this is potentially a big one Supreme Court to decide whether FBI can be held liable for mistaken raid An FBI SWAT team smashed the front door of a suburban Atlanta home in 2017 as they attempted to serve a search warrant. They had the wrong home. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/27/supreme-court-fbi-raid-case-mistake/ excerpt: An FBI SWAT team smashed the front door of a suburban Atlanta home in 2017, threw a stun grenade inside and held a family at gunpoint as they attempted to serve a search warrant. There was one problem: They had the wrong home. The traumatized family sued for damages in federal court, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit found in 2024 that they had no recourse. The federal government had broad immunity from being held liable for the error. The Supreme Court said Monday it will review that decision, in a case that could have broader reverberations for victims of some government behavior. The family argues that the appeals court decision was wrong and that Congress had created a remedy for people in their situation. For most of the nation’s history, sovereign immunity barred the federal government from being sued for misconduct or negligence by federal employees. But in 1946, Congress passed the Federal Tort Claims Act, which waived immunity for some actions taken by federal employees that led to personal injury or property damage. The family points out that the law was amended in 1974 to include a provision for action by law enforcement after a pair of mistaken house raids. more at the link
not a USSC case yet, but highly likely to become one https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2025-1-31-next-up-humphreys-executor Next Up: Humphrey's Executor by Francis Menton January 31, 2025 Back in November, I attended the annual convention of the Federalist Society in Washington. If you should want to understand the constitutional law issues confronting this country after a century of corruption of our institutions by the progressive movement, I would highly recommend that you start attending these annual events as well. Last November’s convention took place on the 14th to 16th of the month — in other words, just over a week after Donald Trump had been elected to serve another term as President. One of the panels that I attended on November 15th had the title “What Is the Future of Administrative Law?” I’ve provided a link there where you can actually watch the panel if you have the time and inclination. There was a great group of presenters that included the likes of Paul Clement (pre-eminent Supreme Court advocate), Judge Naomi Rao (of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals), and perhaps most notably, Professor Philip Hamburger of Columbia Law School (author of the book “Is Administrative Law Unlawful?” — probably the most important constitutional law book of this century so far). During the audience question part of the program, someone asked, what do you see as the next big issues that will be decided by the Supreme Court? One of the panelists (I think it was Hamburger) answered, “ I think Humphrey’s Executor will be reconsidered.” The other panelists then all agreed. OK, unless you are a specialist in this area, that probably doesn’t mean much to you. But in fact it is a big deal. And the “Humphrey’s Executor” question has suddenly come front and center in the past couple of days with the latest actions taken by President Trump. First, some background. Humphrey’s Executor is the key Supreme Court case addressing the following question: Can the President fire anybody and everybody in the federal bureaucracy whom he wants to fire, effective immediately, no questions asked? This is a rather important question. During his first term, Trump faced constant resistance to his policies from the people who supposedly worked for him. Indeed, they rallied under a hashtag #Resistance, like it was a badge of honor. Meanwhile, the Constitution (Article II, Section 1) states in seemingly unambiguous terms that “The Executive Power” is “vested” in the “President.” So can’t the President just fire people who won’t do his bidding? After all, he was elected, and they weren’t, and the voters should be entitled to get the policies they voted for. Shouldn’t they? But of course, over the years, there have grown up all kinds of statutory restrictions on the ability of the President to fire people. Some of these restrictions apply to lower-level employees (the “civil service”), and others to relatively high level people like Commissioners of “independent” agencies, Inspectors General, and so forth. Given that the Constitution vests all of the “Executive Power” in the President, aren’t such restrictions on his power unconstitutional? This is where Humphrey’s Executor comes into the mix. The facts of the case arose in 1933 — early in Franklin Roosevelt’s first term as President — and the case was decided by the Supreme Court in 1935. Humphrey was a Commissioner of the FTC, appointed by prior President Herbert Hoover to a seven-year term, that would then continue