Supreme Court Roundup 2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The last big raft of Supreme Court decisions came down today,
and one of them had to do with the topic
of universal injunctions. This has been a huge problem plaguing
the Trump administration for years and years and years, and
it adds yet another win to something I talked about yesterday,

(00:23):
which is that Justice Barrett is not as liberal as
I think a lot of conservatives were sort of turning
this into a lot of liberals were like a lot
of conservatives. Rather we're saying, oh, Justice Barrett, she's the
next David Suitor, She's the next Anthony Kenney. She's so liberal.
Why right? And I think, as I explained yesterday, I

(00:46):
think what was really going on with Justice Barrett was
she's giving rulings that we don't like, but mostly in
these emergency requests that go before the Supreme Court. So
they're kind of two different things the Supreme Court's are
dealing with. They have the so called shadow docket, which

(01:09):
is emergency appeals that make it all the way up
to them from temporary restraining order issued by judges to
block in the immediate short term before full litigation can
take place some policy. Usually what's been happening is a
lot of Trump executive actions executive policies that get instituted.

(01:34):
People try to sue to stop it, to say that
Trump doesn't have legal authority to do this, or that
this or that thing Trump's trying to do is illegal.
They seek what's called a temporary restraining order, which is
basically to say this is so plainly illegal and so
immediately harmful that we need the judge without much time

(01:55):
to review it. We need the judge to basically put
a stop to this action. So a temporary restraining order,
by its very nature is sort of on a very
short timetable. A judge winds up hearing, going through the

(02:17):
hearing for temporary restraining order very quickly. There's not a
lot of time for briefing, not a lot of time
for deliberation. The judge issues a temporary restraining order, the
party that has now been restrained wants to appeal it
because they're saying, this is wrongly decided. We know you
shouldn't be stopping this action, this is inappropriate to grant this,
So that gets appealed up, and that appeal is similarly

(02:40):
going to be heard very quickly. The government might be saying, hey,
you're wrongly stopping this government action. This should be stopped.
This injunct, this restraining order that the district court judgement
put in place, This needs to be taken away immediately,
so when those things get up to the Supreme Court.
Barrett hasn't been great because I think she just dislikes

(03:04):
the procedural irregularity of it all. She dislikes dealing with
big time questions of law in the context of these
short timetable quick not a lot of time for briefing,
not a lot of time for oral argument situations. I
think she dislikes the procedural irregularity of all this, so

(03:26):
she's been unwilling to This has resulted in her giving
weird rulings or ruling with in weird ways when she
is ruling on cases where she's got the case is
basically more mature. Okay, it's not a temporary restraining order

(03:48):
or preliminary injunction that we're fighting about. It's you know,
the court hears oral arguments early in their term. They
go through the written arguments. They have time to look at,
you know, amicus briefs written by other interested parties. They
have full time for briefing and opinion writing and looking

(04:09):
at answering objections from descents and blah blah blah blah blah.
In those contexts, Justice Barrett has been great, and similarly
it's been with this Supreme Court case today limiting preliminary injunctions.
So now the way that the way that this has

(04:36):
worked is basically the media is framing it as here's
the LA Times headline, Supreme Court rules for Trump limits
district judge's power to block his orders nationwide. No no, no,
no no. It's not limiting the district court's ability to

(04:57):
block his orders nationwide. It's locking the ability of district
courts to block any president's orders nationwide. Because here's what's
been happening. A president issues some kind initiates some kind
of executive action, or issue some kind of executive order,

(05:20):
or some federal executive branch entity issues some action, initiates
some action. Okay, when it is a Democrat in power.
What often happened during the Biden years was Republicans would
sue to stop it in the Northern District of Texas.

(05:45):
Why in the Northern District of Texas, you may ask, well,
because there's only one federal district court judge in the
Northern District of Texas. I think his name is Matthew
Kismark or something like that. He's a Trump appointee and
he's super duper conservative. The Northern District of Texas also.

