Even Federal Court Judges Know the MAGA Justices are Out of Control -- Jennifer Rubin [View all]

[erronis]

https://contrarian.substack.com/p/even-federal-court-judges-know-the

The Roberts Court makes obvious the need for serious reform

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In Trump 2.0, the MAGA justices repeatedly have manipulated the “emergency docket” to effectively green light one Trump executive power grab after another, without regard to findings of fact below or the extreme harm inflicted on plaintiffs (e.g., NIH grantees, public employee unions). In doing so they have diminished the authority of lower federal judges and left them exposed to threats and smears, as the lower court judges attested.

Like an abusive spouse, Justice Neil Gorsuch has tried to make the lower courts into the bad guys. Supreme Court legal expert Steve Vladeck recounted that in a recent opinion, Gorsuch “accused the lower courts in [three cases] of open defiance of earlier rulings by the Supreme Court on emergency applications.” Vladeck explained, “More than that, Gorsuch claimed that the Court’s interventions in many of the Trump cases would be ‘unnecessary’ but for bad behavior by lower courts.”

Vladeck blasted this outrageous accusation:

It would be one thing if Gorsuch had incontrovertible evidence of lower-court defiance. But….the opposite is true. Instead, the real culprit here is the Supreme Court’s own majority, which continues to hand down thinly (or entirely un-explained rulings in these cases and expect lower-court judges to read their minds in the face of entirely reasonable arguments for distinguishing the earlier rulings.

The Court may have the raw power to act that way. But to then criticize lower-court judges—who, unlike the justices, are moving heaven and earth to provide lengthy, written rationales of their decisions—is not just profoundly disrespectful; it is further enabling an increasingly loud (and increasingly dangerous) anti-judiciary narrative on the right….

The lower court judges who spoke to NBC News agreed with Vladeck’s view. Frankly, Gorsuch’s obnoxious bullying only underscores their complaints that the MAGA justices are out of control.

This intra-judicial fight is just the latest installment in the MAGA justices’ record of misbehavior and overreach. It is no surprise that the court’s approval has plummeted. Whether it is receipt of lavish gifts (along with inexcusable disclosure lapses), refusal to accept mandatory ethics rules, utter disregard of precedent to super-charge the extreme right-wing agenda, systematic destruction of voting rights, or nasty partisan attacks on critics, the Roberts Court no longer resembles a panel of dispassionate jurists.

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