throughout Roosevelt’s first administration. Roosevelt wanted to get rid of Humphrey, but the FTC statute at the time provided (as it still provides today) that Commissioners could only be removed for “inefficiency, neglect off duty, or malfeasance in office.” So Roosevelt just ignored the statutory restriction and fired the guy. Humphrey sued. (He died while the case was pending, and the case for his pay was then continued by his executor, which is why the case goes by the name of Humphrey’s Executor.) The Supreme Court held, in one of its most bizarre opinions ever, that Humphrey was improperly fired and that his estate was entitled to its back pay. I wrote a post about this bizarre case back in December 2016. The Court’s logic turns on the idea that the power of an FTC Commissioner is not “executive” in nature, even though the Commissioners have the authority to execute and enforce the laws. The opinion makes no sense whatsoever. However, it has never been overruled, and stands today as Supreme Court precedent. I’ll be surprised if even the crazy liberals on today’s Supreme Court are ready to uphold this case. When I wrote the December 2016 post, it was right after Trump had been elected to his first term, with his promise at the time to “drain the swamp.” I fully expected Trump to challenge Humphrey’s Executor at his first opportunity, but for some reason he did not. Instead, he suffered for four years with a bureaucracy seeking to undermine him at every turn. This time it appears he has learned some lessons the hard way. The New York Times has a piece on January 29, with the headline “Defying Legal Limits, Trump Firings Set Up Tests That Could Expand His Power.” The sub-headline is “The prospect of legal challenges to President Trump’s purges may be a feature, not a bug, for adherents of sweeping presidential authority.” The news reported in the article is that among the people that Trump has just fired are several groups theoretically subject to one or another of these statutory protections against at-will, without-cause firing. These groups include Commissioners of “independent” boards and agencies (who have protections comparable to those of Humphrey), plus Inspectors General, and career prosecutors. From the Times: President Trump abruptly fired dozens of officials in the past few days — including inspectors general, a member of the National Labor Relations Board and career prosecutors — in ways that apparently violated federal laws, setting up the possibility of lawsuits. The Times spins Trump’s actions as some kind of naked power grab, while somehow never mentioning that the President’s actions are based in the simple words of the Constitution: The early days of Mr. Trump’s return to office show that he has reveled in a maximalist show of force, and his firings have come in the teeth of various federal laws. For example, when Mr. Trump conducted a mass purge of more than a dozen inspectors general on Friday, he defied a statute that requires giving a written notice to Congress with a “substantive rationale, including detailed and case-specific reasons” at least 30 days in advance. The Times also uses the occasion to pre-bash the conservative Supreme Court justices who it suspects will uphold Trump’s actions: Five of the nine Supreme Court justices worked as executive branch lawyers during the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations. Their legal teams were both defined by an expansive view of executive power, including developing theories of the Constitution that would invalidate congressional restrictions on the White House. One thing that the Times piece does not mention is the Humphrey’s Executor case, which is the thin reed of support on which rests all of the statutory restrictions on at-will firing by the President. After all, if they mentioned the case, they might be forced to discuss its reasoning, or rather its lack of any coherent reasoning. I agree with Professor Hamburger that Humphrey’s Executor is extremely likely to fall when it reaches the Supreme Court. I’ll even go out on a limb and say that I expect the decision to be unanimous — I can’t even think of how the liberals might try to support its ridiculous logic. Unfortunately, however, since Humphrey’s Executor remains even today as Supreme Court precedent, it is likely that lower courts will (properly) rule against Trump on at least some of these firings. That’s why his moves to seek buy-outs and to place many on paid administrative leave make sense. Once Humphrey’s Executor gets the ax — hopefully well before the end of the term — Trump (and all future presidents) will have much more flexibility.
Boy Francis sounds like a real douche, anyways why give the president even more power? I must be missing something here, if Congress wrote the law in a way that allows the President to fire someone for cause and just give them a 30 day notice that appears to be very reasonable in a functioning democracy. He should never have unlimited authority to dismiss anyone no matter what these shills at the Federalist Society have to say.
