Young, Dellinger reflect on implications of Supreme Court's one-sentence order in U.S. v. Texas

June 24, 2016Duke Law News

Symposium: United States v. Texas and the future of state-federal litigation

Prof. Ernest YoungAlston & Bird Professor of Law Ernest Young writes, in SCOTUSblog, that the split Supreme Court’s order resulting in an affirmation of a lower-court injunction against President Obama’s immigration plan will impact the future of state-federal litigation.

“[T]he practical success of Texas’s litigation strategy means we are likely to see more suits by state governments challenging the lawfulness of national action. Those suits are likely to come from both Left and Right — from ‘blue’ states as well as ‘red’ ones. And because states are themselves democratically accountable bodies with lots of competing demands on their time and resources, I doubt we will see a flood of frivolous challenges. If we are lucky, however, the Court’s refusal to block Texas’s suit today will strengthen the states’ role in our constitutional structure.”

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Supreme Court Breakfast Table

Prof. Walter DellingerDouglas B. Maggs Emeritus Professor of Law Walter Dellinger III writes, in Slate, that the decision represents “a signal failure of democracy.”

“For now … today’s decision casts the counter-majoritarian role of the court in a particularly harsh light. Immigration reform more sweeping than that undertaken by the president was supported by more than 70 senators and would have been supported by the House of Representatives, as well as the president. So why is it not law? Because the House Republican leadership refused to allow legislation supported by a majority of the House to come to a vote.

And now a more legally modest, but enormously important, action taken by a president twice elected by clear voting majorities has been set aside by a small group of unelected judges.”

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