(06:07):
Appeals from the Northern District of Texas go to the
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is one of the
most conservative of the federal appellate courts in the United States.
So basically, the Republicans take the position of, well, if
there's a nationwide policy, we want to block it, so

(06:27):
let's sue it applies nationwide, so we can sue anywhere
in the country. So let's sue here. When a Republican
is in office. What do Democrats do? They sue Either
in in the first Trump administration, they did this a lot.
They would sue in the District of Hawaii, why because

(06:49):
all the judges there were Democrat appointees. Or they would
sue in the Northern District of California. Why because in
the Northern District of California, sixty three of the sixty
five judges are Democrat appointees. Okay, so there are two
Republican appointees who are both on Senior status, which means

(07:10):
they don't hear as many cases that like, they're kind
of quasi retired. Each of the Bushes got one judge
in the Northern District of California. So yeah, the Northern
District of California, sixty three of the sixty five judges
are Democrats, and I'd bet dollars to donuts that the
two Bush appointees aren't that conservative either. So it's what

(07:33):
you call forum shopping. And lawyers try to do this
all the time. If there's a case that even you
know legitimately it's not super sleazy. But if you're an
individual lawyer and you've got the plane that you've got
a party, you've got some lawsuit, you might try to
see what flexibility you have to bring the lawsuit in

(07:57):
different venues? Should I bring Can I bring this claim
federal court? Can I bring this claim in state court?
Should I bring this claim in federal court versus state court?
Are the juries going to be more sympathetic in state court,
or the jury is going to be more sympathetic in
federal court, or the judges better blah blah blah. You
know there's some decision making latitude you might be able
to have. Now, you may not have that latitude for
a given case, but you might you might have it.

(08:21):
But the problem is you have presidents initiating executive policies,
and then one judge carefully selected in some random corner
of the United States is able to issue a temporary
restraining order or a preliminary injunction and block the application

(08:43):
of this policy nationwide, not just within his federal judicial district,
but nationwide. So the Court ruled that these kinds of

(09:04):
universal injunctions from district court from district court judges. This
is from the syllabus, so it's like the summary of
the full opinion. So I'm reading from the syllabus here.
They've held the Supreme Court held by a six to
three ruling that seems all the Republican justices on the
Republican appointee justices on the one side and the Democrat

(09:24):
appointee justices on the other held universal injunctions likely exceed
the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts.
The Court grants the government's applications for a partial stay
of the injunctions entered below, but only to the extent
that the injunctions are broader than necessary to provide complete
relief to each plaintiff with standing to sue. So I

(09:51):
think this is going to be It's a big victory
for the executive branch, all right, and it does cut
both ways. Republicans won't be able to stop Democrat presidents
with a nationwide injunction anymore, and Democrat won't be able
to stop Republican presidents with nationwide injunctions anymore. Basically, if

(10:16):
someone sues to stop something, then the relief the court's
going to give is only going to be to that party.
Now here's sort of the loophole to this. There's a

(10:40):
law professor I follow named Adrian Vermuel, who's a law
professor at Harvard, and he pointed out that this is
maybe only like two thirds of a victory. He writes,
the universal injunction decision is two thirds of a win.

(11:00):
Great language and a strong signal, but it leaves a
real loophole for state plaintiffs to claim that complete relief
to the parties themselves requires what is in effect a
universal injunction. So basically, here's the thing. Often what happens

(11:23):
is the Trump administration initiates some bad policy. Who is
one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit to try to
stop it. Who is a plaintiff in the lawsuit who
files their claim to stop it? In, of course, the
Northern District of California, not the Central District, now the
Eastern District, not the Southern District, the Northern District California.

(11:45):
Who is it? It's usually the state of California itself
is one of the plaintiffs trying to stop whatever bad
executive or good or bad whatever executive order of the
Trump administration is trying to do. So California is usually
the one that sues to stop it. And very often

(12:07):
you can see a variety of blue states all jumping
in to do the same. All of these states have
ambitious attorney general attorneys general, they all want to run
for governor. I don't know that there's a single attorney
general in any state of the Union who doesn't want
to become the governor of that state or think he
should become the governor or the senator from that state.