Former National Labor Relations Board member sues Trump for her firing Gwynne Wilcox’s lawsuit is the first to challenge the president’s ouster of several members of independent boards — moves that appear to contravene a 1935 Supreme Court ruling. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/02/05/trump-lawsuit-nlrb-board-members-firing/
significant decision out of the Southern District of NY yesterday: "Title VI Must Be Applied Consistent with First Amendment Principles" A federal district court discusses how the First Amendment limits liability for "hostile environment harassment" based on "speech on matters of public concern" in universities (public or private). And the reasoning may extend to Title VII liability on workplaces as well. https://reason.com/volokh/2025/02/0...d-consistent-with-first-amendment-principles/
NYT: Suit Over Firing by Trump Could Pave Way for Broader Presidential Power If the case reaches the Supreme Court, its conservative majority will be receptive to Donald J. Trump’s argument that presidents have unlimited power to remove members of independent agencies. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/06/us/politics/trump-firing-labor-supreme-court.html
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/sonia-s...c?st=pMBGPK&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s Elegy for Precedent Is the Supreme Court rushing to overturn old cases? The figures say the opposite. By The Editorial Board Feb. 9, 2025 at 5:03 pm ET Justice Sonia Sotomayor, appearing last week at the University of Louisville’s law school, was asked about eroding confidence in the Supreme Court. “I think my court would probably gather more public support if it went a little more slowly in undoing precedent,” she said, according to the Associated Press. The public doesn’t like it, she added, when the Justices move “too quickly in upheavals.” We’d like to submit a motion for reconsideration, Your Honor. A partisan media narrative claims that the current Court is overturning precedents in, well, unprecedented fashion. In precincts on the left, this is an article of faith. But it isn’t true, according to an academic database of Supreme Court decisions from 1946 to last summer, available online from the law school at Washington University in St. Louis. Under Chief Justice Earl Warren (1953-69), the rate of “precedent alteration” averaged 3.1 cases per year. Then came Chief Justice Warren Burger (1969-86), with 3.4 a year. Things slowed down after Ronald Reagan’s elevation of Chief Justice William Rehnquist (1986-2005), with the figure falling to 2.4. How does current management compare? Under Chief Justice John Roberts (2005-present), the High Court has altered 1.6 precedents a year, through the term that ended in 2024. In seven of his 19 years, the database shows the Roberts Court upending a single precedent, and none at all in four of those terms. Also, not every reversal is a heated national dispute with a hard ideological split. In a 2019 ruling on tribal hunting rights, Herrera v. Wyoming, Justice Neil Gorsuch joined four liberals to repudiate an 1896 precedent. The current Court has overturned some major precedents, including with the Dobbs ruling in 2022 that ended the constitutional abortion right declared by Roe v. Wade. Yet this hardly fits Justice Sotomayor’s thesis of acting “too quickly.” Roe was decided in 1973, and was one of the most controversial decisions in Supreme Court history, including when the High Court upheld it while rewriting it in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). What would moving “more slowly” mean, with a precedent debated for almost 50 years? Perhaps there are ways to quibble with the numbers in this database, but law professor Jonathan Adler has written that the Library of Congress’s precedent tracker provides the same conclusion. It’s no secret. “Evidence tends to refute the notion that the Roberts Court has been any more inclined than prior Courts to overrule precedent,” says a 2023 note in the Harvard Law Review. But maybe Justice Sotomayor doesn’t read that; she’s a Yalie. The better answer on why polls show declining trust in the Court is that the Justices lately are under relentless ideological attack. It’d help if the people who ought to know better, including those with chambers in the building, would quit feeding the partisan PR campaign. Appeared in the February 10, 2025, print edition as 'Sonia Sotomayor’s Elegy for Precedent'.
