takes far fewer cases than it did a generation ago, and it is shocking how it increasingly fills its docket with easy, non-controversial cases.
A cursory glance at the cases the Court has decided to hear this Term reveals much that is insignificant. Much of the Court’s time seems to be spent dodging abortion and other hot-button issues; the Court has deferred again and again cases concerning the simple authority of states to defund Planned Parenthood.
Chief Justice Roberts failed to join the dissent by two Justices, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, to the spectacle of putting the Trump Administration on trial in New York for including a question about citizenship in the census.
Chief Justice Roberts failed to join the dissent by two Justices, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, to the spectacle of putting the Trump Administration on trial in New York for including a question about citizenship in the census. One would think that the first and most important question in a census by any country, dating back to ancient Rome, would concern citizenship.
But Chief Justice Roberts and a majority of the Court have allowed an Obama-appointed judge – the brother of Obama’s chief economist – to put Trump officials on trial. No court would have put members of the Obama Administration on trial with respect to their policy decisions.