(12:28):
So all these guys want to show their you know,
how aggressive they are in fighting against Trump or when
a Democrats in office, you know, fighting against Biden. So
a bunch of states are going to be parties, and
they will try to claim that complete relief to the

(12:51):
parties themselves requires this is remule. Writing here requires what
is in effect a universal injunction. So now it's partially
a victory, but still I think kind of a victory

(13:12):
because basically, here's so, I guess what will happen is
Trump will file Trump will initiate some kind of bad policy,
all of the blue states will join as parties to
sue to stop it. Every blue state or every state

(13:33):
with a Democrat governor's slash attorney general, I guess they'll
have I'm not sure what would happen in the state
where the governor and the attorney general are from two
different parties, because that can't happen. Every blue state jumps
in to join the lawsuit. A judge can give a
temporary injunction and basically a temporary restraining order or a

(13:57):
preliminary injunction, and that relief will basically that Trump administration
policy will be blocked in all the blue states. So
this seems like a big loophole. Basically, federal judges won't

(14:18):
be able to stop what Trump does in any blue
state that decides to be a plaintiff to these lawsuits. Now,
when we return, I want to talk about maybe the
long term effects on legal culture. This could have basically
gonna have bigger divides between red and blue states, even

(14:43):
more deep divides between red and blue states. That's next
on the John Jrardy Show. I'm not sure that the
Supreme Court ruling saying that you can't have universal injunctions
anymore from individual district court judges, which has been the

(15:03):
plague to the Trump presidency. Basically Trump initiates a policy
and one federal district court judge, Often it's been the
judge from the DC District Court Judge Bosburg. Most recently
it's been Stephen Bryan's Stephen Bryer's brother Charles Bryer from
San Francisco, have stopped some nationwide Trump policy with a

(15:29):
universal injunction. Basically, one individual district court judge reviewing the
constitutionality of a nationwide binding Trump administration policy, and that
one individual district court judge from the Northern District of
California or the District of the District of Columbia basically
says nope, we are canceling, pausing, putting on hold in

(15:53):
joining the enforcement of this administration policy for the whole country,
and the Supreme Court says, no, you can't do that. However,
what the Supreme Court does say is that basically, well no,
judges are only allowed to apply these injunctions. If they're
applying these injunctions, it has to provide total relief to

(16:14):
the plaintiff. The problem is who's going to be the plaintiff. Well,
often the plaintiffs challenging these Trump policies are individual states.
California has very often been one of the states challenging

(16:35):
these Trump policies. This is how Javier Basera got, you know, notoriety,
so much notoriety that they made him the Secretary of
Health and Human Services. He was the attorney general of
California during the first Trump administration and was constantly suing
to stop everything Trump was trying to do. So Basically,

(16:57):
if every blue state joins every lawsuit challenging every Trump
executive action that they don't like, what's going to happen. Well,
They'll get some liberal judge again to issue an injunction,
and the injunction will apply in every blue state. And

(17:22):
I guess you know what's sauce for the goose is
sauce for the gander. When a Democrats president, if Democrat
judges are going to do that on the grounds that
that's the only way to provide complete relief to all
the plaintiffs, I don't see why a Republican judge wouldn't

(17:42):
try a Republican appointed judge wouldn't try to do the
exact same thing. So that again, this is the way
that this happens is both sides do it. It's this
forum shopping. Now, Democrats have been more effective at it
and better at doing it, and have done it for
a much broader array of situations. But when a Republican
president introduces some nationwide executive action that Democrats don't like,

(18:07):
they try to sue and stop it in really liberal
courts like the Northern District of California or the District
of Hawaii. When a Democrat president introduces some nationwide executive
action that Republicans don't like, what do Republican what do
Republican challengers do? They file a lawsuit in the Northern
District of Texas where there's only one judge and he's

