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Justice Sotomayor accuses SCOTUS conservative majority of pro-Trump bias

Justice Sotomayor accuses SCOTUS conservative majority of pro-Trump bias

After conservative majority stays lower court injunction against the “public charge” immigration rule, Sotomayor lashes out: “the Court’s recent behavior on stay applications has benefited one litigant over all others”

The lower federal courts repeatedly have had their orders and injunctions against Trump administration programs halted by the Supreme Court. In the travel cases, multiple stays were issued and when the case finally reached the Supreme Court on the merits, Trump won.

This is not a matter of pro-Trump bias, but of out-of-control lower courts, particularly at the District Court level, where judges have overstepped their bounds to substitute judicial preferences for those of the executive branch in which the constitution vests matters related to entry into the country, among other things.

This natural conflict between the executive and judicial branches has been exacerbated by forum shopping by anti-Trump activists, who keep filing cases until they find a judge who will issue a nationwide injunction. That’s how it worked in the travel cases, where Trump won in the District of Massachusetts, but lost elsewhere — because at least one judge was willing to issue a nationwide injunction, it didn’t matter how many times Trump won with other judges. #TheResistance to Trump only needed to win once, Trump needed to win every time in the District Courts.

The Supreme Court appears ready, at long last, to address the abuse at the District Court level, particularly as to nationwide injunctions. The Court recently stayed a lower court nationwide innjuction against implementation of the so-called “public charge” rule, which required immigrants to demonstrate that they would not become financial wards of the state. That stay remains in effect until the merits of the case are considered by the court of appeal and, eventually, the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court on Friday, February 20, 2021, again considered a District Court injunction against the “public charge” rule, this time in the District of Illinois. This time, however, the District Court did not issue a nationwide injunction, just an injunction applicable in Illinois. Nonetheless, in Wolf v. Cook County, the Supreme Court issued a stay, with all liberal Justices opposing the stay:

The application for stay presented to JUSTICE KAVANAUGH and by him referred to the Court is granted, and the District Court’s October 14, 2019 order granting a preliminary injunction is stayed pending disposition of the Government’s appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and disposition of the Government’s petition for a writ of certiorari, if such writ is timely sought. Should the petition for a writ of certiorari be denied, this stay shall terminate automatically. In the event the petition for a writ of certiorari is granted, the stay shall terminate upon the sending down of the judgment of this Court.

JUSTICE GINSBURG, JUSTICE BREYER, and JUSTICE KAGAN would deny the application.

Justice Sotomayor, who increasingly is known for her aggressive dissents, issued a dissenting opinion which accused the conservative majority of bias in favor of one party. While she didn’t say “Trump,” in the context of the accusation, it’s clear that’s to whom she was referring. Here’s an excerpt (emphasis added):

Today’s decision follows a now-familiar pattern. The Government seeks emergency relief from this Court, asking it to grant a stay where two lower courts have not. The Government insists—even though review in a court of appeals is imminent—that it will suffer irreparable harm if this Court does not grant a stay. And the Court yields.

But this application is perhaps even more concerning than past ones. Just weeks ago, this Court granted a stay of a different decision involving the same administrative rule at issue here, after the Government professed urgency because of the form of relief granted in the prior case—a nationwide injunction. The Government now uses that stay—of a nationwide injunction—to insist that it is entitled to one here. But the injunction in this case is limited to one State, Illinois. The Government cannot state with precision any of the supposed harm that would come from the Illinois-specific injunction, and the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has scheduled oral argument for next week. The Government’s professed harm, therefore, boils down to an inability to enforce its immigration goals, possibly in only the immediate term, in one of 50 States. It is hard to say what is more troubling: that the Government would seek this extraordinary relief seemingly as a matter of course, or that the Court would grant it….

… 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….

Perhaps most troublingly, the Court’s recent behavior on stay applications has benefited one litigant over all others…. 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.

Sotomayor’s assertion that a single-state injunction differs fundamentally from a nationwide injunction makes no sense in the immigration context — it would require the federal government to apply one rule in Illinois and a different rule elsewhere, something that is untenable in the immigration context.

