Constitutional Law Prof Blog

D.C. Circuit Tosses House Judiciary Committee Suit to Compel McGahn Testimony

Steven D. Schwinn, UIC John Marshall Law School

The D.C. Circuit dismissed the House Judiciary Committee's lawsuit seeking to compel the testimony of former White House Counsel Don McGahn. The court held that the Committee failed to assert a judicially cognizable injury, and that the case was therefore not justiciable under Article III.

The ruling deals a sharp blow to Congress's authority to compel testimony of, and to obtain information from, Executive Branch officials. It means that congressional lawsuits against Executive Branch officials to compel testimony are nonjusticiable, and that Congress will have to use its own powers (appropriations, appointments, contempt, impeachment) to obtain that testimony and information. As we've seen, however, those tools often don't do the job.

In short, the ruling invites presidential noncooperation with congressional oversight and investigations and, as a practical matter, with a noncooperative president, could all but mark the end of effective congressional oversight of the administration. Having said that, this'll surely be appealed.

We posted on the district court ruling here.

The court, in an opinion penned by Judge Griffith, ruled that the Committee lacked a judicially cognizable injury, and therefore lacked standing under Article III. It said that the courts have no business refereeing a pure dispute between Congress and the Executive Branch. It distinguished cases where the courts have ruled in inter-branch disputes, saying that those cases always involved a direct, cognizable harm to an individual, not a branch of government.

In this case, the Committee's dispute with the Executive Branch is unfit for judicial resolution because it has no bearing on the "rights of individuals" or some entity beyond the federal government. The Committee is not a private entity seeking vindication of its "constitutional rights and liberties . . . against oppressive or discriminatory government action." Nor does the Committee seek the "production or nonproduction of specified evidence . . . in a pending criminal case"--the "kind of controversy" threatening individual liberty that "courts traditionally resolve."

Instead, the Committee claims that the Executive Branch's assertion of a constitutional privilege is "obstructing the Committee's investigation." That obstruction may seriously and even unlawfully hinder the Committee's efforts to probe presidential wrongdoing, but it is not a "judicially cognizable" injury.

Judge Henderson concurred, but added that McGahn's arguments on both justiciability and the merits went too far:

First, McGahn urges us to foreclose Article III standing when the Congress, or a House thereof, asserts any institutional injury in any interbranch dispute; I do not believe, however, Supreme Court precedent supports a holding of that scope. Second, McGahn's assertion of absolute testimonial immunity against compelled congressional process is, in my opinion, a step too far, again, under Supreme Court precedent.

Judge Rogers dissented:

The House comes to the court in light of the President's blanket and unprecedented order that no member of the Executive Branch shall comply with the subpoena duly issued by an authorized House Committee. Exercising jurisdiction over the Committee's case is not an instant of judicial encroachment on the prerogatives of another Branch, because subpoena enforcement is a traditional and commonplace function of the federal courts. The court removes any incentive for the Executive Branch to engage in the negotiation process seeking accommodation, all but assures future Presidential stonewalling of Congress, and further impairs the House's ability to perform its constitutional duties.

High Court Rebuffs Cross-Border Killing Case

Steven D. Schwinn, UIC John Marshall Law School

The Supreme Court this week dismissed a case by parents of a Mexican youth against a U.S. Border Patrol agent for shooting and killing their son. The ruling declined to extend a Bivens remedy (a constitutional claim against a federal officer) to the cross-border killing and dismissed the case. The ruling ends the case and (if there were any doubt) underscores just how little is left of Bivens.

The case, Hernandez v. Mesa, arose after a U.S. Border Patrol agent shot and killed Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca, a 15-year old Mexican national, while he was playing with friends in the concrete culvert that runs between the U.S.-Mexico border. The child's parents sued Agent Jesus Mesa, Jr., under Bivens for violating the Fourth and Fifth Amendments.

A 5-4 Court, divided along conventional ideological lines, ruled that Bivens didn't extend to the case. The Court, in an opinion by Justice Alito, ruled that the case raised a new Bivens context, and that the special factors of foreign affairs, national security, and Congress's failure to provide a remedy for this or similar claims all counseled against extending a Bivens remedy to this new context.

