The Supreme Court has delivered two severe blows to the White House and the conservative movement this week on immigration and gay rights, delighting Democrats…
The Supreme Court has delivered two severe blows to the White House and the conservative movement this week on immigration and gay rights, delighting Democrats and activists who were expecting the worst.
The decisions, rejecting President Trump’s rescission of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program Thursday and shielding LGBT employees from workplace discrimination Tuesday, disappointed GOP senators and conservative scholars, who were left complaining that justices appointed by Republicans had betrayed them.
And they led to the characteristic explosion on Twitter by Trump, who wrote of the need for new justices after Chief Justice John Roberts ruled against him once, and Justice Neil Gorsuch — a Trump nominee — joined Roberts in ruling against him on the gay rights decision.
This week also saw the court decline Trump’s request to review California’s so-called sanctuary laws, which limit cooperation between local and federal authorities. This dealt another setback to Trump’s immigration agenda after the court last term stopped the administration from adding a citizenship question to the census, with Roberts writing the 5-4 opinion.
“The recent Supreme Court decisions, not only on DACA, Sanctuary Cities, Census, and others, tell you only one thing, we need NEW JUSTICES of the Supreme Court,” Trump tweeted. “If the Radical Left Democrats assume power, your Second Amendment, Right to Life, Secure Borders, and Religious Liberty, among many other things, are OVER and GONE!” Court watchers generally agree that Trump has tilted the court to the right, particularly by replacing the since-retired Justice Anthony Kennedy, formerly the court’s swing vote, with the more conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