I don’t think I’m misreading Sotomayor’s dissent as accusing the conservative majority of pro-Trump bias. Certainly, that’s the way liberal media is reading it.

https://www.google.com/search?q=sotomayor&tbm=nws&source=univ&tbo=u&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjou_ez-OXnAhUqTd8KHVjzDioQt8YBKAF6BAgEEC4&biw=1920&bih=937

The increasingly bitter dispute in the Supreme Court over reining in district court political inteference is a reminder, the Supreme Court matters, and so do elections.

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Comments

The Friendly Grizzly | February 22, 2020 at 4:09 pm

We’ve all seen mention of how Rhurgood Marshall held “the black seat” on SCOTUS, and RBG holds one of the “female” seats.

When Sotomstor goes, will the compartmentalizers*!call hers the Mexican seat?

*!i almost said racial bean counters but that would be raaacissst.

    She’s not Mexican, she’s Puerto-Rican.

      buckeyeminuteman in reply to Milhouse. | February 23, 2020 at 7:12 am

      Same thing

      JusticeDelivered in reply to Milhouse. | February 23, 2020 at 11:14 am

      Puerto Ricans average IQ 84, Mexico 86, American blacks 85. Most of the mexicans I have known had good work ethics, less so for education.

      Both Mexico and Puerto Rico are Hispanic.

      Personally, I think that Sotomayor’s sympathies lie with her fellow dull witted brown people. I am not saying that brown or black is necessarily dull, yet it is a fact that their per capita rate of dullness is much higher than many other groups.

        Just a clarification (for the knee jerk crowd), those AVERAGE IQ numbers aren’t incorrect, they’re not pulled out of some white supremest’s behind, especially since the same studies show average Asian IQs as higher than average white ones. Which is pretty self-defeating if the numbers were generated by some bias to prove white superiority.

        What IQ tests measure is the ability to take IQ tests, not necessarily actual native intelligence, for any reasonable definition of what the second thing really means.
        There’s definitely some correlation between the two, but they’re not spot on the same thing.

        The problems with those numbers is both the actual racists who use them to argue for racist ideology (usually ignoring the white inferiority part) and the fainting couch liberals who refuse to believe that the numbers themselves are not ideological and can have real-world implications.

    You’re both wrong. It’s the Wise Latina Seat.

OleDirtyBarrister | February 22, 2020 at 4:10 pm

Sato is a hack and was an unworthy appointment.

She apparently has no concern for real fairness and impartiality of the federal courts, the kind that would require judges to refrain from acting as oligarchs in black robes as part of the “resistance”.

We’ve seen the liberal district court activist hack in Hawaii go as far as to mock Trump with respect to the NFL jesters kneeling for the anthem. Sato has expressed no concern about Ruth Babykiller Ginsberg participating in decisions involving Trump despite the fact that she publicly spoke out and expressed disfavorable opinion against him and would never had been able to sit in judgment under the rules applicable to judges in the lower court.

The only party that has been winning consistently under the recent approach by the SCOTUS majority is the constitution and the separation of powers doctrine.

Sotomayer has no problem when courts favor Democrats.

She must have missed the memo.

“Elections have consequences” – Barrack Obama

The memo is why she’s sitting on the Supreme Court. The memo is also why Gorsuch & Kavanaugh are sitting there too.

OleDirtyBarrister | February 22, 2020 at 4:14 pm

She is a “wise” latina in her own estimation and knows everything.

She seriously lacks in the most important education of all because she spent so little time working real jobs of authority in the private sector and spent far to much time as a troughfeeder.

Congress and the Republicans have messed up letting Ruth Babykiller Ginsberg’s behavior slide. They should have responded by now by drafting and presenting legislation to make the same recusal rules applicable in the lower courts applicable to SCOTUS justices.

Of course, Congress has been dilatory for years in revising the term of SCOTUS to make the most highly paid judges in the federal system work 12 months a year like lower federal court judges.

    They should have responded by now by drafting and presenting legislation to make the same recusal rules applicable in the lower courts applicable to SCOTUS justices.