The ruling wasn't surprising, given the Court's most recent foray into Bivens, in Ziglar v. Abbasi. In that case, the Court limited Bivens to all but the precise three contexts where the Court has recognized a Bivens remedy (Bivens itself, a congressional staffer's Fifth Amendment claim of dismissal based on sex, and a federal prisoner's Eighth Amendment claim for failure to provide adequate medical treatment). Just to underscore how little remains of Bivens, the Court there noted that if these claims came up today, the Court would likely rule differently.

Justice Thomas concurred, joined by Justice Gorsuch, arguing that the Court should do away with Bivens entirely.

Justice Ginsburg dissented, joined by Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan. She argued that the case did not arise in a new Bivens context, and even if it did, special factors don't counsel against a Bivens remedy. After all, she argued, the case is about whether a federal officer violated the Constitution when he shot and killed the child while on U.S. soil, under U.S. law--and does not intrude on the other branches' conduct of foreign affairs or national security.

SCOTUS Hears Oral Arguments in First Amendment Challenge to Crime of Encouraging or Inducing Immigration Violation

Professor Ruthann Robson, City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law

The Court heard oral argument in United States v. Sineneng-Smith involving the constitutionality of 8 U.S.C.§ 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv). The statute makes it a crime for any person who

encourages or induces an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such coming to, entry, or residence is or will be in violation of law.

The Ninth Circuit held that this subsection "criminalizes a substantial amount of protected expression in relation to the statute’s narrow legitimate sweep; thus, we hold that it is unconstitutionally overbroad in violation of the First Amendment."

The oral argument before the Supreme Court on certiorari was a criss-crossing of the lines between conduct and speech, between criminal law and the First Amendment, and between constitutional avoidance and judicial ability to redraft a statute.  The Deputy Solicitor General argued that the statutory provision was not aimed at speech and did not encompass "substantial amounts of it," and if it did, courts could remedy those situations with as-applied challenges rather than the "last resort remedy of overbreadth invalidation." Arguing for the Respondent, who had been convicted of two counts of the crime, Mark Fleming contended that the words of the statute — "encourages or induces" — are much broader than usual criminal words such as "solicitation" or "aiding and abetting." Fleming emphasized that the "even accurate advice" encouraging someone to stay in the United States is criminalized, including a teacher who says to an undocumented student that she should stay and pursue her education.

The argument returned several times to an amicus brief filed by Professor Eugene Volokh in support of neither party. Volokh contended that the Court should recognize that the line between protected abstract advocacy and unprotected solicitation must turn on specificity, and that

because the premise of the solicitation exception is that solicitation is conduct integral to the commission of a crime, only solicitation of criminal conduct can be made criminal consistently with the First Amendment. Solicitation of merely civilly punishable conduct cannot be made criminal, though it can be punished civilly.

(emphasis in original). It was this issue — that the undocumented person could be merely civilly liable while the person who "encourages or induces" the action of staying would be criminally prosecuted — that seemed to cause some consternation amongst the Justices. Justice Alito raised the encouraging suicide hypothetical:

There's a teenager who's -- who has been very seriously bullied and is very depressed and is thinking of committing suicide. The teenager has a gun in his hand. He calls up the one person he thinks is his friend and he says, I'm thinking of killing myself. And the person on the other end of the line says, you've said this before, I'm tired of hearing this from you, you never follow through, you're a coward, why don't you just do it, I encourage you to pull the trigger.

Alito asked:

Now is that protected by the First Amendment? Is that speech protected by the First Amendment? Attempting to commit suicide is not a crime.

Nevertheless, whether or not the statute would be used that way, or to prosecute people based only on their speech, Fleming pointed to United States v. Stevens, involving the "crush-porn" statute which the Court found unconstitutional, noting that the "first Amendment does not require us to rely on the grace of the executive branch." Interestingly, after Stevens, Congress did pass a more narrow statute which has been upheld.  That experience would surely be on some of the Justices' minds as they consider Chief Justice Roberts's comments about whether the extent to which the statute might be rewritten would need to be "passed by the Senate and House" and "signed by the President," garnering laughter in the courtroom.

Yet Fleming also noted that the government has recently made a "focus" of the enforcement of immigration laws and should the Court uphold the statute, more robust enforcement would likely follow. Given the current controversies around immigration, that would surely also be on the minds of the Justices.

Should any of the SCOTUS Justices Recuse?

