In a rare public criticism, Justice Sonia Sotomayor strongly criticized the 6-3 conservative majority for showing favor to the Trump administration by giving them special treatment in emergency cases. She said the court has allowed Trump to skip normal legal steps and get favorable decisions without much discussion.
Sotomayor said, “We’ve done it to ourselves.”
She pointed out that newspapers are full of reports about the large number of emergency motions the court is handling, which is unheard of in the court’s history.
The Trump administration has filed about 30 emergency applications in just 15 months — much more than any previous president — and the conservative justices have supported Trump in over 80% of these cases.
Sotomayor recalled that the Court used to focus on whether ordinary people would suffer serious harm if a bad decision was made.
Now, the conservative justices have changed this approach.
They assume that the executive branch, including Trump, will suffer serious harm if any of his policies are stopped, which makes it much easier for him to win through fast-track emergency orders.
She especially criticized Brett Kavanaugh, saying his claim that immigration restrictions are usually short-lived shows how disconnected he is from working people who live from paycheck to paycheck.
At the same time, the court was rushing to help Trump push his agenda, it was also slow or blocking efforts to hold the administration accountable, Sotomayor said.
Sotomayor is absolutely right.
The highest court in the country should not be a tool for one person’s revenge and power plays.
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