Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
No bio...
User ID: 863
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
10hr ago
New SCOTUS opinion day and today we have the long awaited Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump. This is the case about Trump's sweeping tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, for those unfamiliar.
In a 6-3 decision the court rules that the IEEPA grants the President no authority to impose tariffs. I think crucially it's not just that they find these specific tariffs are not authorized by the statute, but that no tariffs are. That the phrasing of "regulate ... importation" in the statute is not inclusive of tariffs, as the administration argued.I think the breakdown of opinions is itself interesting.
Among the majority there is consensus that (1) the IEEPA does not grant the power to impose tariffs and (2) the administrations arguments otherwise fail but there is also a 3-3 split about why (1) is the case. The three conservatives in the majority (Roberts, Barrett, Gorsuch) invoke the major questions doctrine. Finding that the phrase "regulate ... importation" is not clear enough for the sweeping powers the administration claims it conveys. In other statutes where Congress has delegated the power to tariff they have done so clearly and if they want to give the President almost unilateral power to tariff, they need to be equally clear about that. The three liberals in the majority (Kagan, Sotomayor, Jackson), meanwhile, thing that ordinarily principles of statutory interpretation are sufficient to arrive at this result. Jackson also writes a concurrence that goes into the legislative history to argue that Congress didn't intend to grant the power to tariff.
On the dissent side, Kavanaugh writes the main dissent (with Alito and Thomas joining) arguing that the phrase "regulate ... importation", as a matter of history and tradition, clearly includes the power to impose tariffs. Thomas also writes a separate dissent discussing the non-delegation doctrine. The majority didn't rely on the doctrine at all but Plaintiffs did raise it below and it did come up in the District Court's opinion.
Apart from the merits of the case Gorsuch wrote a concurrence where he calls out a perceived hypocrisy on both sides of the decision. On the liberal side, there are many cases where they have argued in support of sweeping executive power and expansive interpretation, which is the opposite of the side they take here. On the conservative side, those same justices have often argued for narrow or limited meanings of statutory authorization but here take an expansive view of what powers are delegated.
Gillitrut
Reading from the golden book under bright red stars
2d ago
I don't think there is any set of necessary or sufficient political beliefs such that everyone who uses the term "conservative" would agree that an individual with such beliefs is properly classified as such. Especially if you intend this definition to stretch backwards into the past and possibly forwards into the future.
I think a prudent beginning to this line of inquiry is to ask: why care what "conservative" means? Did X call Y a conservative and one is unsure what X intended to convey thereby? Does one imagine one's self as possibly positioned in an intellectual tradition described as "conservative" (by whom?) but are unsure what that entails?
Once we understand what use we intend to put the term "conservative" the path to a meaning becomes clearer.
I feel like the only practicable way to do this is to pay refunds to the people who paid the tariffs to the government. In some sense increased costs to consumers were caused by the tariffs but good luck proving that to a court (absent some kind of contractual provision for the scenario).
In terms of decision authorship the general process is that:
1. If the Chief Justice is in the majority, they decide who authors the opinion of the court.
2. If the Chief Justice is not in the majority, the most senior justice in the majority decides.
I think the justices try to maintain roughly even ratios of opinion authorship so maybe Roberts authoring this one meant foregoing authoring some other one but ultimately he's the one in control over who authors an opinion he's in the majority of. I am skeptical there was any horse trading involved to get to 6 votes either. Gorsuch's concurrence has a length section where he disagrees with the dissent's analysis, which would be enough for 5.
More options
Context Copy link