    This is wrong. See Justice Scalia’s memorandum in Cheney v US District Court for DC, explaining why, unlike other judges, SCOTUS justices must recuse themselves only if their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned” and must not do so in any other case.:

    Let me respond, at the outset, to Sierra Club’s suggestion that I should “resolve any doubts in favor of recusal.” [..] That might be sound advice if I were sitting on a Court of Appeals.[..] There, my place would be taken by another judge, and the case would proceed normally. On the Supreme Court, however, the consequence is different: The Court proceeds with eight Justices, raising the possibility that, by reason of a tie vote, it will find itself unable to resolve the significant legal issue presented by the case. Thus, as Justices stated in their 1993 Statement of Recusal Policy: “[W]e do not think it would serve the public interest to go beyond the requirements of the statute, and to recuse ourselves, out of an excess of caution, whenever a relative is a partner in the firm before us or acted as a lawyer at an earlier stage. Even one unnecessary recusal impairs the functioning of the Court.” [..] Moreover, granting the motion is (insofar as the outcome of the particular case is concerned) effectively the same as casting a vote against the petitioner. The petitioner needs five votes to overturn the judgment below, and it makes no difference whether the needed fifth vote is missing because it has been cast for the other side, or because it has not been cast at all.

      Concise in reply to Milhouse. | February 22, 2020 at 8:31 pm

      I think, at least as a matter of regulating the Court’s appellate jurisdiction, Congress does have the authority to modify the recusal rules. Did Scalia contend otherwise?

        Milhouse in reply to Concise. | February 22, 2020 at 8:49 pm

        Of course it has the authority. If it had the authority to legislate the recusal rule that it did, it follows that it has the authority to legislate some other rule instead. But it would be a bad idea, for the reasons Scalia discusses.

          Concise in reply to Milhouse. | February 22, 2020 at 11:52 pm

          That isn’t Scalia’s argument. Scalia is arguing against the Court pursuing a recusal policy beyond the statutory requirements. He is not arguing the merits or demerits of congressionally imposed policy.

          Milhouse in reply to Milhouse. | February 23, 2020 at 1:15 am

          Wrong. Read the argument. The Sierra Club had argued that if he was in doubt he should play it safe by recusing himself; he says that when a supreme court justice recuses himself it’s not safe, it actually does serious damage that is not done when a lower court judge does so, and that is why he won’t recuse himself except where the statute requires him to. He doesn’t say whether he agrees with the current statute, but he’s clearly against expanding it; of course if Congress did so he would have had to comply with it anyway, but it’s clear he would have considered it a bad idea.

          Concise in reply to Milhouse. | February 23, 2020 at 12:46 pm

          Scalia is not arguing for or against expansion of the statute. He’s ruling on an ad hoc motion seeking recusal in that specific pending case. Don’t think that the fact specific circumstances underlying Scalia’s argument necessarily translate into a broader argument against expansion of a statutory standard which would have been in place and governed throughout the litigation process. Who can say what the posture of the case would have been if stricter, specific statutory rules had governed the process from the start? And, if this results in only 8 judges, so what? Maybe it’s better no definitive Court opinion issue in such cases?

          Milhouse in reply to Milhouse. | February 23, 2020 at 6:54 pm

          Again, read his damned argument. Of course he’s not directly addressing a proposal to expand the statute, since nobody had proposed that. And of course if Congress had expanded the statute he’d have had no choice but to comply.

          But he is very clearly making an argument that the recusal of a supreme court justice is a bad and damaging thing, and is fundamentally different from the recusal of an appellate court judge. He is addressing and refuting the claim that it’s a safe option, which should therefore be taken in case of doubt. The same argument means that Congress should not expand the statute, and perhaps it should even narrow it.

          (We don’t know how he would have come down on a proposal to narrow it, because nobody ever made such a proposal. It’s possible that he thought Congress had drawn the line in precisely the correct place, but there’s nothing in the opinion to indicate one way or the other.)

          Milhouse in reply to Milhouse. | February 23, 2020 at 6:56 pm

          And, if this results in only 8 judges, so what? Maybe it’s better no definitive Court opinion issue in such cases?