Professor Ruthann Robson, City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law

The seemingly persistent question of the type of bias of SCOTUS Justices that should merit recusal has resurfaced again.

Recall that the Code of Conduct for United States Judges does not apply to the Justices of SCOTUS, a situation unchanged by the amended code effective March 2019. In his end-of-year Report in 2012, Chief Justice Roberts seemingly argued that there was no need to specifically include the Justices and addressed (albeit somewhat obliquely) some of the ethical concerns that had arisen. For example, Justice Alito had raised concerns when he appeared at an "event" for the The American Spectator, described as a "right wing magazine" that was behind the attempts to impeach Bill Clinton, that its publisher leads the “Conservative Action Project,” formed after President Obama’s election, to help lobby for conservative legislative priorities, elect Republicans and block President Obama’s judicial appointments.  The keynote speaker at the event was then-Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN).  Additionally, there were concerns regarding Justice Thomas's financial situation, including acceptances of financial gifts and nondisclosure of his wife's income.

Statements and relationships, especially pronounced in these contentious times, also give rise to concerns regarding bias and the recusal remedy.  Justice Ginsburg's comments about presidential candidate Donald Trump labeling him a "faker" caused controversy and invited comparisons with the late Justice Scalia's remarks and relationship with a sitting Vice President and his refusal to recuse himself from a case involving the VP which Scalia himself described as "heroic" in an interview.  Later, a scholar argued that Justice Kavanaugh should recuse himself in a variety of cases based on Kavanaugh's statements during his confirmation hearing.

Lately, two situations have provoked controversy.  The first involves Justices Sotomayor and Ginsburg. It seemingly springs from Justice Sotomayor's dissent from the issuance of a stay in Wolf v. Cook County, on the public charge policy, which we discussed here. The President, in tweets and in a speech in India, criticized Sotomayor — and added Justice Ginsburg (who had not joined Sotomayor's dissent)  — calling on them to recuse themselves "on all Trump, or Trump-related matters!"  The tweet itself cites Laura Ingraham and FoxNews, and as journalist Matthew Gertz noted, the President's tweet replicates the words of the broadcast, which referenced Ginsburg's 2016 "faker" comment.

The second situation involves Justice Thomas's wife, Ginni Thomas, who reportedly was advising Trump on people in federal employment who should be "purged" as disloyal to the President and who should be hired to replace them.  As the New York Times subsequently reported:

Among Ms. Thomas’s top targets have been officials at the National Security Council, the former head of the White House personnel office, Sean Doocey, and other top White House aides. Another target was Jessie K. Liu, who recently left her job as the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia for a job in the Treasury Department that was later withdrawn by the White House.

Ms. Thomas, a politically active conservative who for nearly seven years has led a group called Groundswell, also successfully lobbied for a role for Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, the former attorney general of Virginia who is now the acting deputy secretary of homeland security.

This has led at least one organization, Take Back the Court, to write a letter requesting that Justice Thomas recuse himself from matters before the Court involving Trump.

The overall effect may be to (further) erode the legitimacy of the courts in general and SCOTUS in particular. 

Meanwhile, rereading Canons 4 and 5 of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges and the considerations relating to bias, the appearance of impartiality, and political participation might anchor the conversations about bias.

 

SCOTUS Grants Certiorari on First Amendment Challenge to Anti-Discrimination Foster Care Policy

Professor Ruthann Robson, City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law

The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia.

Recall that a unanimous panel of the Third Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of a preliminary injunction against Philadelphia for stopping its referral of foster children to organizations that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation in their certification of foster parents. Much of the litigation centers on Catholic Social Services (CSS) which will not certify same-sex couples, even those who are legally married to each other, as foster parents. Writing for the panel, Judge Thomas Ambro wrote that the Free Exercise Clause does not relieve one from compliance with a neutral law of general applicability, which the court found the nondiscrimination law to be.  Unlike Masterpiece Cakeshop Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission  and Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah (1993), there was no hostility towards religion evinced in the case.  As the court stated:

CSS’s theme devolves to this: the City is targeting CSS because it discriminates against same-sex couples; CSS is discriminating against same-sex couples because of its religious beliefs; therefore the City is targeting CSS for its religious beliefs. But this syllogism is as flawed as it is dangerous. It runs directly counter to the premise of  [Employment Division v. ] Smith [1990] that, while religious belief is always protected, religiously motivated conduct enjoys no special protections or exemption from general, neutrally applied legal requirements. That CSS’s conduct springs from sincerely held and strongly felt religious beliefs does not imply that the City’s desire to regulate that conduct springs from antipathy to those beliefs. If all comment on religiously motivated conduct by those enforcing neutral, generally applicable laws against discrimination is construed as ill will against the religious belief itself, then Smith is a dead letter, and the nation’s civil rights laws might be as well. As the Intervenors rightly state, the “fact that CSS’s non- compliance with the City’s non-discrimination requirements is based on its religious beliefs does not mean that the City’s enforcement of its requirements constitutes anti-religious hostility.”

