The Supreme Court gave Trump yet another gift

We got two major decisions from the high court on Friday and neither bode well for American democracy

On Friday, we got a handful of decisions from the Supreme Court. Several have serious implications for individual rights and the rule of law. Most notable was the decision from Trump v. CASA, which took a huge bite out of the key tool that remains in the fight against the Trump Administration’s attacks on the rule of law: the lower federal courts.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson summarized the issue posed by the case in her dissenting opinion: “May a federal court in the United States of America order the Executive to follow the law?”

Surely you would think yes. But the majority said otherwise.

This, as I said on ABC News, is the final crowning of the king.

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Then, in the case of Mahmoud v. Taylor, the Supreme Court decided that the First Amendment enables parents to remove their children from the classroom whenever they are “expos[ed] to ‘subtle’ themes ‘contrary to their religious principles’ that parents wish the instill in their children.” Justice Jackson, in another dissent, wrote that the ruling “will be chaos for this Nation’s public schools.”

What’s the deal with these nationwide injunctions?

The Trump v. CASA decision was written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett and joined by Chief Justice John Roberts along with Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, and Brett Kavanaugh. There were concurring opinions from Justice Thomas (joined by Justice Gorsuch), Justice Alito (joined by Justice Thomas), and Justice Kavanaugh. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent and was joined by Justice Elena Kagan and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who also wrote her own dissent.