Lower Courts Making Power Grab While SCOTUS Waffles

Facing a deadlocked Congress and a Supreme Court stalling in the face of a prolonged vacancy, lower court judges are flexing their muscles and making unprecedented rulings, writes Constitutional law professor Garrett Epps in The Atlantic. Congress has been deadlocked for years, but after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia early this year the Supreme Court has been dragging its feet, too. “Unexercised power draws covetous eyes and greedy hands,” Epps writes. “And some of those greedy hands wield gavels.” Epps notes two cases that illustrate his point: Southern District of Texas Judge Andrew Hanen’s decision to halt the Obama Administration’s immigration policy, and this week demand that thousands of immigrants’ personal information be provided to his court. “His message to the individuals is clear: If I feel like it, I can ruin your lives because I have a gavel and you have nothing,” Epps writes (emphasis original). The other case, House of Representatives v. Burwell, established a novel precedent for one house of Congress having standing to sue the president for spending money in a manner they do not approve of. “Nothing in the text or history of the Constitution suggests that the courts have the power to referee disputes like these,” Epps writes. “Bringing a court into such a political dispute … doesn’t make it less messy and unpredictable; it just places a dangerous strain on both the courts and the entire system of government.”