The litigation attracted much attention and the grant of certiorari may indicate that some of the Justices are willing to overturn Smith or to extend the holding of Masterpiece Cakeshop.

Daily Read: Justice Sotomayor on Role of the Court

Dissenting from the grant of a stay in Wolf v. Cook County, Illinois, involving the controversial "public charge" immigration rule of the Trump Administration, Justice Sotomayor wrote that the Court has been "too quick" to grant the United States government's requests for stays especially as compared to not granting stays in other circumstances, including executions. Importantly, the stay at issue was not related to a nationwide injunction:

Its public-charge rule is set to go into effect in 49 of 50 States next week. The Seventh Circuit is set to consider the Illinois-specific injunction next week as well, with a decision to follow shortly thereafter. And the Government is unable to articulate how many cases—if any—this narrow injunction would affect in the meantime. In sum, the Government’s only claimed hardship is that it must enforce an existing interpretation of an immigration rule in one State—just as it has done for the past 20 years—while an updated version of the rule takes effect in the remaining 49. The Government has not quantified or explained any bur- dens that would arise from this state of the world. Indeed, until this Court granted relief in the New York cases, the Government itself did not consider this Illinois-specific harm serious enough to warrant asking this Court for relief.

These facts—all of which undermine the Government’s assertion of irreparable harm—show two things, one about the Government’s conduct and one about this Court’s own. First, the Government has come to treat “th[e] exceptional mechanism” of stay relief “as a new normal.” Barr v. East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, 588 U. S. ___, ___ (2019) (SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting from grant of stay) (slip op., at 5). Claiming one emergency after another, the Government has recently sought stays in an unprecedented number of cases, demanding immediate attention and consuming lim- ited Court resources in each. And with each successive application, of course, its cries of urgency ring increasingly hollow. Indeed, its behavior relating to the public-charge rule in particular shows how much its own definition of ir- reparable harm has shifted. Having first sought a stay in the New York cases based, in large part, on the purported harm created by a nationwide injunction, it now disclaims that rationale and insists that the harm is its temporary inability to enforce its goals in one State.

Second, this Court is partly to blame for the breakdown in the appellate process. That is because the Court—in this case, the New York cases, and many others—has been all too quick to grant the Government’s “reflexiv[e]” requests. Ibid. But make no mistake: Such a shift in the Court’s own behavior comes at a cost.

After discussing the extensive time and resources that stay applications involve, Justice Sotomayor continued:

Perhaps most troublingly, the Court’s recent behavior on stay applications has benefited one litigant over all others. This Court often permits executions—where the risk of irreparable harm is the loss of life—to proceed, justifying many of those decisions on purported failures “to raise any potentially meritorious claims in a timely manner.” Murphy v. Collier, 587 U. S. ___, ___ (2019) (second statement of KAVANAUGH, J.) (slip op., at 4); see also id., at ___ (ALITO, J., joined by THOMAS and GORSUCH, JJ., dissenting from grant of stay) (slip op., at 6) (“When courts do not have ad- equate time to consider a claim, the decisionmaking process may be compromised”); cf. Dunn v. Ray, 586 U. S. ___ (2019) (overturning the grant of a stay of execution). Yet the Court’s concerns over quick decisions wither when prodded by the Government in far less compelling circumstances— where the Government itself chose to wait to seek relief, and where its claimed harm is continuation of a 20-year status quo in one State. I fear that this disparity in treatment erodes the fair and balanced decisionmaking process that this Court must strive to protect.

In brief, Justice Sotomayor has argued that some of her colleagues have been biased toward the Trump Administration's petitions.

