By Jan Wolfe and Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on the last day of rulings for its current term gave Donald Trump his latest in a series of victories at the nation’s top judicial body, one that may make it easier for him to implement contentious elements of his sweeping agenda as he tests the limits of presidential power.
With its six conservative members in the majority and its three liberals dissenting, the court on Friday curbed the ability of judges to impede his policies nationwide, resetting the power balance between the federal judiciary and presidents.
The ruling came after the Republican president’s administration asked the Supreme Court to narrow the scope of so-called “universal” injunctions issued by three federal judges that halted nationally the enforcement of his January executive order limiting birthright citizenship.
The court’s decision has “systematically weakened judicial oversight and strengthened executive discretion,” said Paul Rosenzweig, an attorney who served in Republican President George W. Bush’s administration.
Friday’s ruling said that judges generally can grant relief only to the individuals or groups who brought a particular lawsuit.
The decision did not, however, permit immediate implementation of Trump’s directive, instead instructing lower courts to reconsider the scope of the injunctions. The ruling was authored by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, one of three conservative justices who Trump appointed during his first term in office from 2017-2021.
Trump has scored a series of victories at the Supreme Court since returning to office in January. These have included clearing the way for his administration to resume deporting migrants to countries other than their own without offering them a chance to show the harms they could face and ending temporary legal status held by hundreds of thousands of migrants on humanitarian grounds.
The court also permitted implementation of Trump’s ban on transgender people in the military, let his administration withhold payment to foreign aid groups for work already performed for the government, allowed his firing of two Democratic members of federal labor boards to stand for now, and backed his Department of Government Efficiency in two disputes.
‘A BULLY PULPIT’
“President Trump secured the relief he sought in most of his administration’s cases,” George Mason University law school professor Robert Luther III said.
“Justice Barrett’s opinion is a win for the presidency,” Luther said of the decision on nationwide injunctions. “It recognizes that the executive branch is a bully pulpit with a wide range of authorities to implement the promises of a campaign platform.”
Once again, as with many of the term’s major decisions, the three liberal justices found themselves in dissent, a familiar position as the court under the guidance of Chief Justice John Roberts continues to shift American law rightward.
The rulings in favor of Trump illustrate that “the court’s three most liberal justices are proving less relevant now than at any earlier point in the Roberts Court with respect to their impact on its jurisprudence,” Luther said.
The cases involving Trump administration policies this year came to the court as emergency filings rather than through the normal process, with oral arguments held only in the birthright litigation. And those arguments did not focus on the legality of Trump’s action but rather on the actions of the judges who found that it was likely unconstitutional.
“One theme is the court’s struggle to keep pace with a faster-moving legal world, especially as the Trump administration tests the outer boundaries of its powers,” Boston College Law School professor Daniel Lyons said.
In other cases during the nine-month term, the court sided with a Republican-backed ban in Tennessee on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, endorsed South Carolina’s plan to cut off public funding to reproductive healthcare and abortion provider Planned Parenthood, and made it easier to pursue claims alleging workplace “reverse” discrimination.
The court also spared two American gun companies from the Mexican government’s lawsuit accusing them of aiding illegal firearms trafficking to drug cartels, and allowed parents to opt elementary school children out of classes when storybooks with LGBT characters are read.
‘NOT THE COURT’S ROLE’
In several cases involving federal statutes, the message from the justices is that people unhappy with the outcome need to take that up with Congress, according to Loyola Law School professor Jessica Levinson.
“The court is implicitly saying, ‘That’s Congress’ problem to fix, and it’s not the court’s role to solve those issues,'” Levinson said.
This is the second straight year that the court ended its term with a decision handing Trump a major victory. On July 1, 2024, it ruled in favor of Trump in deciding that presidents cannot be prosecuted for official actions taken in office. It marked the first time that the court recognized any form of presidential immunity from prosecution.
The Supreme Court’s next term begins in October but Trump’s administration still has some emergency requests pending that the justices could act upon at any time. It has asked the court to halt a judicial order blocking mass federal job cuts and the restructuring of agencies. It also has asked the justices to rein in the judge handling a case involving deportations to so-called “third countries.”
Recent rulings “have really shown the court for what it is, which is a deeply conservative court,” Georgia State University law professor Anthony Michael Kreis said.
The court’s jurisprudence reflects a larger shift in the national discourse, with Republicans feeling they have the political capital to achieve long-sought aims, Kreis said.
The court’s conservative majority, Kreis said, “is probably feeling more emboldened to act.”
(Reporting by Jan Wolfe and Will Dunham, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
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