President Trump's Removal Letter of NLRB Member Gwynne Wilcox The President did offer some potential causes for removal. https://reason.com/volokh/2025/02/11/president-trumps-removal-letter-of-nlrb-member-gwynne-wilcox/ excerpt: Shortly after President Trump removed NLRB Member Gywnne Wilcox, I wrote that the Supreme Court will not repudiate Humphrey's Executor. Now, having read Trump's removal letter, the Court may not have to. Wilcox has moved for expedited summary judgment in D.D.C. on the same schedule as a preliminary injunction. In a declaration, Wilcox states that Trump did not "justify my removal on the ground that I committed any neglect of duty or malfeasance in office." The motion includes an exhibit I had not yet seen: President Trump's removal letter. The letter offers two paragraphs to explain the removal. I see at least one passage that could rise to the level of "neglect of duty or malfeasance in office." Trump stated: In my judgment, Members Wilcox and General Counsel Abruzzo have adopted a host of decisions that have improperly cabined employers' rights to speak on the subject of unionization, raising serious First Amendment concerns about the censorship of important speech. Several such decisions were issued on the eve of the new Administration. They have also issued decisions that, in my judgment, have vastly exceeded the bounds of the National Labor Relations Act. To take just one example, they supported a new joint employer rule—a rule that courts then invalidated and the Board seemingly acknowledged could not go forward. Trump alleges Wilcox's may have violated the Free Speech Clause, exceeded the statutory authority of the agency, and proposed a rule that was declared unlawful by courts. To be sure, Wilcox would argue that her actions were consistent with the Constitution and the NLRA, and the courts were mistaken. But the President has the duty to take care that the laws are faithfully executed. I would think that obligation entails the power to decide that someone in an agency has violated the Constitution, or at least came close to violating it. The last sentence of the letter states, "you are removable with or without statutory cause by the President." Trump may argue these steps triggered a for-cause removal. (The statute also requires a notice and hearing before removal; I am reasonably confident that the Court would not uphold these sorts of dilatory procedural requirements.) more at the link
'Unitary executive' theory may reach Supreme Court as Trump wields sweeping power WASHINGTON, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Donald Trump's broad assertions of power appear to be advancing an aggressive version of a legal doctrine called the "unitary executive" theory that envisions vast executive authority for a president, setting up potential U.S. Supreme Court showdowns. The conservative theory's advocates argue that Article II of the U.S. Constitution, which delineates presidential powers, gives the president sole authority over the federal government's executive branch. It envisions robust powers even when Congress has sought to impose certain limits, such as restricting a president's ability to fire the heads of some independent agencies. The Supreme Court is expected to be called upon to review at least one key legal dispute over the Republican president's contentious actions implicating this doctrine, with numerous legal challenges already moving through lower courts. Trump's firing of a member of the National Labor Relations Board, an independent executive branch agency created by Congress, may test the willingness of the nation's top judicial body to embrace the robust view of the theory that Trump's administration is expected to present. And the nine justices could be asked to overturn a 90-year-old Supreme Court precedent that limits a president's ability to dismiss certain agency heads. Under the Constitution, the U.S. government is divided into the executive, legislative and judicial branches - set up in the 18th century to ensure checks and balances within the American system. Advocates of the unitary executive theory argue that presidents legally can remove any executive branch official, including heads of independent agencies, even if such action would violate job protections enshrined in laws passed by Congress. The doctrine was first popularized four decades ago by lawyers in Republican former President Ronald Reagan's administration and may be pushed further during the Trump era. The theory's view of the president's removal power has been embraced gradually in recent decades by the Supreme Court, whose current 6-3 conservative majority includes three justices appointed by Trump. But it has yet to endorse actions like some of Trump's sweeping assertions of executive power since returning to office on January 20. "Trump has claimed the power to dismiss the heads of independent agencies, though Congress has restricted such