          How can that possibly be better? Again, read the argument where he points out that making him recuse would have exactly the same effect as forcing him to vote against Cheney.

          Concise in reply to Milhouse. | February 23, 2020 at 7:43 pm

          Again, Scalia was only responding to the procedural facts relevant to the specific case in hand. Generalizing to your degree would be an argument from any justice every recusing himself or herself. That can’t possibly be right. And why might it be better? Because no precedent would be set with a biased court and the matter could be revisited in the future?

          healthguyfsu in reply to Milhouse. | February 23, 2020 at 7:53 pm

          Milhouse, you sure like to “pound the table” a lot in your comments.

          Milhouse in reply to Milhouse. | February 23, 2020 at 8:26 pm

          Again, Scalia was only responding to the procedural facts relevant to the specific case in hand.

          Not so. In the section I quoted he made a general argument against supreme court justices recusing themselves. His point in that section is that it’s inherently a bad thing.

          Generalizing to your degree would be an argument from any justice every recusing himself or herself. That can’t possibly be right.

          Of course when the statute requires it a justice must recuse himself even if he thinks it’s bad; justices don’t get to override their authorizing statute. Also, of course, there are times when the case for recusal becomes so strong that it outweighs the arguments against it — but those arguments remain just as strong. But what comes very strongly out of Scalia’s argument is that he draws that line at or below where Congress has currently drawn it. In other words, not only in the case he’s discussing but in any case, he’s against justices recusing themselves unless their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned”; there may or may not be some cases where their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned” and he’d still be against recusal in principle, but the law requires it so there’s no choice.

      I think Ginsberg’s impartiality can not only be questioned, I think at this point given her public statements her lack of impartiality in any case even tangentially involving trump is beyond question.

        OleDirtyBarrister in reply to rdm. | February 24, 2020 at 7:12 pm

        She is biased and her statements would create an impression in the mind of any reasonable person that she is biased.

      OleDirtyBarrister in reply to Milhouse. | February 24, 2020 at 7:09 pm

      Milhouse, you are wrong.

      Constantly.

      You are the biggest know it all poseur on the internet. As insufferable as you are here, I can only imagine how hard to take you must be in real life.

      What Scalia said about the applicable standard in a case entailing grounds for his recusal has nothing to do with what Congress should do under its Article III powers to hold justices accountable and create an honest and honorable forum in SCOTUS.

      Buzz off and shut up.

She called herself a “wise Latina.” She was only half-right.

https://empiricalscotus.com/2019/07/07/changes-are-afoot/

Sept. 12, 2019 – There were 67 decisions after argument in the term that ended in June. In those cases, the four justices appointed by Democratic presidents voted the same way 51 times, while the five Republican appointees held tight 37 times. And of the 20 cases where the court split 5-4, only seven had the “expected” ideological divide of conservatives over liberals. By the end of the term, each conservative justice had joined the liberals as the deciding vote at least once.

So the conservative judicial organizations should get national injunctions against things like bump stock bans, vote harvesting, Illegal Alien IDs, etc. and see how fast Soto does a 180.

The one good thing about RBG sticking around is that the lower courts will be packed with constructionists, so the shoe will be on the other foot and she can watch as things dissolve.

I remember pointing this out to gay activists (I think Glenn Greenwald who did an article) that if you want an imperial presidency and an even more imperial judiciary, you will get one. Good and hard.

Not so much fun when you have Trump and Federalist Judges holding the reigns, turning right at each intersectionality.

    OleDirtyBarrister in reply to tz. | February 22, 2020 at 4:25 pm

    The leftists want activist judges and a “living” constitution because they believe those things will fall in line with their way of thinking.

    How long would they like activism and a living constitution if there was 6-3 conservative majority and the 6 conservatives stayed in line and voted conservative with great zeal and activism?

      Those judges are right, over time progressivism is a one-way ratchet, primarily because conservative judges respect stare decisis and progressive judges don’t.

        Katy L. Stamper in reply to randian. | February 23, 2020 at 6:43 am

        Which, randian, is another way of saying “conservative” judges wimp out on their responsibility to protect the American way of life.

        It’s just too HARD for them.

