Ilya Shapiro replies to Stephen Vladeck on the Roberts Court.
Stephen Vladeck argues that your editorial lauding the Roberts Court misses the mark because of rulings that “reflect a vision of the Constitution in which the executive is dominant, the legislature all-but irrelevant, and the Supreme Court there to protect the executive from pesky lower courts that insist it must follow the law” (“The Roberts Court and the Imperial President,” Letters, Oct. 16). He protests too much. It’s true that the Trump administration has done well in getting the high court to stay or reverse lower-court rulings. But that’s a function of three factors.
First, Solicitor General John Sauer has been strategic in selecting which orders to appeal. He’s let some sleeping dogs lie, while making sure judicial outliers are blocked.
Second, some of those district-court orders—particularly ones by the most Trump-resisting judges in places like Maryland and Massachusetts—really are “out there.” There’s no basis for ordering the government to keep funding Planned Parenthood despite legislation to the contrary, or for disregarding previous Supreme Court orders (sometimes citing dissents from those orders as justification).
Continue reading the entire piece here at the Wall Street Journal
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Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute.
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