 

Check it Out: Sunstein on an Independent Justice Department

Check out Cass Sunstein's piece at the NYT, arguing that it's time to (re)consider creating an independent Justice Department by statute (and not just by tradition). 

Eleventh Circuit: Florida Law Mandating Indigent Voters Pay Fines and Fees Violates Equal Protection Clause

Professor Ruthann Robson, City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law

In an extensive opinion in Jones v. Governor of Florida, the Eleventh Circuit found that the Florida legislature's imposition of payment of all fines, fees, and restitution connected with a felony conviction as a necessary precondition for re-enfranchisement violated the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause.

Recall that Florida law disenfranchising persons convicted of felonies, held unconstitutional in 2018, was changed by a voter referendum to amend the Florida Constitution. Amendment 4.  Amendment 4 changed the Florida Constitution to provide:

any disqualification from voting arising from a felony conviction shall terminate and voting rights shall be restored upon completion of all terms of sentence including parole or probation.

Fla. Const. Art. VI §4.  After the amendment was passed, the Florida legislature passed SB7066, codified as Fla. Stat. §98.071 (5) which defined "completion of all terms of sentence" to include "full payment of any restitution ordered by the court, as well as "Full payment of fines or fees ordered by the court as a part of the sentence or that are ordered by the court as a condition of any form of supervision, including, but not limited to, probation, community control, or parole." 

Recall that in October 2019, United States District Judge Robert Hinkle of the Northern District of Florida held that the Florida statute requiring payment of fines, fees, and costs in order for a person convicted of a felony to have their voting rights restored is unconstitutional and should be enjoined, providing that persons affected should have the opportunity to prove their inability to pay.

The Eleventh's Circuit per curiam opinion of 78 pages concluded that the statute's requirement of payment of "legal financial obligations" (known as LFO) could not be sustained under heightened scrutiny.  While wealth classifications in equal protection do not generally merit heightened scrutiny, the Eleventh Circuit noted that

But the Supreme Court has told us that wealth classifications require more searching review in at least two discrete areas: the administration of criminal justice and access to the franchise. M.L.B. [ v. S.L.J.], 519 U.S. at 123  [1996] (“[O]ur cases solidly establish two exceptions to that general rule [of rational basis for wealth classifications]. The basic right to participate in political processes as voters and candidates cannot be limited to those who can pay for a license. Nor may access to judicial processes in cases criminal or ‘quasi criminal in nature’ turn on ability to pay.” (citations omitted)). Because Florida’s re-enfranchisement scheme directly implicates wealth discrimination both in the administration of criminal justice and in access to the franchise, we are obliged to apply some form of heightened scrutiny. Florida has implemented a wealth classification that punishes those genuinely unable to pay fees, fines, and restitution more harshly than those able to pay—that is, it punishes more harshly solely on account of wealth—and it does so by withholding access to the franchise. The observation that Florida may strip the right to vote from all felons forever does not dictate that rational basis review is proper in this case. To the contrary, settled Supreme Court precedent instructs us to employ heightened scrutiny where the State has chosen to “open the door” to alleviate punishment for some, but mandates that punishment continue for others, solely on account of wealth.

Further,

The Supreme Court has also determined that a state may not extend punishment on account of inability to pay fines or fees. See Bearden, 461 U.S. at 672–73 (holding that a state may not revoke probation—thereby extending a prison term—based on the failure to pay a fine the defendant is unable, through no fault of his own, to pay); Tate, 401 U.S. at 399 (holding that a state cannot imprison under a fine-only statute on the basis that an indigent defendant cannot pay a fine); Williams, 399 U.S. at 240–41 (holding that a period of imprisonment cannot be extended beyond the statutory maximum on the basis that an indigent cannot pay a fine).

For the Eleventh Circuit, disenfranchisement is clearly punishment, and also clearly a "continuing form of punishment." (emphasis in original). The Eleventh Circuit acknowledged that while felon disenfranchisment schemes are generally only subject to rational basis review, here, the long and short of it is that:

 once a state provides an avenue to ending the punishment of disenfranchisement—as the voters of Florida plainly did—it must do so consonant with the principles of equal protection and it may not erect a wealth barrier absent a justification sufficient to overcome heightened scrutiny.