(18:28):
a Trump appointee and he's super conservative, so they know
they're going to get a good judge. If Democrat judges
are gonna give injunctions, they can't do universal injunctions, but
they'll give an injunction that provides relief to all the
parties completely. And if every Blue state is suing to

(18:51):
stop some Trump executive action, they'll issue in order that
binds in every blue state. So Donald Trump issues, Okay,
I'm gonna do this executive action, every blue state sues
to stop it, New York, California, Oregon, Washington, et cetera,

(19:13):
the judge gives a temporary restraining order preliminary injunction, and
those injunctions hold in all the blue states. So the
Trump executive order can continue to function in the red states,
it just won't function in the Blue states. And vice versa.
When a Democrat president's in office Republic, if every Republican

(19:35):
state sues to stop some Democrat executive action, they can
stop that policy from taking effect in all the red states,
So Texas, Oklahoma, et cetera. So wow, that's going to
lead to like, very different countries with very different I mean, obviously,

(19:57):
that's part of our system is that individual states have
no their own bodies of law, but federal law will
be applied differently in both places, very differently, and to
a certain extent that already happens. I mean, circuit courts

(20:18):
interpret federal law one way in one circuit and another
way in another circuit. That's usually the kinds of things
that make it to the Supreme Court. We have a
circuit split. The Fifth Circuit is interpreting this body of
federal law one way, and the DC Circuit is interpreting
this body of federal the same body of federal law

(20:39):
a different way. We have a circuit split. So Supreme Court,
why don't you resolve this difference between the two circuits
so that that does happen, that federal law gets interpreted
differently in different circuits. But now it's just going to
be purely between red states and blue states. So I

(21:05):
feel like this is going to lead to even deeper,
bigger divides between people on both sides. Now when we
return more Supreme Court decisions, more good Supreme Court decisions

(21:27):
coming down the pipe, including can you Opt your kids
out of lgbt Q Story Hour that is next on
the John Girardi Show. Another great win at the Supreme
Court in Mahmoud Vi Taylor Now, what was this case about.
This was a case about a school district in Maryland.

(21:51):
I believe that was requiring that students participate in various
kinds of LGBTQ plus ABCDEFG story hours and not giving
parents the opportunity to opt their kids out. And it

(22:11):
was brought before the Supreme Court. In fact, it seems
like a lot of this was coming from Muslim parents
who were not okay with this, that this was the
fact that parents didn't have the opportunity to opt out
was an infringement on their free exercise rights, the free

(22:33):
exercise of religion. That basically the school was mandating that
students participate in learning stuff that directly violated the beliefs
of all these parents who don't want their kids to
have these kinds of things. So we now get to

(22:58):
sort of the media just flipping out. Basically, the media
cannot talk about this objectively. They have to frame it
as this is part of the conservative They frame it
as religious parents against books. You know that it has

(23:20):
entered into the whole book ban world. So for those
of you who don't know, there's this whole liberal talking
point about banned books, band books and liberals have made
huge hay of this, and if you go to the library,
they'll have oh, it's Banned Books Week, where we sell
Read a Band Book, which is like, well, how can

(23:41):
I I mean, obviously it's not that band. It's sitting
right here on the shelf. That even Barnes and Noble
has gotten in or bookstores have gotten in on this
with read a Banned Book. It's like, it's right, you
are selling it. It's right there. How banned is it?
And what they really mean are books who's shelving, display etc.

(24:01):
At public libraries or in public school libraries or use
within public school curricula have been challenged at some point
or another in the United States of America, and they
call these quote banned books, whether the book was actually
the subject of a ban or no. It is noteworthy

(24:22):
that all of these different booksellers, etc. Who have stopped
shelving the Harry Potter books because JK. Rowling dared to
have one opinion different from the liberal consensus, namely that
boys are not girls. Those don't count as banned books
because they were banned for the correct reasons. And very

(24:42):
often what's happened is that this banned books culture has
been around either public libraries stocking sexually explicit material in
the children's section of libraries, or public schools displaying such
material u using such material either in public school libraries

(25:03):
or within public school curriculum. So the challenge here was basically,
we think this is a violation of our First Amendment rights.