authority," University of North Carolina School of Law professor Michael Gerhardt said. "If the court allows Trump to do that, or does not interfere with Trump's doing that, it will help to cement the unitary theory of the executive into American constitutional law." Some scholars said Trump's more contentious actions in recent weeks were reminiscent of a view he expressed in 2019 during his first term in office when he said: "I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president." "It does seem to me like Trump has gone beyond that classic understanding of unitary executive theory toward something even more extreme," New York University School of Law professor Noah Rosenblum said. "Witness, for example, his rejection of Congress' power of the purse, or his attempt to dissolve an agency that exists as a matter of law." Various plaintiffs have challenged Trump's actions to oust agency leaders, undermine federal workforce protections and dismantle congressionally established agencies including the U.S. Agency for International Development, as well as the legality of an entity he created that is led by Elon Musk dedicated to downsizing the government. THEORY GAINS TRACTION Steven Calabresi, a prominent champion of the doctrine, was working as an assistant to the Reagan administration's Attorney General Ed Meese when he became interested in the subject. The theory arose from the widely shared view among Justice Department officials at the time that a law passed establishing a special prosecutor to investigate what was called the Iran-contra scandal was an unconstitutional intrusion by Congress on presidential powers. "The idea of there being a prosecutor in the executive branch who's independent of the president was contrary to the unitary executive, because we thought the Constitution gave all of the executive power to the president," Calabresi said. His interest in the theory was reinforced by his frustrations with civil servants ignoring orders from Meese to grant asylum to people who fled the Soviet Union or China and faced execution if deported - the sort of bureaucratic resistance, Calabresi said, that Trump "now calls the 'deep state.'" "I remain very much of the view that Article II does give the president all of the executive power, and I think the president has the ability to control subordinates in the executive branch who are exercising executive power," said Calabresi, now a law professor at Northwestern University in Illinois. Calabresi added that "the core of the unitary executive theory is that the president can fire subordinates in the executive branch." But how far does the doctrine go? "The core of the theory was that the president could fire officers in the executive branch at will, without any restraint from Congress," University of Illinois Chicago law professor Steve Schwinn said. "But some advocates picked up that idea, drew on the logic, and used it to argue for more expansive presidential power in general." A 1935 PRECEDENT Trump's firing of Gwynne Wilcox, a Democratic member of the National Labor Relations Board, paralyzed an agency that safeguards the rights of American workers. Andrea Katz, a professor at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, said that "by firing a commissioner whose tenure was protected by a term limit, Trump was essentially breaking a law to trigger a constitutional confrontation." Rest: https://www.reuters.com/legal/unita...court-trump-wields-sweeping-power-2025-02-14/
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/16/us/trump-supreme-court-special-counsel.html?smid=url-share The first test of Trump’s power to fire officials has reached the Supreme Court. Adam Liptak Reporting from Washington In the first case to reach the Supreme Court arising from the blitz of actions taken in the early weeks of the new administration, lawyers for President Trump asked the justices on Sunday to let him fire a government lawyer who leads a watchdog agency. The administration’s emergency application asked the court to vacate a federal trial judge’s order temporarily reinstating Hampton Dellinger, the head of the Office of Special Counsel. Mr. Dellinger leads an independent agency charged with safeguarding government whistle-blowers and enforcing certain ethics laws. The position is unrelated to special counsels appointed by the Justice Department. “This court should not allow lower courts to seize executive power by dictating to the president how long he must continue employing an agency head against his will,” the administration’s filing said. The court is expected to act in the coming days. The filing amounts to a challenge to a foundational precedent that said Congress can limit the president’s power to fire leaders of independent agencies, a critical issue as Mr. Trump seeks to reshape the federal government through summary terminations. The statute that created the job now filled by Mr. Dellinger, who was confirmed by the Senate in 