Another day, another left-wing judge abuses judicial authority! This time, the judge held that not even Congress may cut funds from activist groups, specifically the industrial-scale abortionist, Planned Parenthood. Usurpations of executive and judicial power by left-wing judges have become so flagrant that even liberal justices on the Supreme Court rebuke them.
On July 3, the Supreme Court issued a “motion for clarification” to its June 23 order that had enjoined a stay issued by Judge Brian Murphy of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Murphy, who had been appointed by President Joe Biden, had in April decided that the Trump administration violated the Convention Against Torture when it attempted to deport six illegal immigrants to South Sudan, despite none of them being from that country.
Murphy entered a nationwide injunction to ban the removal of “any alien” to a “country not explicitly provided for on the alien’s order of removal.” It was an order that attempted to stop all efforts to deport illegal immigrants other than to their home country. Murphy also held that the Trump administration had failed to provide the six illegal immigrants still on the way to South Sudan with any “meaningful opportunity” to assert claims under the Convention.
The Trump administration appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court, which, on June 23, by a 6-3 vote, stayed Murphy’s injunction. When the Supreme Court issued that decision, Murphy issued a second order claiming his injunction remained in effect “notwithstanding” the justices’ ruling. The only legal authority Murphy could muster to support his blatant disregard for the Supreme Court’s majority opinion was to cite that decision’s dissent. By noting the dissent, he made clear that he knew of the decision but chose to ignore it.
The Trump administration appealed Murphy’s new injunction, and again the Supreme Court enjoined Murphy’s order. But this time it was by a vote of 7-2, not 6-3. The additional vote came from Justice Elena Kagan, who explained in a separate concurrence that while “I voted to deny the Government’s previous stay application in this case, and I continue to believe that this Court should not have stayed the District Court’s order… a majority of this Court saw things differently, and I do not see how a district court can compel compliance with an order that this Court has stayed.”
In other words, Murphy had no authority to ignore the previous Supreme Court order. Although Kagan still disagrees with the majority, she wrote separately from them to admonish Murphy for his blatant disregard for the rule of law.
Liberal judges would be wise to heed her warning, adjudicate disputes within the boundaries of precedent, and stop trying to turn themselves into Resistance heroes. Unfortunately, that does not appear to be what is happening. Days after the Supreme Court issued its Trump v. Casa decision banning nationwide injunctions by district courts, a judge appointed by President Barack Obama certified a class action lawsuit overturning President Donald Trump’s end of asylum abuse at the southern border. That case will assuredly reach the Supreme Court too, and again, a left-wing judge’s ruling will be overturned, as it should be.
The same goes for the temporary restraining order handed down by another Obama-appointed judge this week, holding that Congress violated Article I, Section 9, Clause 3 of the Constitution (the Bill of Attainder clause) when it voted to defund Planned Parenthood. No court has ever held that not receiving federal funds is a “punishment” under the Bill of Attainder clause, and the Supreme Court will not do so. A left-wing judge again went far beyond precedent to thwart the agenda of the elected majority.
THE DEMOCRATS BIG TEXAS FLOOD LIE
The social and professional pressure on wealthy, highly educated, left-wing judges appointed by Democratic presidents to the federal bench to do everything in their power to oppose Trump is no doubt intense. But these judges are doing their party and the nation a disservice by wildly stepping outside judicial norms. In their effort to stop Trump at any cost, they are setting themselves up for strategic failure as the Supreme Court is forced to intervene in more and more lower court decisions, with outcomes more favorable to Trump than a more measured response in line with precedent would have produced.