(25:27):
Had it was. The group of parents here included Muslim, Catholic,
and Ukrainian Orthodox parents in Maryland who just wanted to
opt their kids out of LGBTQ themed storybooks in the
public school, arguing that it violates their First Amendment right
to direct their children's religious upbringing. So the court's decision

(25:57):
here is basically upholding that no parents have a right
to direct the religious upbringing of their kids. And it
also breaks through this We've had this fiction in our
public schools that ethical beliefs stemming from Christianity or Judaism

(26:22):
or Islam, that those are off limits to promote within
public schools because that constitutes establishing religion. Liberals freak out
over the idea of can we display the Ten Commandments
at a school? Liberals will argue, no, you can't, because

(26:45):
that is establishment of religion. Okay. On the other hand,
if a teacher plan stirs the walls of her classroom
with the Rainbow flag, the trans Pride flag, with slogans

(27:08):
that say trans women are women, all manner of ethical
arguments that aren't necessarily associated with any religion, That that
doesn't represent an establishment of religion on the part of

(27:29):
the public school. That that's just totally fine, even though
both ideas they are presenting certain kinds of deeply held
worldviews that the parents of children might not object to.

(27:53):
And frankly, I would say that the Ten Commandments have
a much stronger standing to be there, given that the
Ten Commandments are at the foundation of all Western law
and morality. So the idea has always been basically, conservatives

(28:14):
have to shut up and deal with it. This is
going to be in the curriculum and you have to
accept it. And in fact, I mean California has just
done this for years. California passed law to infuse LGBT
material throughout the curriculum, all up and down it with

(28:39):
no ability of parents to opt out, to opt out
of those kinds of messages being taught to their kids,
because it also touches on this other reality. Whether you
like it or not. Education has a religiously formative impact
on your kid. There are plenty of parents who raise

(29:05):
very devoutly religious kids who go through the public schools.
I'm not saying that every parent who puts their kid
in public school goes to Hell, but there is a
certain kind of lesson that unintentionally, it's hard to prevent
from being communicated to kids when you're in a public
school that basically God must be shoved to the periphery,

(29:26):
certainly shoved to the temporal periphery of life. God is
not something you can discuss for the most productive, formative
six to eight hours of your day. God is something
you can only discuss, think about, talk about before that

(29:48):
when you're tired, after that, when you're tired, or on
Saturday or and Sunday, when you take a break from
your real work, your real day. There's a certain practical
atheism that public schools kind of in force. Education is
formative education forms you in what you worship. Now, again,

(30:15):
I'm not saying every single kid who goes to public
school is going to become an atheist. I'm not saying that,
but I think it is not insignificant that as different
you see this in all kinds of ethnic diaspora groups
when they come to the United States. They come to
the United States, and you see this a lot, especially

(30:37):
with like the Orthodox. They come to the United States,
they start going to public schools, and their religion becomes
less and less of really the center of their lives
and more and more sort of a kind of forum
for ethnic camaraderie and a point of cultural pride rather
than something they actually sincerely believe in and live out.

(30:59):
This happened with Judaism, It happened for many, many, many,
many Catholics. I mean, how many Catholics still go to
Among people who identify FI as Catholic, maybe one out
of four of them go to church. So this happens

(31:22):
all the time, and I think public school has a
decent sized something to do with it. And what the
Court is affirming here is this sort of subtle, unspoken
argument that's been taking place within public schools, especially the
last couple of years, where we've had all these objections

(31:42):
to smut within public schools. You know, bad books within
public school libraries, in public school curricula, sexually explicit protrans stuff.
Whose kids are they? Who directs the education of kids,

(32:03):
Who is responsible for kids education. Terry mccauliffe lost, the
Democrat lost the race for governor of Virginia. Why chiefly
because he had this this line during the gubernatorial debate

