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Not content with simply packing the Supreme Court with conservative justices that threaten to undo every progressive ruling in modern times, President Trump and the Republicans today revealed their latest effort to mold the courts to do their bidding.
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The House quietly unveiled a major series of judicial bills that would break up the 9th Circuit court that has declared so many of Trump’s executive orders on immigration as illegal, among other court reforms.
Todd Ruger, the legal affairs correspondent for Roll Call, commented on the contents of the bills in a series of tweets today.
And there's another bill to add five more appeals court judges to the 9th Circuit and break it into four divisions (Northern, Middle, Southern and Circuit). https://t.co/VUthftztir pic.twitter.com/k8NKPDceNh
— Todd Ruger (@ToddRuger) September 11, 2018
The division of the 9th Circuit Court and the expansion the number of judges would offer Trump the opportunity to appoint another group of right-wing jurists to the new seats and dilute the power of the more progressive current judges to roll back any unconstitutional policies that the administration may issue.
Even more disturbing is the proposal to ban the courts from having any of their injunctions apply to the nation as a whole, limiting their rulings to applying solely to the litigants in the cases before them.
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Under such rules, the Trump administration could have continued to separate immigrant families even after it was ruled illegal in a single case, as each instance of family separation would have to be individually litigated.
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Those bills are in addition to this bill on limiting nationwide injunctions https://t.co/WL9UWUrHnY
— Todd Ruger (@ToddRuger) September 11, 2018
In terms of additional judges, Ruger notes that the bills deliver exactly what the courts feel they need to handle their currently “unbalanced” workload.
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As one Twitter commenter noted, however, the courts have been asking for additional judges since the beginning of the Obama presidency, but their efforts were blocked by Republicans doing everything they could to keep Obama from being able to appoint judges who would uphold court precedents on abortion and other hot-button issues.
https://twitter.com/cdkang76/status/1039572708458209280
While it remains to be seen whether any of the new legislation will actually be passed, the bills demonstrate how Republicans continue to try to reverse any progress made during the Obama era while the nation is distracted by the daily chaos emanating from the Oval Office.
The only solution is to vote in the November midterms and change control of Congress so destructive legislation has less likelihood of ever passing.
Follow Vinnie Longobardo on Twitter.
