At Supreme Court, steady wins for conservative states and Trump’s claims of executive power

Washington – The duration of the Supreme Court which ended on Friday will not be remembered for successful decisions like the last years which have canceled the right to abortion and positive action of the college.

The judges reduced their file this year and spent a large part of their energy focused on the decision of the accelerated calls of President Trump. The lawyers of his administration have complained that too many judges exalted Trump’s agenda.

Friday, the Conservatives of the Court agreed to curb the district judges, a procedural victory for Trump.

What was missing so far, however, is a clear decision on the question of whether the president has respected the law or has exceeded his authority in the American Constitution.

During the last two days of the quarter, the conservative majority of the Court provided major victories to the Republican States, to religious parents and to Trump.

The judges have given states more authorization to prohibit medical treatments for transgender adolescents, to refuse Medicaid funds to the Planned Parenthood clinics and to ensure the laws on age verification for online porn sites.

Everyone came with the familiar split 6-3, with the people named Republican who rank on the side of the states led by the GOP, while the named Democrats dissident.

These decisions, although significant, were something less than historical decisions nationally – celebrated the victories for the republican half of the nation but having no direct or immediate effect on the States led by the Democrats.

California legislators are not likely to adopt measures to restrict the care affirmed by the sexes or to prohibit Medicaid women from obtaining birth control, pregnancy tests or medical screening in a Planned Parenthood clinic.

The new decisions echoed the decision of Dobbs three years ago which canceled Roe against Wade and the constitutional right to abortion.

As the conservative judges noted, the decision in Dobbs against Jackson Women’s Health has not prohibited abortion nationally. However, this allowed the conservative states to do so. Since then, 17 states led by the South and Midwest Republicans have adopted new laws to prohibit most or all abortions.

On this front, the court decisions reflect a “federalism” or a style of conservatism of the United States, which dominated during the decades spent under President Reagan and two of the conservative leaders of the Court, the chief judge William Rehnquist and the judge Sandra Day O’Connor.

The two were republicans of Arizona (and in the case of O’Connor, a former legislator of the States) who came to the court with this point of view that Washington has too much power and exercises too much control over states and local governments.

With the nation clearly divided according to the partisan parties, today’s conservative court could be congratulated or defended to release states to make different choices on “cultural wars”.

The other big winner so far this year has been Trump and his broad affirmations of executive power.

Since his return to the White House in January, Trump said he had the total power to manage federal agencies, reduce their expenses and draw most of their employees, all without the approval of the congress, which has created and financed the agencies.

He also asked for the authority to impose prices of any amount on any country and also to change his mind a few days later.

He sent troops from the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles against the wishes of the Governor and the Mayor.

He said he could punish universities and law firms.

He said he could revise by decree of the 14th amendment and his clause of citizenship of regulars.

Until now, the Supreme Court has not declined outright on Trump’s major affirmations of power. But the judges granted a series of emergency calls for Trump lawyers and canceled the lower judicial orders which prevented his initiatives from taking effect.

The theme was that the judges are offline, not the president.

Friday’s decision limiting national injunctions expressed this point of view in an opinion of 26 pages. The conservatives have agreed that some judges have exceeded their authority by moving largely on the basis of a single trial.

The judges have not yet decided to know if the president has exceeded his power.

Judge Amy CONEY BARRETT summed up the dispute in a revealing comment which responded to a dissent by judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. “Judge Jackson describes an imperial framework while adopting an imperial judicial power,” she wrote.

It lacks all this the previous strain of conservatism which opposed the concentrated power in Washington – and in this case, in one person.

Last year offered a suspicion of what was going to happen. A year ago, the court ended his mandate by declaring that the president was sheltered from the pursuit of his official acts in the White House.

This decision, in Trump against the United States, protected the former president and soon the criminal president.

The Constitution does not mention such immunity for the former presidents accused of crimes, but the chief judge John G. Roberts Jr.

Since his return to the White House, Trump has not been accused of having shown “undue prudence”.

Instead, he seems to have considered the opinion of the Court as confirming his uncontrolled power as director general of the country. Trump advisers say that because the president has been elected, he has the mandate and the power to put his priorities and his policies.

But the conservatives of the Supreme Court did not take this point of view when President Biden took up his promising to take measures on climate change and reduce the burden of student loans.

In the two areas, the Roberts court judged that the Biden administration had exceeded its authority under the laws adopted by the Congress.

Far from Washington, the most important decision of this quarter could be the dominant parents on Friday.

The six judges on the rights of rules governed have the right to withdraw their children from certain public school classes which offer their religious beliefs. They opposed new stories and lessons for young children with LGBTQ +themes.

In recent years, the court, led by Roberts, has defended the “free exercise” of religion protected by the 1st amendment. In a series of decisions, the court has exempted Catholic schools and charities of laws or regulations, for example, providing contraceptives to employees.

The decision of Friday in a Maryland case extended this religious freedom directly in schools and ruled the Muslim and Catholic parents who opposed new books of stories on the theme of LGBTQ +.

At the beginning, the school board said that the parents could that their young children “undress” from these courses. But when too many parents have taken the offer, the school board canceled it.

The confrontation between progressive educators and conservative parents arrived at the Court when the Becket for Religious Liberty Fund called on behalf of the parents.

Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. said parents thought that books and stories offended their religious beliefs, and he ordered the school authorities to “inform them in advance whenever one of the books in question must be used … and allow them to have their children excluded from this instruction”.

This decision can have a broader impact than any term because it makes parents nationwide. But he also has limits. It does not require schools to change their study program and their lessons or do not remove any books from the shelves.

The conservatives failed in a case in a case that could have caused a large -scale change in American schools. Split 4 to 4, the judges could not reign to maintain the first school with a charter funded by the country and managed by the church.

In the past, Roberts had voted to allow students to use tuition costs in religious schools, but he seemed uncertain of the use of tax money to exploit a school managed by the church.

But this question is almost sure to return to the court. Barrett moved away from the Oklahoma affair heard in April because friends and former colleagues from Notre Dame Law School had appealed. But in a future case, she could participate and vote decisive.