The court then applied the form heightened scrutiny from Bearden v. Georgia (1983) including its four considerations: (1) “the nature of the individual interest affected”; (2) “the extent to which it is affected”; (3) “the rationality of the connection between legislative means and purpose”; and (4) “the existence of alternative means for effectuating the purpose.” The court rather expeditiously analyzed the individual's interests as great, the state's interests as minor, and noted the lack of realistic alternatives.

Further, the court rejected Florida's argument that the plaintiffs must demonstrate discriminatory intent:

This is a wealth discrimination case. And the Supreme Court has squarely held that [Washington v.] Davis’s intent requirement is not applicable in wealth discrimination cases. See M.L.B., 519 U.S. at 126–27 (rejecting, in the context of a wealth discrimination claim, the argument that Washington v. Davis requires proof of discriminatory intent).

The Eleventh Circuit opinion concluded that although to the "extent a felon can pay LFOs, he or she must," but clearly affirmed the district court's order enjoining the state "from preventing the plaintiffs from voting based solely on their genuine inability to pay legal financial obligations."

[image: Florida vote on Amendment 4 via]

Is President Trump the Chief Law Enforcement Officer?

Josh Blackman, arguing at WaPo, says yes, pointing to the Vesting Clause and early history; Donald Ayer, arguing in The Atlantic, suggests no, pointing to post-Watergate reforms that created independence at DOJ. Here's PolitiFact on the question, from October last year.

D.C. Circuit Rebuffs HHS's Approval of Arkansas Work Requirements for Medicaid

Steven D. Schwinn, UIC John Marshall Law School

The D.C. Circuit last week ruled that HHS Secretary Azar's approval of Arkansas's proposed work required for Medicaid recipients was arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act. The ruling vacates the Secretary's approval and means that the work requirements can't move forward, at least unless and until the Secretary provides an explanation for authorization that's consistent with the Medicaid Act.

We last posted on this case (and a similar case out of Kentucky) here. (After the district court ruled against Kentucky's approval, that state dropped its program and moved for voluntary dismissal.)

The case arose when Arkansas sought HHS approval for a work-requirement demonstration project for its Medicaid program. The project would mean that Medicaid recipients in the state would have to work, with some exceptions, in order to continue to receive Medicaid.

HHS Secretary Azar approved the project. State residents sued, arguing that the approval was arbitrary and capricious in violation of the APA. The district court agreed, and last week the D.C. Circuit affirmed.

Like the district court, the circuit court said that Secretary Azar's explanation for approving the project didn't square with the purpose of Medicaid, to provide medical assistance. Here's the long and short of it:

Instead of analyzing whether the demonstration would promote the objective of providing coverage, the Secretary identified three alternative objectives: "whether the demonstration as amended was likely to assist in improving health outcomes; whether it would address behavioral and social factor that influence health outcomes; and whether it would incentivize beneficiaries to engage in their own health care and achieve better health outcomes." These three alternative objectives all point to better health outcomes as the objective of Medicaid, but that alternative objective lacks textual support. Indeed, the statute makes no mention of that objective.

While furnishing health care coverage and better health outcomes may be connected goals, the text specifically addresses only coverage. . . . That means that Congress selected to achieve the objectives of Medicaid was to provide health care coverage to populations that otherwise could not afford it. 

Check it Out: DOJ Alumni Letter Calling for AG Barr's Resignation

Here's the letter that's getting so much attention. And here's the gist:

Although there are times when political leadership appropriately weighs in on individual prosecutions, it is unheard of for the Department's top leaders to overrule line prosecutors, who are following established policies, in order to give preferential treatment to a close associate of the President, as Attorney General Barr did in the Stone case. It is even more outrageous for the Attorney General to intervene as he did here--after the President publicly condemned the sentencing recommendation that line prosecutors had already filed in court.

Such behavior is a grave threat to the fair administration of justice.

Check it Out: Bouie on the Fifteenth Amendment

Check out Jamelle Bouie's piece at the NYT, The Equality That Wasn't. "The most Radical Republicans had a better idea of how to cast the 15th Amendment. We should have listened to them."

Feds Seek to Crack Down on Immigration, Sanctuary Policies in Three Lawsuits

Steven D. Schwinn, UIC John Marshall Law School

The Department of Justice yesterday filed three separate lawsuits seeking to halt various immigration-related and sanctuary policies in California, New Jersey, and King County, Washington.

The three suits are directed as different policies, as so plead slightly different violations, but they all plead some form of federal supremacy and preemption in immigration policy.

