Opinion

L&T Publisher Earl Watt

Many wrongly  think that the recent decision by the Supreme Court of the United States affected birthright citizenship. That argument may not be far away, but that was not the question the SCOTUS recently addressed. However, what they did address is very impactful and perhaps one of the defining decisions of the high court in recent memory.

Many may not feel the impact immediately, but the SCOTUS basically just made sure they were SCOTUS and every other court was not.

By taking a closer look, we see that the high court ruled on how the appellate, or inferior courts, operate, and what actual authority they have.

How many times have we heard someone say, “I’ll take it all the way to the Supreme Court.” The idea that someone is wronged and can have their case heard by multiple courts on appeal is nothing new, but in almost every case, there is a person who believes they have been wronged and are looking for justice from the court system.

Again, one person or group of people in some cases, and the government.

What has been happening recently has been judges ruling not just on the plaintiffs bringing the case but on anyone and everyone, and applying their decisions to the entire country.

Lower courts do not have the authority to do that. They never did.

The SCOTUS was implemented by the Constitution. All lower courts were implemented by Congress.

The Constitution did not grant the lower courts the same ability the SCOTUS has to determine the legality or constitutionality of any act of the government, in particular the acts of the executive branch or the president.

But a more modern trend has been to find a judge usually appointed by the opposition party form the president to issue a nationwide inunction against the actions of a president in an attempt to circumvent the policy and force the president or executive branch to defend the action in court.

Before we continue, we have to consider whether or not a president may misinterpret a law or regulation and misappropriately apply the rule or law.

The answer is yes. Presidents can misinterpret the law.

When they do, the remedy is to have judicial review. That is, a court reviews the actions of the president and under what authority they are using to implement policy.

But if a president can misinterpret a law or rule, the same question applies — can a single judge misinterpret a law or rule?

The answer is a resounding yes. A single judge can also misinterpret the law.

A key example was the recent action by President Donald Trump in using the California National Guard to maintain peace in Los Angeles. California Governor Gavin Newsom challenged the decision and found a friendly judge in San Francisco to issue an injunction.

Was the president wrong, or was the judge?

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, a panel of three judges, overruled the judge, saying that presidents do have the authority to national the National Guard without the consent of a governor.

In many instances, these rogue judges are overturned, either at the next appellate level or at the SCOTUS.

That’s why it is important to have a panel of judges including the nine-member SCOTUS. By a decision of 6-3, the SCOTUS decided that lower courts can only offer a decision for the individuals making the case in front of them, not for everyone in the country. Even in class action situations, the inferior courts are limited to the region in which they serve.

This is more impactful than the Dobbs decision on abortion. While there was much fanfare to that decision, nationwide policy was only slightly affected. What Dobbs did was return the question of abortion to the state level, which meant some states that were pro abortion continued to be so, and states that were anti abortion continued to be so.

But the decision to limit the lower courts did much more. It removed the ability to cripple the executive branch by finding a sympathetic partisan judge.

And all judges are partisan whether they admit it or not. When the Roe V. Wade decision was made, the SCOTUS had a liberal slant. So it comes as no surprise that many landmark decisions leaned left. Roe was 7-2.

Recent decisions have been 6-3 in many instances.

While conservatives did not suggest packing the court to change the ideological make-up of the court, liberals have suggested several times, including Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Great Depression and Joe Biden who formed a committee on court reform.

And in history, the number of justices has been changed six times. The initial court started with six justices, but that number has fluctuated from five to 10 but has been at nine since 1869.

All other courts will now have to limit their decisions to the people at hand, and only the SCOTUS can make nationwide decisions.

As for birthright citizenship, the court said inferior courts would have to decide only for the plaintiffs in front of them and not issue edicts that affect the entire country.

That is huge.

We have been operating in an era where the courts have been used as a political weapon against the administration in power.

That doesn’t mean presidents can operate without impugnity.

Trump has already had 18 nationwide injunctions by inferior courts. Most of them have been stayed and some have already been overturned.

But now the court system will not be able to find one justice across the entire country and have that court upend a presidency.

And it will never happen again to this or any future president.

Checks and balances must be based on equitable facts, and an inferior court judge cannot have the same power as the president.