        The fight is all on the other side.

    artichoke in reply to tz. | February 23, 2020 at 10:30 am

    Yes they should, and it’s about time conservative district judges in conservative circuits started issuing them.

    Complaining about the misuse of the nationwide injunction is the ineffective way. We should use it! Only then might we get liberal support to remove the ability of district courts to overrule the president.

    In fact I am not sure it should be removed. The nationwide injunction is the only thing that stopped Obamacare. But since that’s the rule, we must use it.

    artichoke in reply to tz. | February 23, 2020 at 10:53 am

    A nationwide injunction against vote harvesting around Oct. 15 or so seems like an interesting idea.

      Milhouse in reply to artichoke. | February 23, 2020 at 6:58 pm

      It seems interesting but on what grounds could one be issued?

        artichoke in reply to Milhouse. | February 23, 2020 at 10:58 pm

        Someone sues a state, that allows vote harvesting, in federal court, on some grounds. Some conservative district judge is assigned the case and issues the injunction, stating that it’s necessary that it stay in place through the election to prevent irreparable harm to the plaintiff’s interest.

        As for standing for the plaintiff, that’s an issue for that conservative judge too.

          Milhouse in reply to artichoke. | February 24, 2020 at 2:12 am

          A judge who issued such an injunction would by definition not be conservative. And if he’s not conservative why would he want to help Republicans?

    DaveGinOly in reply to tz. | February 23, 2020 at 2:42 pm

    “…and see how fast Soto does a 180.”
    This has never been a problem for liberals.

You would think such a smart Latina woman would know US law is based on the Constitution, Not Rules for Radicals.

From the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS):
“Public charge has been part of U.S. immigration law for more than 100 years as a ground of inadmissibility and deportation. An individual who is likely at any time to become a public charge is inadmissible to the United States and ineligible to become a legal permanent resident.”

Sotomayor accuse the other justices of ‘pro-Trump’ bias. I accuse her of anti-American bias.

#TheWorstJusticeSotomyor

    My maternal grandparents immigrated via Ellis Island in 1903.
    The immigration authorities came on the ship and reviewed documents.
    If the immigrant could not show a job awaited them then they could not leave the ship and the Captain of the ship had to return them to their port of origin.

      walls in reply to Ronbert. | February 23, 2020 at 12:50 pm

      Additionally, those who were sick either had to return to their destination or sit in quarantine. Smart! Today we are importing all sorts of turd world diseases brought in by the invaders.

She should stick with baseball.

Ginsburg makes many decisions based on how she thinks the law should be.

Sotomayer unfortunately is far worse than Ginsburg, she simply should not be on the court – period
Ballotpedia, lists 7 decisions which the Supreme Court reversed her decisions. 7 reversals is an extremely high number of reversals, yet she was appointed and approved by the senate.

She continued her disregard for the constitution with Shutte,

https://ballotpedia.org/Notable_opinions_of_Judge_Sonia_Sotomayor

    Dick Lugar got his pink slip, partially because of his early support for confirming the Wide Latina

    He failed to “evolve” by thinking that Presidents should get their nominee, and Democrats would do the same

    That hasn’t been the case since Bork

She should quit. Resign. Tell Trump to GF. Her integrity is far more important than serving on a court that Trump has polluted with conservative judges. #Resist. Show them a person with true values.

Next.

Lucifer Morningstar | February 22, 2020 at 5:17 pm

So clearly in light of Sotomayer’s bias against Pres. Trump and his administration I would suggest that she recuse herself from any and all cases dealing with Trump and/or his administration. That way we could be assured of at least an un-biased Supreme Court. Or at least a less biased court.

Is there a point at which her behavior crosses the line of judicial misconduct? Whether or not one agrees with decisions by Chief Justice Roberts, it’s clear that one of his goals is to preserve the legitimacy of the Supreme Court. Sotomayor does not seem to share that goal.

The judicial equivalent of sky screaming. Get her some coloring books and playdoh.

    amwick in reply to CKYoung. | February 22, 2020 at 6:03 pm

    I don’t think I’m misreading Sotomayor’s dissent as accusing the conservative majority of pro-Trump bias. Certainly, that’s the way liberal media is reading it.

