SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Lower courts' ability to block policies across the country has now been largely halted - something President Trump had been urging the high court to do all year. The term also gave Trump more power over independent agencies, among other wins. It is the second year in a row that a Supreme Court term has ended with expanded powers for the presidency. Here to unpack those decisions is Bloomberg News Supreme Court reporter Greg Stohr. Greg, welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
GREG STOHR: Thanks for having me, Scott.
DETROW: Let's start with this birthright citizenship case. This is complicated because it involves this core question of who is a U.S. citizen, but it was actually fundamentally about whether or not federal judges have the authority to issue nationwide injunctions. What did the court say about each of those issues?
STOHR: Well, first of all, you're right that it wasn't about the legality of Donald Trump's restrictions on birthright citizenship. It was all about the power of federal judges and what they can do when they decide that something - an administration or any other government entity is doing - is illegal. And the Supreme Court said the thing that they've been doing a lot, which is issuing nationwide injunctions - maybe a single person or a single group sues and a judge blocks a policy nationwide - they can't do that anymore. That is beyond the power of the federal judiciary.
DETROW: That has been such a key feature of our politics for more than a decade now. You go back to the Obama administration - a president tries to do something, somebody sues, it's held up. What does this ruling mean, going forward, for those challenges that we've become so accustomed to?
STOHR: Unquestionably, it will make it more difficult. But the court did leave open some other avenues, and we'll have to see how broad those avenues are. One of them is that people can bring class actions. And you have to go through some more hoops. It's not automatic. But if you can file a lawsuit - and people may try to do that in birthright citizenship - actually, they've already tried to do that in birthright citizenship - to say, hey, we're filing on behalf of everybody who's like us across the country or maybe just in the state or something like that. Judge, can you give us an order blocking the policy as to that class? That's at least still a theoretical avenue for them.
DETROW: But this topic is such an extreme example of the questions that this raises - right? - because this creates this patchwork approach of, if you're part of the initial challenge, it applies to you. It doesn't apply to other people. I mean, what does that mean for people born in the United States, to people who aren't here legally? Is it - are you a citizen in one state or not a citizen in another state at the moment?
STOHR: Not at the moment. It is a possible outcome of this.
DETROW: OK.
STOHR: So this is a very complicated thing, and so that's part of the reason why you don't want to jump to too many conclusions. There's also this issue that some states have sued. And so I think that's what you were alluding to, that in the state of New Jersey, for example, it may be we end up in a world where if you're born in New Jersey, a baby is a citizen, but if born in a state that's not part of the suit, they're not a citizen. But we're not there yet, and these are issues that the lower courts are going to have to work out.
DETROW: These injunctions against the Trump administration have been a major part of the news cycle this year. What happens to all of the ones that had already been issued across a wide range of things that Trump is trying to do?
STOHR: Well, the president said that they are going to try to block a lot of these nationwide injunctions, citing the Supreme Court ruling. And those may well be successful in a lot of cases. And in each of those, the question will then be, how about those other avenues? Is there a way that somebody can bring a class action and get to the same place? And I don't think we know the answer to that, and I think it's just going to take a while to work out.
DETROW: I want to come back to these big questions about power. But first, I do want to talk about one other ruling at the end of the term. This came from a group of parents in Maryland suing to opt to get their children out of lessons that included books with LGBTQ characters. The court handed them a victory yesterday. What are the implications for parents and for schools from that ruling?
STOHR: Well, it's certainly a significant decision. It's one that said that because parents have a right to control the religious upbringing of their children, that they constitutionally have to have a right to get notice and to opt out of lessons if it violates their religious beliefs. It's going to make it harder for schools to incorporate some things into the classroom, for sure, because if parents have a right to opt out of things, anytime they do something that maybe bumps up against religious views, there's the risk it will be much harder to present that lesson in class and they'll have to, you know, jump through some big hoops. And the dissenters in that ruling yesterday certainly said that this is a huge problem for public education.
DETROW: The conservative supermajority on the court is a huge storyline for several years now. What, to you, was most interesting, most surprising about how those six Republican-appointed judges voted this year?
STOHR: Certainly, the birthright citizenship case was a surprise in that I think a lot of people on both sides of this issue think that even if you think there's a problem with nationwide injunctions, this was a rough case to test it on because this is an order that - an executive order from the Trump administration that clearly goes against what most people have thought is the understanding of the Constitution for the past 150-plus years. The fact that the majority chose that case to raise this issue, and thereby giving Donald Trump what seems to be a pretty significant win, was certainly noteworthy. And then just more generally, looking at the way the six Republican-appointed justices were pretty much all in alignment on the biggest cases as we headed to the end of the term was very striking.
DETROW: What were your main takeaways from how Justice Amy Coney Barrett ruled this year? She, of course, authored the opinion that we've been mostly talking about in this conversation, but she's also been a justice that a lot of people have been really trying to scrutinize this year.
STOHR: Yeah, there were certainly times earlier in the term where she aligned herself with the liberal justices, the three Democratic appointees. And there was a lot of talk of Amy Coney Barrett not so much being a moderate or not so much being a swing vote but being somebody who's a little more restrained in what she wants to do than some of her conservative colleagues. But in all the, you know, other big cases, pretty much all the big ones that we might talk about, are ones where she joined the - her fellow conservatives.
DETROW: You know, people and institutions don't usually willingly hand over power, but I'm thinking about this ruling kind of really scaling back the federal courts' ability, or at least lower-court judges' ability, to issue nationwide injunctions and last year's ruling giving big swaths of immunity to sitting executives. Do you see a connection between the two of them and what the six justices in the majority see as the proper balance between the federal courts and the executive branch?
STOHR: Well, certainly, it's a court that believes in a strong executive in a whole lot of ways. You know, this birthright citizenship decision does restrict the power of lower-court judges. It doesn't restrict the Supreme Court's power, however. And in a concurring opinion, Justice Kavanaugh made that very clear, that what this means is that probably some of these issues are going to get to us more quickly and we're going to be the ones who have to decide something. So it is a court that wants to restrain the judiciary in some respects. But ultimately, it's reserving a pretty fair amount of power for itself.
DETROW: That is Bloomberg News Supreme Court reporter Greg Stohr. Greg, thanks so much for coming in.
STOHR: My pleasure.
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