2024, provides for a five-year term and says the special counsel “may be removed by the president only for inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.” But a one-sentence email to Mr. Dellinger on Feb. 7 gave no reasons for terminating him, effective immediately. He sued, and Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the Federal District Court in Washington entered a temporary restraining orderallowing Mr. Dellinger to keep his job for two weeks while she considered whether to enter a preliminary injunction. Temporary restraining orders are generally not appealable. The statute, Judge Jackson wrote, “expresses Congress’s clear intent to ensure the independence of the special counsel and insulate his work from being buffeted by the winds of political change,” adding that the government’s “only response to this inarguable reading of the text is that the statute is unconstitutional.” Judge Jackson was appointed by President Barack Obama. A divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Saturday rejected the government’s emergency motion for a stay of Judge Jackson’s ruling. The unsigned majority opinion, joined by Judges Michelle Childs and Florence Pan, both Biden appointees, said the government’s motion was premature. “The question here is not whether the president is entitled to prompt review of his important constitutional arguments,” the opinion said. “Of course he is. The issue before us is whether his mere claim of extraordinary harm justifies this court’s immediate review, which would essentially remove the legal issues from the district court’s ambit before its proceedings have concluded.” In dissent, Judge Gregory Katsas, a Trump appointee, said he would have blocked Judge Berman’s ruling, thus allowing Mr. Dellinger to be removed from office. Citing recent Supreme Court decisions, he wrote that “Congress cannot constitutionally restrict the president’s power to remove the special counsel.” The administration’s emergency application took aim at a precedent from 1935 that has been critical to government operations. In that case, Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, the court ruled that Congress can shield independent agencies from politics. Some conservative justices have said they would overrule the precedent, arguing that it unconstitutionally infringed the power of the president. That case concerned a federal law that protected commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission, saying they could be removed only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.” President Franklin D. Roosevelt nonetheless fired a commissioner, William Humphrey. The only reason he gave was that Mr. Humphrey’s actions were not aligned with the administration’s policy goals. Mr. Humphrey died a few months later, and his estate sued to recover the pay he would have received in that time. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the firing had been unlawful and that the statute at issue was constitutional. In 2020, the Supreme Court seemed to lay the groundwork for overruling that precedent in a case involving the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The law that created the bureau, using language identical to that at issue in Humphrey’s Executor and in Mr. Dellinger’s case, said the president could remove its director only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.” In a 5-to-4 decision, the court struck down that provision, saying it violated the separation of powers and that the president could remove the bureau’s director for any reason. In language that anticipated the court’s decision in July granting Mr. Trump, then a private citizen, substantial immunity from prosecution for conduct during his first term, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the majority, said the presidency requires an “energetic executive.” “In our constitutional system,” he wrote in 2020, “the executive power belongs to the president, and that power generally includes the ability to supervise and remove the agents who wield executive power in his stead.” The general reasoning in the chief justice’s opinion left Humphrey’s Executor on life support. Two members of the court — Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch — would have pulled the plug right away. “The decision in Humphrey’s Executor poses a direct threat to our constitutional structure and, as a result, the liberty of the American people,” Justice Thomas wrote. He added: “With today’s decision, the court has repudiated almost every aspect of Humphrey’s Executor. In a future case, I would repudiate what is left of this erroneous precedent.” Justice Elena Kagan, writing for what was then the court’s four-member liberal wing, dissented, saying the Constitution did not address the scope of the president’s power to fire subordinates. Congress should therefore be free, she said, to grant agencies “a measure of independence from political pressure.”
