Things to Read: Universal Injunction Edition
Roundup of commentary on yesterday's arguments in Trump v. CASA
As all readers of this blog will know, yesterday the Court heard oral arguments in Trump v. CASA about the availability of universal injunctions against unlawful executive action, the subject of many posts on this site. Several of us have commentary on the oral arguments available in various venues:
I live-blogged the arguments as part of an ad hoc team at SCOTUSBlog. You can read our conversation here. During the conversation, I describe the respondents’ best-case-scenario as an opinion that says something like the following: 1, universal injunctions should (only?) issue when necessary to grant complete relief to the plaintiffs; 2, to figure out whether it is necessary to grant complete relief, we have to recognize the complete unlawfulness of the executive order; 3, given the complete unlawfulness of the executive order and the way Social Security numbers work, New Jersey needs a universal injunction for complete relief in this case; 4, if the United States wants to propose a narrower injunction that still gives New Jersey complete relief, they are free to do that on remand.
Meanwhile, Nick Bagley has this post-mortem at the Atlantic: The Birthright-Citizenship Case Isn’t Really About Birthright Citizenship. It begins: “Yesterday, during an oral argument spanning nearly two and a half hours, the Supreme Court justices grilled the newly installed Solicitor General D. John Sauer over the Trump administration’s request that it be allowed to enforce a flagrantly unconstitutional executive order ending birthright citizenship. Sauer repeatedly refused to say how the case could be swiftly resolved. Instead, he suggested that President Donald Trump may wish to enforce the order to the hilt unless and until the justices themselves—no one else—tell him to stop. Still, Sauer may walk away with a narrow win. . . .”
Finally, Dan and I react to the oral arguments in a just-published post-argument episode of the Divided Argument podcast: Trees Guy in a Forest Court. (We recorded the episode before today’s decision in AARP v. Trump. We’ll likely have a breakdown of that one in a few days.)
BONUS: He’s not a member of this blog, but Jack Goldsmith has a can’t-miss post on his own substack, The Solicitor General Embraces Judicial Supremacy.