In the California case, DOJ takes on California's ban on the operation of private detention facilities in the state. In short, DOJ says that "California, of course, is free to decide that it will no longer use private detention facilities for its state prisoners and detainees. But it cannot dictate that choice for the Federal Government, especially in a manner that discriminates against the Federal Government and those with whom it contracts." Here's the complaint; here's the motion for a preliminary and permanent injunction.

In the King County case, DOJ seeks to halt a local order that closes the airport for the "deportation of immigration detainees (except for federal government aircraft), to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law." Here's the complaint.

Finally, in the New Jersey case, DOJ takes on a law enforcement directive that limits state and local cooperation with "federal immigration authorities." Here's the complaint.

 

New York Sues Feds for Dropping Trusted Traveler

Steven D. Schwinn, UIC John Marshall Law School

New York yesterday sued Homeland Security officials for dropping the state from the Customs and Border Patrol's Trusted Traveler program in retribution for the state adopting its Green Light Law. That Law allows unauthorized aliens to get a drivers license in the state, and, in order to facilitate that, prohibits state officials from sharing an applicant's personal information from the DMV database with federal immigration authorities, except where disclosure is pursuant to a lawful court order or judicial warrant.

New York argues in that CBP's move violates the "equal state sovereignty" principle in the Tenth Amendment; that it's unduly coercive in violation of the Tenth Amendment; that it is wholly irrational in violation of due process; and that it violates the Administrative Procedure Act (for lack of notice-and-comment rulemaking, for being arbitrary and capricious, and for violating federal law).

On that last point--violating federal law--New York contends that the move violates the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 and implementing regulations. That's because the IRTPA directs the Secretary to "ensure that the international trusted traveler program includes as many participants as practicable," yet CBP's move takes millions of New Yorkers out of the program. Moreover, nothing in the program requires applicants to submit state drivers license information, and CBP can get any information they need to run background checks from other state sources, which New York readily shares with the FBI. In other words: CBP doesn't need information from New York's DMV database.

The complaint asks the court to declare CBP's move unconstitutional and in violation of the APA, and to enjoin enforcement of it.

D.C. Circuit Tosses Congressional Members' Foreign Emoluments Suit Against Trump

Steven D. Schwinn, UIC John Marshall Law School

The D.C. Circuit ruled today that 215 Members of Congress who brought a suit against President Trump for violations of the Foreign Emoluments Clause lacked standing to sue. As a result, the court ordered the case dismissed.

The ruling is a significant victory for President Trump. But it wasn't a ruling on the merits, and other Emoluments Clause cases are still pending against the President in two other circuits.

We last posted on the case here. In short, Members argued that President Trump failed to gain congressional approval and thus violated the Foreign Emoluments Clause for taking money from foreign governments for stays and services at his properties. President Trump moved to dismiss for lack of standing, among other reasons. The district court denied the motion; the D.C. Circuit today reversed.

The ruling was concise. The court simply held that the case was governed by Raines v. Byrd, in which the Supreme Court held that Members of Congress lacked standing to challenge the Line Item Veto Act. Here's how the D.C. Circuit applied Raines:

This case is really no different from Raines. The Members were not singled out--their alleged injury is shared by the 320 members of the Congress who did not join this lawsuit--and their claim is based entirely on the loss of political power. . . .

The Supreme Court's recent summary reading of Raines that "individual members" of the Congress "lack standing to assert the institutional interests of a legislature" in the same way "a single House of a bicameral legislature lacks capacity to assert interests belonging to the legislature as a whole," Virginia House of Delegates v. Bethune-Hill, puts paid to any doubt regarding the Members' lack of standing.

The plaintiffs can appeal to the full D.C. Circuit and to the Supreme Court.

Check it Out: Entous and Osnos on Assassination

Check out Adam Entous's and Evan Osnos's piece in The New Yorker, Qassem Suleimani and How Nations Decide to Kill. Here's from the piece:

The President's dismissal of the question of legality [of Suleimani's killing] betrayed a grim truth: a state's decision to kill hinges less on definitive matters of law than on a set of highly maleable political, moral, and visceral considerations. In the case of Suleimani, Trump's order was the culmination of a grand strategic gamble to change the Middle East, and the opening of a potentially harrowing new front in the use of assassination.