SCOTUS blocks Trump tariffs under IEEPA
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Includes the tariffs on French wine. Happy day.
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Anybody need a German piano?
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From what I understand, there has to be an investigation and written justification (at least) for tariffs under the new sections. Of course the administration will concoct something, but if it's too transparently garbage, it'll be open to court rejection, presumably.
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Something I read this morning regarding Gorsuch's opinion sums it up nicely. This is not to say there are no problems with the legislative process, but that, to me, is not a reason to hand over powers.
"Justice Neil Gorsuch closed today's tariff opinion with a paragraph worth framing. Read it, slowly, if you haven't already.
During the Biden administration, the president unveiled a sweeping student loan forgiveness plan. It would cancel up to $10,000 in federal debt for most borrowers earning under $125,000 a year and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients. Across tens of millions of borrowers, the projected price tag reached $430 billion. It was bold. It was popular in certain quarters. And it rested on no clear act of Congress.
Biden pointed to an emergency-relief statute. His critics, six Republican-led states among them, argued the law permitted only targeted, modest adjustments for borrowers harmed by specific emergencies. It was never written to rewrite the entire architecture of student loan repayment. The Supreme Court agreed. The president had overreached.Fast forward to today. President Trump, invoking a trade-sanctions statute, claimed sweeping tariff authority: the power to impose whatever duties he chose, against whomever he chose, whenever he chose. The statutory text, his opponents argued, authorized nothing so broad. The Supreme Court agreed again. The president had overreached.
The symmetry is striking. In both cases, a president seized on a narrow statute and read into it limitless power. In both cases, the Court drew the line. Congress writes the law. The president executes it. When a president wants authority for something this consequential, he must go to Congress and earn it.
That should be the end of the analysis. But it wasn't for everyone.
Among the nine justices, only three voted consistently in both cases: Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Gorsuch, and Justice Barrett. Every other justice, whether styled as liberal or conservative, landed on opposite sides depending on which president held the pen. The so-called principled wings of the Court simply swapped positions.
The same is true of the commentators, the activists, and the pundits who flooded social media in both moments. Many who cheered the student loan ruling now rage at today's tariff decision. Many who denounced Biden's overreach now insist Trump's was different — special, necessary, justified by circumstance. It wasn't different. The legal question was identical.If you found yourself on opposite sides of these two cases, that is worth sitting with. I don't write this as an accusation, but as an invitation. Constitutional principles do not change with the occupant of the Oval Office. They are not clothing to be swapped out when a new administration arrives. The separation of powers protects everyone, or it protects no one. A Congress that can be bypassed by a president you love can be bypassed by one you loathe.
Gorsuch put it plainly: major decisions affecting the rights and responsibilities of the American people are funneled through the legislative process for a reason. Legislating is hard and slow. The temptation to bypass Congress when something feels urgent is real. But deliberation is the point. Through it, the Nation draws on the wisdom of elected representatives rather than the will of one man. Laws forged through that process tend to endure, giving ordinary people the stable ground they need to plan their lives.
That paragraph belongs in every high school civics classroom in America.
The constitutional order does not favor Republicans or Democrats. It favors no policy agenda and no election outcome. It simply demands that the people's representatives, not the president acting alone, make the laws under which we live. Three justices held that line in both cases. The rest did not.
Ask yourself which kind of justice you want on that Court. Then ask yourself which kind of citizen you intend to be." -
Yeah. None of Trump's indignation centers on a contention that his emergency tariffs are constitutional. He's just upset because he thinks they are a good idea, and therefore the justices should be dependable rubber stampers.
Education is extremely important.
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But it should be noted that Kavanaugh is considered more to the center than Gorsuch. The distillation of this down to rubber stamping tribalists, rather than genuine differences of perspective on the constitution, is probably overstated. At least in the case of Kavanaugh and Gorsuch. It's difficult to view Thomas and Alito as anything but a rubber stamper for the right, as it would be difficult to view the three left ladies as anything but rubber stampers for the left. Though if you look, you can still find exceptions to the predictions that those categories would imply.
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Yeah. None of Trump's indignation centers on a contention that his emergency tariffs are constitutional. He's just upset because he thinks they are a good idea, and therefore the justices should be dependable rubber stampers.
@Horace said in SCOTUS blocks Trump tariffs under IEEPA:
Yeah. None of Trump's indignation centers on a contention that his emergency tariffs are constitutional. He's just upset because he thinks they are a good idea, and therefore the justices should be dependable rubber stampers.
And he’s completely fvcked the message up. While I’m not a fan of the tariffs, I was surprised to learn the amount of gaming that happens elsewhere to disadvantage US trade. That message has been lost again.
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Yeah. None of Trump's indignation centers on a contention that his emergency tariffs are constitutional. He's just upset because he thinks they are a good idea, and therefore the justices should be dependable rubber stampers.
@Horace said in SCOTUS blocks Trump tariffs under IEEPA:
Yeah. None of Trump's indignation centers on a contention that his emergency tariffs are constitutional. He's just upset because he thinks they are a good idea, and therefore the justices should be dependable rubber stampers.
That is certainly a well-supported conclusion. I think his belligerence is wearing thin, with little attention being paid to it. The EU's reaction was one of "oh, he's acting out again, we'll just have to ride it out until cooler heads prevail". That said, even as a lame duck, he's still quite consequential. I cannot remember a president that took so many issues head on.
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Given that I support most of his efforts, if not the way they were gone about, it raises an interesting question. Is the US effectively governable under the current restrictions? Can we function with the painfully slow deliberative process in a world that moves ever faster?
"You cannot subsidize irresponsibility and expect people to become more responsible." — Thomas Sowell
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