    Projection, plain and simple..

    beagleEar in reply to CKYoung. | February 22, 2020 at 7:17 pm

    Get here walking papers outta there. SJC does not mean “Social Justice Court”

““We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges,” Mr. Roberts said . “What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them.””

The media presumed that Roberts was talking to the public in general. In fact, he should have been (and may have been) talking to the federal judiciary. Appears they didn’t listen. RBG and Sotomayor surely haven’t listened and seem to be deaf. (Kagan too)

Justice Sotomayor is apparently not comfortable with her philosophy being on the other side of the equation; on the side adversely impacted by judicial decisions.

Imagine how much more upset she will become when Trump is re-elected and Justice RBG finally bows to the inevitable and is replaced. Don’t count out the possibility of a re-elected Trump also replacing Justice Breuer who is 82 or even Justice Sotomayor herself who is 65 and has her own health issues.

“Imagine how much more upset she will become when Trump is re-elected ”
*****
IMO, PDJT will have at a minimum four more SCOTUS selections; the only thing that would stop that would be for the Dem/Thugs to retake the Senate majority. (A five justice SCOTUS? with 4 to 1 decisions?)

What a concept! Conservative Justices deciding cases in a conservative way. This Affirmative Action appointee states the obvious.

    beagleEar in reply to Romey. | February 22, 2020 at 7:16 pm

    Not Conservative, not Liberal, just upholding the oath of their office and following the Constitution. If Soto doesn’t like that document, she can quit and campaign to amend it.

      healthguyfsu in reply to beagleEar. | February 23, 2020 at 7:55 pm

      Sotomayor wants us to believe that 1/3 of the federal government is apolitical. Her voting record would suggest otherwise.

      In short, Sotomayor wants us to be dumber than she is to accept this as credible.

It is amazing to see what Photoshop can do for ugly people.

Still, as the John Lennon song goes, “one thing you can’t hide, is when you’re crippled inside”.

Arsonist accuses Fire Department of being unfair to combustion.

Any response from the conservative justice(s)?

What? I thought Justice Roberts had declared that there was no distinction among Judges

I hear she has a diabetes problem. Maybe she should retire and enjoy life rather than do so much hard work.
No sense in being like rbg and deciding to die on the bench during oral arguments.

Constitutionally, how much say should someone appointed by the natural-born British East African usurper have on SCOTUS? None!

There goes Roberts’ attempt at the SCOTUS being “neutral”. Leave it to a dem to blow it up when the correct rulings don’t favor them. Her looking at who the outcome favors vs the correctness of the ruling proves she’s a liberal hack and should be impeached nov 11th

Democrats hate it whenever Americans find a way to wrest control from their selfish, tyrannical grasps. Especially Leftist activist judges.

Katy L. Stamper | February 22, 2020 at 10:10 pm

What I find most revealing from federal judges, is that the Federal Judges Association planned a phone conference because of A.G. Barr’s decision to claw back the ridiculous sentencing recommendation on Roger Stone, but somehow, they NEVER mentioned even CONSIDERING a similar phone conference on the perjury to the FISA court.

An obvious coup going on, and they got nothing.

The ocean of most federal judges’ minds would scarcely get your feet wet.

    I had never heard of that org before, I see it’s voluntary. There are national organizations with righteous sounding names but very partisan (typically leftist) memberships.

    Think of the Lawyers’ Guild around the 1940s and 50s. Sounds OK, but actually it was a communist organization, and in the Army-McCarthy hearings, both sides acknowledged it.

    So I don’t know what the Federal Judges Association really is. It’s a club. I suspect it’s a leftist club.

      Katy L. Stamper in reply to artichoke. | February 23, 2020 at 12:08 pm

      I never heard of it either. But even a partisan group like the ABA has tremendous influence even if we’re unaware of it.
      From it’s site:

      The association has grown to well over 1,100 members, an overwhelming majority of the nation’s Article III judges, who support the organization through their dues. Its officers and directors come from federal courts of appeals and district courts across the country.

      ….

