Trump’s court threat
In a defensive crouch over his splashiest policy initiatives, President Trump is now entertaining the idea of trying to “break up” the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Perhaps he is taking advice from his new pal, the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who when the going gets tough has a tendency to blame judges.
On Thursday Trump told the Washington Examiner he has “absolutely” considered proposals that would split up the left-leaning 9th Circuit, concerned as he is about litigants “judge-shopping.” His concern is self-serving, of course; judges on the 9th Circuit blocked his executive order that temporarily banned immigrants from certain Muslim countries from entering the United States.
Trump is also grouchy that his order that sought to block federal funding to so-called sanctuary cities will likely go before the 9th Circuit, after a district court judge in California temporarily blocked it last week. (He seemed confused at first about the ruling, tweeting that the 9th Circuit had “hit again” on sanctuary cities.)
There is actually a compelling case to be made on the merits for breaking up the San Franciscobased appellate court; Republicans have been making it for years. They argue it’s too big and therefore much too slow (more than 20 percent of the U.S. population lives within its jurisdiction). Conservatives argue it’s too reflexively liberal. Bills have been filed over the years to split it up.
The problem is that any effort by Trump to break up the court with the aim of diminishing its influence would be motivated by political self-interest — well, that and revenge. And it undermines Trump’s own emphasis on the critical role played by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Trump, in this case, lacks the authority to exact revenge by presidential decree, and so any effort to reorganize the federal court system would require the blessing of Congress. Despite Republican control of both branches, such an effort would appear to be a long-shot.
So what this really amounts to is an emotional outburst from a player, angry because the referee threw the penalty flag.