David Catron writes for the American Spectator about one U.S. Supreme Court justice’s change of tune on universal injunctions from federal district judges.
Last Friday’s Supreme Court ruling in Trump v. CASA finally ended what many of the President’s supporters saw as a “judicial insurrection.” Upon assuming office, President Trump issued a number of executive orders involving a variety of issues. They were immediately challenged by lawsuits filed in a select group of district courts, virtually all of which issued universal injunctions that seriously impeded implementation of the President’s agenda. Such injunctions have long been criticized by numerous legal scholars and several members of the U.S. Supreme Court, including Justice Kagan.
Indeed, Kagan has been particularly trenchant on this subject. During a 2022 seminar at Northwestern University’s School of Law, for example, Kagan succinctly explained her view on the issue: “It just can’t be right that one district judge can stop a nationwide policy in its tracks and leave it stopped for the years that it takes to go through the normal process.” Friday’s ruling, authored by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, validated Kagan’s position: “These injunctions, known as ‘universal injunctions,’ likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts.” Yet Justice Kagan inexplicably refused to join the Court’s majority in a ruling that reiterates her frequent public statements about this very issue.
Instead, like Justice Jackson, Kagan joined a dissenting opinion in which Justice Sotomayor accuses the Trump administration of gamesmanship for using Trump v. CASA to challenge the jurisdiction of district courts: “Yet, shamefully, this Court plays along. A majority of this Court decides that these applications, of all cases, provide the appropriate occasion to resolve the question of universal injunctions and end the centuries-old practice once and for all.” Why would Kagan join such a dissent? She knows better than most that, from 1789 to 1963, the district courts never issued universal injunctions.
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Author: Mitch Kokai
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