Supreme Court rejects Trump administration's bid to avoid paying USAID contractors WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday backed a federal judge's power to order the Trump administration to pay $2 billion to U.S. Agency for International Development contractors but did not require immediate payment. In doing so, the court on a 5-4 vote rejected an emergency application filed by the Justice Department after U.S. District Judge Amir Ali issued a series of rulings demanding the government unfreeze funds that President Donald Trump put on hold with an executive order. The court delayed acting on the case for a week. In the meantime, the contractors have not been paid. In an unsigned order, the court said that Ali's deadline for the immediate payment had now passed and the case is already proceeding in the district court, with more rulings to come. A hearing is scheduled for Thursday. As such, Ali "should clarify what obligations the government must fulfill" in order to comply with a temporary retraining order issued Feb. 13, the court said. Ali should consider "the feasibility of any compliance deadlines," the court added. Four conservative justices dissented from the denial of the application, with Justice Samuel Alito writing that Ali did not have "unchecked power to compel the government to pay out ... 2 billion taxpayer dollars." "I am stunned," Alito added. The other dissenters were Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. The government had said it was unable to comply with Ali’s order earlier this week that the $2 billion in payments be made by last Wednesday night. Specific projects affected by the payment freeze include the installation of new irrigation and water pumping stations in Ukraine; waterworks upgrades in Lagos, Nigeria; the supply of medical equipment in Vietnam and Nepal; and measures to combat malaria in Kenya, Uganda, Ghana and Ethiopia. In the meantime, the administration has worked frantically to review all of USAID's existing spending. It concluded that assessment Wednesday, confirming a decision to cut thousands of programs — the bulk of the agency’s activity — worth up to $60 billion. Those actions are also set to be challenged, but were not at issue at the Supreme Court. Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday night issued an administrative stay, putting the lower court judge's ruling on hold while the Supreme Court decided the next steps. The underlying lawsuit was brought by nonprofits and businesses that receive USAID funding to provide foreign aid services. Unions representing USAID workers filed their own lawsuit. Upon taking office, Trump and his ally Elon Musk have taken aggressive actions to downsize the federal government, with USAID one of the major targets. On Thursday, USAID staff who lost their jobs were clearing out their desks at the Washington, D.C., office while supporters gathered outside. But in acting so abruptly, the government left contractors out of pocket for work already completed, the contractors alleged. Among other things, they said in their lawsuit that the government had failed to follow the correct course under a law called the Administrative Procedure Act. Ali originally issued his temporary restraining order that blocked part of a Trump executive order requiring a re-evaluation of foreign aid. The judge ruled that the executive order could not be relied upon as a reason to terminate foreign aid funding across the board, although that did not prevent officials from carrying out a case-by-case review. Two weeks later, Ali issued a new order saying the government needed to make immediate payments for certain completed contracts, prompting the administration to appeal. Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris told the Supreme Court in the government’s filing that while “the government is committed to paying legitimate claims for work that was properly completed,” Ali did not have the authority to order specific payments be made. Plaintiffs have said it is urgent that the payments be made, with contractors being forced to lay people off and those working in foreign countries, including Ukraine, Georgia and Nigeria, potentially fearing for their safety because of unpaid bills. In their filing at the Supreme Court, lawyers for the contractors said one organization laid off 110 workers Thursday as a result of the nonpayment while another faces legal exposure for failing to pay severance. The lawyers said the Supreme Court had no jurisdiction to get involved at such an early stage in the litigation. They also argued that the Trump administration has for almost two weeks “openly flouted” the temporary restraining order issued by Ali. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/su...rations-bid-avoid-paying-usaid-con-rcna194230
Alito is stunned LOL..................watch it dude, you're showing your maga, use your inside voice.
I just skimmed Alito's dissent in USA vs Texas. Reads like it was written by the exact opposite of this Alito who is totally shocked that Presidents are constrained by laws and congress. Lots of language like "...[the laws] 'left the executive with no discretion'" and goes into great detail about Congressional mandates and the limits of Executive discretion. What a two-faced hack of an activist judge.
