Spineless Republicans Are Part of a Bigger Problem

Hours after the Supreme Court issued its ruling that narrowed lower courts’ usage of nationwide injunctions—in response to the Trump administration requesting it take up the issue in the wake of federal judges halting his unconstitutional executive order on birthright citizenship—the ACLU and several other organizations filed a series of class action lawsuits designed to stop the order from taking effect.

The ACLU’s case was filed in New Hampshire, and oral arguments on the motion to issue a preliminary injunction will be heard next Wednesday. Another case, led by Georgetown University Law School’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, has been filed in Maryland. Both are seeking nationwide relief for the class of plaintiffs represented in the suits. The state of New Jersey has also filed a lawsuit arguing that it stands to lose if people born in the US but without access to the rights of US citizens move into the state and cannot secure benefits they would otherwise be entitled to. The state is arguing that it, too, needs nationwide relief to protect its interests.

Although Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, believes that the ruling narrowing the use of nationwide injunctions will be destructive in the long term, regarding the specifics of the birthright citizenship case he is of the opinion that the Supreme Court left enough wiggle room for significant push back. When push comes to shove, he says, he thinks that children born in the US to undocumented immigrants or those on temporary visas won’t ultimately be denied citizenship and ordered deported soon after being born.

There is the class action route. But he also noted that there is the provision under the Administrative Procedures Act that allows a court to set aside—under the concept of vacatur—agency actions that violate the Constitution or otherwise break the law. Those challenging Trump’s executive orders on birthright citizenship argue that the social security administration and other agencies would be breaking multiple rules and constitutional provisions by denying social security numbers, passports, and birth certificates to the children of undocumented residents. Trump is, Jadwat argues, “taking a real run to rewrite the Fourteenth Amendment, [but] at the end of the day, they’re not going to get what they want.”

That the president and his team could, however, even make a serious go of flouting one of the most consequential of constitutional amendments speaks volumes to where the country is six months into the second Trump administration. Issues once thought long settled are now up for grabs again.

And it isn’t just about bad executive orders and unprecedented court rulings. At every level of the three branches of government, there’s rot working its way through the system and eroding protections previously guaranteed by the Constitution. This week’s shameful passage of Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” in the Senate says it all. The bill will strip millions of people of access to Medicaid and millions more of access to other health insurance policies via the provisions of the Affordable Care Act, and will take nutritional assistance away from millions of Americans. If you thought the safety net systems fought for, and secured, during the Progressive Era, the New Deal, and the Great Society, were a mainstay of modern society, think again. If you thought that after a decade-plus of sparring, the increased healthcare coverage generated by the Affordable Care Act was now an generally accepted part of the social fabric, you were, it appears, sorely mistaken.

It turns out that, under Trump, the GOP is gunning for pretty much every social program, no matter how much popular support those programs have, nor even how many voters in GOP states are affected.

I’m far too cynical at this point to think that the Grand Old Party will ever take the morally right route when presented with a choice between decency and depravity. Even so, let’s pause a moment and at least name-check Senator Lisa Murkowski for her truly craven display this week.

Every so often, Murkowski gets props for saying she is horrified or appalled by one authoritarian action or another; yet, when it came to voting on what may be the most consequential and destructive piece of legislation in Trump’s second term, she held out for a few carve outs to protect Alaskans from the ravages being inflicted on residents of every other state before voting in favor of the legislation. Contrast her miserable behavior with that of late Senator John McCain, when he refused to be the deciding vote to topple the Affordable Care Act with no replacement program ready to catch those who would lose their health care.

Media outlets reported the vote as being decided by Vice President JD Vance, who stepped in to break the tie. That is technically true. But since everyone knew that Vance was a “yes” on this, it’s more accurate to say that Murkowski, the supposed grown-up in a room full of MAGA nutcases, was the tiebreaker here.