U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in 2017 (Creative Commons)
On Friday, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) issued a 6-3 decision on party lines stripping lower courts of the power to issue nationwide injunctions. But some opponents of President Donald Trump’s administration view the decision as an opportunity to exploit what may be a significant loophole.
The majority opinion — which was authored by Trump-appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett — ruled that lower courts could not unilaterally prevent Trump’s executive order overturning birthright citizenship for the American-born children of undocumented immigrants. Trump celebrated the decision in a Friday press conference, praising Barrett in particular. While the Court didn’t decide on the issue of citizenship guaranteed in the first sentence of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution itself, Barrett’s opinion stripped federal district and circuit courts of the power to block executive orders from going into effect nationwide.
According to a recent analysis by Politico’s Kyle Cheney, Hassan Ali Kanu and Erica Orden, the ruling may have created a backdoor for “complete relief” in a unique way — lawsuits filed by a collective of state attorneys general.
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“Barrett wrote in the majority opinion that district judges are empowered to provide ‘complete relief’ to litigants who are improperly harmed by government policies,” Cheney, Kanu and Orden wrote. “And when states sue the federal government, it’s possible, legal experts say, that ‘complete relief’ requires a sweeping judicial remedy.”
University of Virginia law professor Amanda Frost told Politico that she believes Friday’s ruling will be particularly difficult to implement in practice, as it will create two separate classes of people born in the United States. She added that the decision leaves the question open as to whether the Court will be able to differentiate between “universal” or “nationwide” relief for successful plaintiffs who challenge Trump’s executive orders, and the “complete relief” that state attorneys general could obtain with a lawsuit to protect residents of their respective states.
According to a Friday NOTUS report, Democratic state attorneys general became more powerful as a result of the conservative majority’s opinion given their newfound ability to combine forces and file lawsuits on behalf of millions of Americans. This could mean that collective lawsuits — like one filed earlier this week by 21 attorneys general (20 states plus Washington D.C.) challenging the Trump administration’s slashing of federal grant funding — become more common in the years ahead.
“State attorneys general are in a better position to challenge unlawful executive orders than the everyday individual person,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who is a former state attorney general himself, told NOTUS. “The importance of the state attorneys general in stopping unconstitutional actions by the president is tremendously heightened by this president’s tendency to break the law.”