(32:28):
I believe, in which he said, well, no, the parents.
Parents are not in charge of their kids education. Parents
need to butt out, basically, and Glenn Youngkin capitalized on that,
pounced on it, and improbably won the governor's race in

(32:49):
Virginia after you know, Donald Trump had lost Virginia the
year prior Glenn Youngkin won the governor's race. In twenty
twenty one, Donald Trump had just lost the presidential race
in Virginia by thirteen points. And this, it's this fundamental
question whose kids are they? Are they the government's kids
that the public schools get to direct on what is

(33:11):
right and good and educate them, or do these kids
belong to their parents? Fundamentally, now I know what I believe.
I certainly believe this Catholic Church fundamentally believes this that
the chief educators of children are their parents, that schools

(33:32):
must respect that they are delegated by the parents to
assist the parents in their formation of their kids. And
so I think the Supreme Court's ruling here is totally right.
If you've got public schools who are taking the posture

(33:55):
of we will teach your kids these values, these values
that touch on deeply seated ethical viewpoints that are very
important in your religion, like sexuality. I mean, sexuality touches

(34:15):
on some of the most important relationships that human beings have.
It's not some incidental thing. How one's sexual life is
to be lived is a hugely important Are you kidding
it's it's in some ways it's the most important, one

(34:35):
of the most important things in life. How I live
out my sexuality determines the most important person in my life,
my wife, my children. I mean, it relates to these
huge questions of identity and life. And to say, well,
we're not imposing a religious viewpoint. Even though the central

(34:59):
tenet of how you live your life as a Catholic
involves chastity before marriage, faithfulness and openness to life during marriage,
one of the central tenets of how you live your
life as a Christian is faithful, you know, fidelity and marriage.
But it's a central tenet of all these religions. How

(35:21):
you live out your sexual life is one of the
key ethical requirements of these religions of any religion, and
for the public schools just to say, well, no, I mean,
we're not going to teach kids religion and say that
chastity and marriage are good. That would be an establishment
of religion. But we can teach them that changing your

(35:43):
gender is totally fine, and having sex with persons of
the same sex or never getting married, having sex outside
of marriage, Oh oh, that's all totally fine. And no,
you're not allowed to opt out because we will teach
your kids this, which gets more and more coercive when
the public school is the only education option that's financially

(36:04):
available to people. So good for the Supreme Court. And
I don't know that I can fully digest what this
is going to mean for California. I think it could
mean some very good things for California when we return
Justice Jackson, who she is looking not great, dumber, not

(36:29):
not physically intellectually speaking, looking like less and less the
least impressive of the justices on the court. That's next
on the John Gerardi Show. Not been a great term
at the Supreme Court for Justice Jackson, who first it
was learned that no one has talked more during the

(36:53):
oral arguments where basically the Supreme Court for all their
for most of their different cases, the Supreme Court will
hear oral arguments. We're basically the judge. The justices of
the Supreme Court ask questions of the two lawyers for
the two sides of the legal dispute. It was determined
that Justice Jackson has talked way more than anyone else
on the Supreme Court this year. Secondly, she got absolutely

(37:19):
roasted by Justice Barrett in the decision about universal injunctions.
Barrett basically said, we're not going to dwell on Justice
Jackson's concurrent dissent, which ignores two centuries of decisions and
the Constitution itself and is imposing an imperial judiciary. But
there's also this supercut how many times during oral arguments,

(37:43):
Justice Jackson said, I don't understand.

Speaker 2 (37:48):
Oh, I don't understand. Can I just understand? And I
don't understand? And so what I don't understand. I don't understand.
I don't understand your argument. I'm just trying to understand
your answer. I don't understand. I guess I don't understand.
I guess I don't understand. I don't understand, and I'm
just trying to understand I don't understand, but this.

Speaker 1 (38:08):
Video goes on for another four minutes. You get the
idea that'll do it. John Girardi Show, See you next
time on Power Talk