Sister of US Supreme Court's Barrett target of bomb threat, police say March 12 (Reuters) - A sister of conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett was the target of a bomb threat at her home in Charleston, South Carolina, earlier this month, local police said on Wednesday. Charleston police responded on Monday morning to an emailed bomb threat concerning Amanda Coney Williams, a lawyer whose sister is a member of the U.S. Supreme Court's 6-3 conservative majority, according to a police report. "I've constructed a pipe bomb which I recently placed in Amy Coney Barrett's sister's mailbox at her home," the email said, according to the police report. "The device's detonation will be triggered as soon as the mailbox is next opened. Free Palestine!" Local authorities determined it was a false alarm after inspecting the mailbox, police said. Williams' husband told investigators that over the weekend someone had also attempted to have pizzas delivered to some households related to Barrett, the police report said. Police said the investigation remains active. The U.S. Supreme Court did not respond to a request for comment. Barrett was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2020 during the first term of Republican U.S. President Donald Trump and has since joined several major rulings curtailing access to abortion and expanding gun rights. But she has recently faced criticism from some of Trump's supporters, particularly after she joined a 5-4 decision on March 5 that declined to let Trump's administration withhold payment to foreign aid organizations for work they already performed for the government. Reuters last week reported that U.S. marshals had warned judges of unusually high threat levels, according to several judges. Security has been bolstered for some judges assigned cases over Trump administration initiatives, Reuters reported. Several federal judges in the Washington, D.C., area received pizzas sent anonymously to their homes, which was interpreted by law enforcement as a form of intimidation meant to convey that a target's address is known, Reuters reported, citing a person familiar with the judicial security environment. The Federal Judges Association in a statement on Wednesday cited the bomb threat targeting Barrett as it said it "remains deeply concerned about the rising threats and intimidation the judiciary faces." https://www.reuters.com/world/us/si...ett-target-bomb-threat-police-say-2025-03-13/
Supreme Court tie vote dooms taxpayer funded Catholic charter school in Oklahoma WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday effectively ended a publicly funded Catholic charter school in Oklahoma, dividing 4-4. The outcome keeps in place an Oklahoma court decision that invalidated a vote by a state charter school board to approve the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School, which would have been the nation’s first religious charter school. But it leaves the issue unresolved nationally. The one-sentence notice from the court provides an unsatisfying end to one of the term’s most closely watched cases. The Catholic Church in Oklahoma had wanted taxpayers to fund the online charter school “faithful to the teachings of Jesus Christ.” Opponents warned that allowing it would blur the separation between church and state, sap money from public schools and possibly upend the rules governing charter schools in almost every state. Only eight of the nine justices took part in the case. Justice Amy Coney Barrett didn’t explain her absence, but she is good friends and used to teach with Notre Dame law professor Nicole Garnett, who has been an adviser to the school. The issue could return to the high court in the future, with the prospect that all nine justices could participate. The court, following its custom, did not provide a breakdown of the votes. But during arguments last month, four conservative justices seemed likely to side with the school, while the three liberals seemed just as firmly on the other side. That left Chief Justice John Roberts appearing to hold the key vote, and suggests he went with the liberals to make the outcome 4-4. The case came to the court amid efforts, mainly in conservative-led states, to insert religion into public schools. Those include a challenged Louisiana requirement that the Ten Commandments be posted in classrooms and a mandate from Oklahoma’s state schools superintendent that the Bible be placed in public school classrooms. St. Isidore, a K-12 online school, had planned to start classes for its first 200 enrollees last fall, with part of its mission to evangelize its students in the Catholic faith. A key unresolved issue is whether the school is public or private. Charter schools are deemed public in Oklahoma and the other 45 states and the District of Columbia where they operate. North Dakota recently enacted legislation allowing for charter schools. They are free and open to all, receive state funding, abide by antidiscrimination laws and submit to oversight of curriculum and testing. But they also are run by independent boards that are not part of local public school systems. Proponents of publicly funded religious charter schools were quick to point out that the decision was limited to Oklahoma. “Oklahoma parents and children are better off with more educational choices, not fewer. While the Supreme Court’s order is disappointing for educational freedom, the 4-4 decision does not set precedent, allowing the court to revisit this issue in the future,” said Jim Campbell, who argued the case at the high court on behalf of Oklahoma’s charter school board. Campbell is the chief legal counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal organization that appears often at the court in cases on high-profile social issues. On the other side, the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State applauded the outcome for preserving public education. “The very idea of a religious public school is a constitutional oxymoron. The Supreme Court’s ruling affirms that a religious school can’t be a public school and a public school can’t be religious,” said Daniel Mach, director of the ACLU’s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief. The ACLU represents parents and other opponents of the school who filed a separate lawsuit to block it. https://apnews.com/article/supreme-...arter-school-170e3701926e29ea5072eb50f0db97b6