      The FJA works collaboratively with the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts on matters of shared interest, ranging from the judiciary’s budget to legislation.

      Since the formation of the national association, the FJA has worked successfully with Congress on a number of issues, including sentencing matters and amendments to the Judicial Survivors Annuities System.

      ….
      In an effort to expand outreach efforts and provide teaching tools for civics education, the FJA recently received assistance from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Working with a consultant and in tandem with the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges and the Federal Magistrate Judges Association, the Civics Education Task Force and its consultant developed a compilation of web-based resources to assist judges and others in their outreach to students and teachers.

Sotomayor says “the Court’s recent behavior on stay applications has benefited one litigant over all others” as if we should infer something unfair about ruling for “one litigant.”

But the whole point is that all these nationwide injunctions by multiple courts are all being issued against that “one litigant,” the president, and that the question should logically be whether the nationwide injunction should have been issued in the first place. Each decision that rejects a nationwide injunction necessarily implies that it was issued wrongly, which obviously suggests a problem with district judges issuing injunctions against the president without valid cause.

The fact that these decisions tend to benefit the “one litigant” suggests the opposite of her implication. Instead of suggesting bias, it suggests that too many judges are trying to constrict the Constitutional role of the president.

Exactly the sort of thing that the Supreme Court really should get involved in.

    Katy L. Stamper in reply to neanderthal. | February 23, 2020 at 6:38 am

    It’s also particularly galling that she refers to POTUS as “one litigant.” He happens to be the “one litigant” that has authority over the entire executive branch representing the work all over the entire United States of however many or millions of employees of the federal government.

    This said “one litigant” being chosen by the majority of over a hundred million voters to lead the ENTIRE country of 280 million Americans and to deal with the sundry 20-30 million illegal aliens.

    Further, this “one litigant” being required to “run the board” in order to DO ANYTHING, as opposed to the army of ants filing suits against him, obtaining Nationwide Injunctions from all sorts of no-name low district courts, something unheard of in American jurisprudence – and still something without judicial foundation – until the last 30 years or so.

    Her language reduces him to a man fighting with a neighbor over one short fence line. If only.

      This part I didn’t find objectionable. It’s formally how SCOTUS is supposed to decide cases. But in the judgment of “irreparable harm”, the force of that electoral mass behind the president should weigh.

        Katy L. Stamper in reply to artichoke. | February 23, 2020 at 11:17 am

        Artichoke, as a lawyer, I hear you.

        Again, she has nothing to say about the ant army, the multiple suits in multiple jurisdictions on the same issue, and their forum shopping.

        And absolutely NO ONE in the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT is upholding their oath to protect the states from INVASION, and SCOTUS’s failure -including HER failure, to put an absolute end to these ridiculous usurpations via national injunction, is another failure to honor it’s obligations.

        So while she emits spittle, for 40 years, all I see is COMPLETE FAILURE to uphold obligations by all THREE branches of the federal government.

        Again: Const. Art. I, Section 8, Cl. 15
        Const. Art. IV, Section 4.

        Furthermore, I’m highly disappointed in Company Man William Barr, who, rather than advising Pres. Trump to boldly defend the prerogatives of the Executive and tell the Courts to POUND SAND, insists the Executive DEFER to UNelected shills such as Sotomayer.

        Finally, where is her indignation over the Perjury to the FISA courts?

        Her lack of concern over conduct which so obviously erodes judicial decisions illustrates her self-interested partisanship.

        Frankly, the only thing the woman could do right in my eyes, is leave the Court. She regularly disgraces it.

In her mind, not voting against Trump and anything he is trying, is being biased pro-Trump.

It’s as simple as that. They hate him, so anybody who doesn’t hate him as much as they do is therefore an enemy, who deserves to be hated just as much.

She’s an idiot, as judges go. She’s been overturned 60% of the time in her career.

So, of course being an idiot, she’s also arrogant. Perfect idiot for an obama appointee.

    She’s been overturned 60% of the time in her career.

    The Supreme Court overturns about 70% of the appeals court opinions it hears, so since it heard five cases she wrote and overturned only three of them she performed better than average.

