Posted on Monday, June 30, 2025
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by AMAC, Robert B. Charles
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17 Comments
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The U.S. Supreme Court has reclaimed power from activist U.S. district court judges, restoring the idea that there is only one U.S. Supreme Court, the court that can rule for the nation, not a thousand district courts all entitled to rule for the nation. Democrats are livid. So be it.
Specifically, US district courts with activist judges in the past decade have asserted authorities beyond their statutory right – which limits their authority to parties before them and a limited geographic reach. Lately, these courts have jumped rails to stop Trump’s Executive Orders.
That perversion of authority, deliberate overreach, and last stand of left-leaning activists – after Democrats lost the White House and Congress – is now over. The wording in this 6-3 decision is clear. District Court judges cannot pretend to be the President, Congress, or Supreme Court.
In short, the High Court – in one of the last and most far-reaching cases of the year, held that “universal” or “nationwide injunctions” cannot be issued by any district courts.
Before them was one of dozens of cases that stripped President Trump of Article II powers, by ruling nationwide on local facts. That creeping menace is now dead.
As major media noted, the High Court did not rule on the underlying Trump challenge to Birthright citizenship, which Trump argues was intended – in the 14th Amendment – only to protect black former slaves, not future illegal aliens.
The opinion, written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, indicates “federal courts do not exercise general oversight of the Executive Branch; they resolve cases and controversies consistent with the authority Congress has given them…When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too.”
Long-awaited, the ruling will have a ripple effect, opening the door to fewer rulings against Trump and less reach for injunctions with limited impact.
Not surprisingly, Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, saying “absent cumbersome class-action litigation, courts cannot completely enjoin even such plainly unlawful policies unless doing so is necessary to afford the formal parties complete relief.” Her prejudice was on full display, and she was marginalized.
Responding to the nearly incomprehensible dissent by Justice Jackson, Barrett was dismissive. As the New York Post reported: “Conservative…Justice…Barrett stunned veteran bench watchers…with a blunt takedown of liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s ‘extreme’ dissent in the landmark birthright citizenship case in which the Supreme Court curtailed lower court use of nationwide injunctions.”
So, where does this leave us? While the birthright citizenship issue has not been resolved, an issue of enormous importance has been. District court judges “feeling their oats,” hoping to revert to the common habit of political activism in a former life, cannot “play president.” They can no longer stretch their rulings beyond all reason, no more socks over basketballs, no more pretend authority.
Bottom line: Future Trump Executive Authorities may be challenged here and there, but the rulings that emerge from these challenges – win, lose, or draw – will not have any national impact, no controlling value, just a moment of pique and done.
Looming still is whether the 14th Amendment was intended for limited scope or an unending license for reckless wreckage of America’s public safety, unfettered birthright to those which no link to America, but are inside the border illegally. If this is the case, any sign, we may hope for limits. For now, the ruling is clear and significant: Only the U.S. Supreme Court is supreme.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC. Robert Charles has also just released an uplifting new book, “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024).
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