New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin (D) argued Monday that sweeping injunctions blocking the Trump administration’s policies could still be achieved, despite a Supreme Court ruling against them last week.
“[The Supreme Court] said very clearly: States still may need nationwide relief if, in fact, the harms that we experience as states … the consequences to states are enormous; so, they asked lower courts to consider that question,” Platkin, one of the state attorneys general who has advocated on behalf of the injunctions, told CNN’s Kate Bolduan in an interview. “I think we will very clearly be able to meet the standard that even this Supreme Court set out for states to meet should we need nationwide relief.”
The high court issued a 6-3 ruling along ideological lines Friday that pushed back on judicial holds that have been used to stymie the president’s agenda since his return to the White House in January.
“These injunctions — known as ‘universal injunctions’ — likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has granted to federal courts,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote for the court’s six Republican-appointed justices, after the Trump administration argued that judicial overreach was entrenching on the president’s powers.
The justices ordered the lower courts to move “expeditiously” to reconsider their injunctions and comply with the Friday ruling.
Platkin told Bolduan he thinks that leaves room for universal injunctions in some cases.
“Notably, it was a rhetorically very strong opinion, but it actually was quite a middle of the road opinion for what the administration wanted,” he said.
The case that prompted the court’s decision centered on an executive order Trump signed earlier this year to restrict birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S. to immigrants.
The court didn’t weigh in on the merits of birthright citizenship.
“Look, I think it’s important to remember what the Supreme Court did not do on Friday,” Platkin said. “They didn’t opine on the merits of birthright citizenship because everyone, for the last 157 years, has understood that babies born on U.S. soil since the Civil War have been treated as citizens.”
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