      You need to read more about her particularly pathetic record.

        It’s hard statistically to see how bad she is. She votes with the liberal bloc, along with great legal minds like Elena Kagan. The difference is, Kagan is a great legal mind, and Sotomayor is a hack who for her first few years didn’t seem to understand anything about the cases but she sure knew the social justice spin. It’s easiest to notice this in oral arguments, where it was obvious.

        The good thing about Sotomayor is that she occupies a liberal seat and provides liberal votes, but she hasn’t provided useful liberal arguments. That’s because she is not much of a legal thinker.

        Her record is not pathetic. She was overturned three times. That’s better than the average appeals court judge.

In any way positing that forms of government benefits that aren’t direct cash are somehow different than other government benefits and somehow shouldn’t count is beyond farcical to even exist as a position.

SCOTUS, DOJ, CIA, FBI, two Attorney generals….

Obama really knew how to pick ’em.

This sanctimonious admonition coming from the narcissistic, self-styled “wise Latina,” a federal judge who believes that it was appropriate and laudable to brandish her ethnic composition and gender in egotistical and self-congratulatory fashion as allegedly constituting intrinsically laudable traits which allegedly confer upon her some sort of special sagacity and a special qualification to sit upon the U.S. Supreme Court.

Years after the fact, Sotomayor’s “wise Latina” reference still stands out as grossly inappropriate, offensive and egotistical, as manifestly inappropriate and crude an utterance as any judge boasting about his or her racial composition, religion, or, any other personal trait.

    artichoke in reply to guyjones. | February 23, 2020 at 10:38 am

    and after appointment, her opinions and statements have a particular lack of wisdom. One sees none of the “wisdom of her experiences” in her work there, mainly social justice talking points.

    She’s gotten a little better, over the years she’s learned to write so that it at least seems like a SCOTUS Justice wrote it.

Sotomayor has never seen a majority of judges actually rule guided by the US Constitution. It’s foreign to her.

Edit Alert: The Supreme Court on Friday, February 20, 2021 (?)

“I fear that this disparity in treatment erodes the fair and balanced decision making process that this Court must strive to protect.”

Judge Sotomayor’s own bias is showing itself by statements as to what cases are picked or NOT by sending them back to the district courts and to assigning these decisions to party affiliation. And for this purpose her opinion is was NOT her party.

What Sotomayor did not opine and goes to point why on this decision she does. It is also the chosen and scheduled cases on the docket to come before the SCOTUS. Many, if not most, are cases that would not have been selected if not for the fact they are originating in the lower courts but now under a different make of justices as of our current administration. So not stated is another huge fear that determinations on current reviewed cases will be following a stricter application of our Constitution as opposed to what I like to refer to as “whichever way the wind is blowing” rulings.

On the matter of makeup of sitting Supremes:
The current makeup of the court has Judge Ginsberg deemed to be the most likely sitting Supreme to have her seat replaced in the coming four years for health reasons, yet one should add Judge Sotomayor. She pulls a very close 2nd with her personal health issues and history profiled by her age combined in total with her ethnicity presents as strong of a case as Judge Ginsberg to also becoming an open appointment in the next four years.

    She’s just making that up! The Supreme Court has no duty at all to ‘strive for’ ‘the fair and balanced decision making process’. What I was taught was the Supreme Court ‘interprets’ the constitution, that is all.

‘The Supreme Court on Friday, February 20, 2021, again considered a District Court injunction against the “public charge” rule’

What’s going on here, time machine? 2021?

In all fairness the court is siding with one party. Of course it also is siding with the constitution which is her main complaint

What’s sad, though, is that I think her remarks WILL impact her intended audience: The Chief Justice. I think he’s a dyed-in-the-wool squish for whom being liked is more important than being right.

The curse of Marbury v. Madison haunts us still — from Dred Scott to — in the words of Professor Jacobson — today’s “out-of-control-lower-courts”.

the legacy of barack obama:

-a traitor in America’s highest office;
-a racist slob as a First Lady (who might not even be a female);
-fat men dressing as women in libraries while molesting young children
-pathetic, malignant judges like sotomayor and berman jackson.