#judicial branch

[dispersertracks]

SCOTUS Trump v. Slaughter Decision — Conversation with Perplexity

Following yesterday’s Supreme Court decision on Trump v. Slaughter, I had a conversation with both Roy (Claude) and Perplexity. The Roy conversation appears in the previous post. This post covers my conversation with Perplexity. Briefly, I argued that the Unitary Executive Theory popular with the Court is misguided and overlooks the practical shortcomings of its central premise. In broad terms,…

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[dispersertracks]

SCOTUS Trump v. Slaughter Decision — Conversation with Roy

Following today’s Supreme Court decision on Trump v. Slaughter, I had a conversation with both Roy (Claude) and Perplexity. The Perplexity conversation will go up on a separate post. This post covers my conversation with Roy. Briefly, I argued that the Unitary Executive Theory popular with the Court is misguided and overlooks the practical shortcomings of its central premise. In broad terms,…

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[shane-and-martin]

Argument to Check DHS/DOJ and the Executive Branch

Conclusion 1:

ICE enforces civil immigration law and serves the civil Immigration Court system. Criminal conduct must be handled by agencies with criminal jurisdiction. ICE has no general criminal arrest authority and cannot arrest even criminal aliens for crimes; they must wait for the agency with statutory criminal authority to make the criminal arrest. ICE’s jurisdiction is limited to civil immigration enforcement involving aliens. 

Conclusion 2:

The Department of Justice has an obligation to investigate federal officers who act outside the authority Congress has granted. If ICE personnel engage in actions beyond their statutory civil immigration mandate, DOJ is responsible for ensuring accountability under federal law.

Conclusion 3:

Congress has already defined the limits of ICE’s authority in statute, but neither Congress nor the federal courts have addressed ICE’s oversteps involving U.S. citizens because no case presenting these issues has been brought before the judiciary. Under separation‑of‑powers principles, the courts cannot interpret or constrain executive action without a live case or controversy, and Congress typically relies on judicial clarification before legislating against executive overreach. The absence of a judicial ruling therefore prevents meaningful congressional oversight, creating a structural gap in which statutory limits exist but remain unenforced.

Summation:

The courts will ultimately hear these cases, and our constitutional structure will remain intact despite the appearance of crisis created by executive overreach.

[deadpresidents]

https://www.tumblr.com/deadpresidents/807221448582266880/obviously-congress-possesses-the-power-to-expand?source=share

Wasn't that done to prevent Andrew Johnson from appointing a justice, or is that a myth? I know the Radical Republicans who controled Congress hated his guts.

It worked out that way and Congress definitely wanted to decrease Presidential power -- especially the power of Andrew Johnson -- by limiting the opportunity to make his own nominations to the Court, but it was more complicated than that. After all, President Johnson willingly signed the legislation to shrink the size of the Court when Congress passed it.

Obviously, this was immediately after the Civil War, so there were several reasons why Congress wanted to reform the Supreme Court and overhaul the judiciary while reorganizing the federal circuit court system (in order to handcuff the power of the Southern states that had formed the Confederacy as they were being readmitted back to the Union during Reconstruction). The Southern states had dominated the federal circuit court system in the decades prior to the Civil War, and Congress wanted to make sure that didn't happen during Reconstruction. A minor reason for eliminating seats from the Supreme Court (and the reorganization of the circuit courts) may have also been Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase's ongoing efforts to elevate the salaries of federal judges by shrinking the overall footprint of the judiciary.

[deadpresidents]

Obviously Congress possesses the power to expand the Supreme Court, but could it reduce the size? If so, how might that work?

Not only is Congress able (you know...if Congress still acted like a coequal branch of the federal government as intended by the Constitution) to reduce the size of the Supreme Court, but it's actually done it before.

In 1863, Congress expanded the Supreme Court to ten seats. But in 1866, Congress passed a law to eliminate three seats and eventually have seven members (six Associate Justices and the Chief Justice). The plan was to gradually abolish three seats, instead of just immediately tossing out three of the justices. So, as vacancies occurred -- as in the deaths of Associates Justices John Catron in 1865 and James M. Wayne in 1867 -- they weren't to be filled. The intention was to get the size of the Court down to seven seats, but the Court only got down to eight seats before the Judiciary Act of 1869 reestablished the size of the Court at nine seats (eight Associate Justices and the Chief Justice).

[resist-much]

[whatstheusgovernmentdoing]

5/13/25 - Supreme Court

The Court is not in session today, and will return in two days on Thursday, 5/13/25

[oddmanoutninja]

Trump's Federal Judge Nominations: Impact on Judiciary

During President Trump’s first term he nominated 234 federal judges, including 3 conservative Supreme Court Justices. Trump’s nominees flipped the federal judiciary for the conservatives. It’s a big reason Congress hasn’t pursued eliminating district courts. President Trump has 46 vacancies to fill. He just announced a wave of nominees. Whitney Hermandorfer, Zachary Bluestone, Joshua Divine, and…

Trump's Federal Judge Nominations: Impact on Judiciary