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New York Times
2 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
Supreme Court Won't Fast-Track Tariffs Challenge
The Supreme Court said on Friday that it would not fast-track a petition from two toy manufacturers challenging a major piece of President Trump's tariffs program. The court's order was one sentence long and gave no reasons. The companies' request was unusual for several reasons. Petitions seeking review ordinarily come from the losing side, but the companies had won in front of a district court judge last month. They then sought to leapfrog the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which would ordinarily rule before the justices considered whether to grant review. And they asked the justices to move quickly, asking that they schedule arguments in September or October. The companies — Learning Resources and hand2mind — said Mr. Trump's tariffs had given rise to a national emergency warranting extraordinarily quick judicial action. They asked the court to order the government to respond to their petition by Monday. 'In light of the tariffs' massive impact on virtually every business and consumer across the nation and the unremitting whiplash caused by the unfettered tariffing power the president claims,' the petition said, the companies' challenges 'cannot await the normal appellate process (even on an expedited timeline).' In response, D. John Sauer, the U.S. solicitor general, said the government would file its opposition to the petition on the usual schedule — by July 17 — and that the justices could rule on it over the summer. The manufacturers argued that the law Mr. Trump relied on, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, did not authorize tariffs. Until Mr. Trump acted, their companies' brief said, 'no president had ever invoked I.E.E.P.A. to impose a single tariff or duty on goods in the statute's nearly 50-year history.' In a separate and broader challenge, the Court of International Trade also ruled against the administration's tariffs program. A different appeals court, the Federal Circuit, is set to hear arguments in that case next month. Both lower court rulings have been paused, allowing Mr. Trump to press forward with his tariffs. Once the appeals courts have ruled, appeals to the Supreme Court are all but certain, and the justices are quite likely to take up one or both of them at that point. The toy companies sought to use an unusual procedure to bypass the D.C. Circuit, 'certiorari before judgment.' The procedure used to be rare, mostly reserved for national crises like Nixon's refusal to turn over tape recordings to a special prosecutor or Truman's seizure of the steel industry. Mr. Sauer, the solicitor general, told the justices that the toy companies' case did not require expedited treatment. 'Certiorari before judgment,' he wrote, quoting from the court's rules, 'is an exceptional procedure reserved for cases 'of such imperative public importance as to justify deviation from normal appellate practice and to require immediate determination in this court.''
New York Times
12-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Trump Administration Asks Justices to Clear the Way for Cuts to Education Department
Lawyers for the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Friday to allow it to move ahead with plans to dismantle the Education Department by lifting a lower court order that had prevented department workers from being fired. The request came as an emergency application, the latest in a flurry of such appeals to the Supreme Court filed since the start of the second Trump administration. President Trump signed an executive order on March 20 that instructed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to begin shutting down her agency, a move that requires approval by Congress and that set the stage for the legal fight over the federal government's role in the country's schools. In Friday's filing, Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the justices to overturn a temporary ruling issued in late May by a federal judge in Massachusetts that had ordered government officials to reinstate thousands of fired workers. Judge Myong J. Joun of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts issued a preliminary injunction in the lawsuit on May 22, a setback for the administration. In his filing to the justices, Mr. Sauer argued that the lower court judge had 'thwarted the executive branch's authority to manage the Department of Education.' A pair of school districts in Massachusetts, the American Federation of Teachers and 21 Democratic state attorneys general filed a lawsuit in March, seeking to block Mr. Trump's executive order. They also sought to walk back a massive round of layoffs in the Education Department announced that month that would affect about half of its employees. Judge Joun sided against the administration, finding that the government's actions may have amounted to an illegal shutdown of the agency, which by law only Congress has the authority to abolish. On June 4, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upheld Judge Joun's temporary order. The court found that the challengers were likely to suffer substantial injury were the order to be lifted, as the layoffs would make it difficult for the department to carry out its statutory obligations. The justices requested that responses to the application be filed by June 13. The case marks the second time that Judge Joun has been asked to examine the Trump administration's efforts to reshape education policy. Judge Joun temporarily ordered the Trump administration in March to release $65 million in teacher-training grants that had been suspended as part of the president's plans to end diversity, equity and inclusion policies. In that matter, an appeals court upheld the temporary order. But the Supreme Court overruled Judge Joun in April and said that the grants could be suspended.
Globe and Mail
06-06-2025
- Politics
- Globe and Mail
Trump administration asks U.S. Supreme Court to leave mass layoffs at Education Department in place
U.S. President Donald Trump's administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to pause a court order to reinstate Education Department employees who were fired in mass layoffs as part of his plan to dismantle the agency. The Justice Department's emergency appeal to the high court said U.S. District Judge Myong Joun in Boston exceeded his authority last month when he issued a preliminary injunction reversing the layoffs of nearly 1,400 people and putting the broader plan on hold. Joun's order has blocked one of the Republican President's biggest campaign promises and effectively stalled the effort to wind down the department. A federal appeals court refused to put the order on hold while the administration appealed. The judge wrote that the layoffs 'will likely cripple the department.' But Solicitor-General D. John Sauer wrote on Friday that Joun was substituting his policy preferences for those of the Trump administration. The layoffs help put in the place the 'policy of streamlining the department and eliminating discretionary functions that, in the administration's view, are better left to the states,' Sauer wrote. He also pointed out that the Supreme Court in April voted 5-4 to block Joun's earlier order seeking to keep in place Education Department teacher-training grants. Gary Mason: Donald Trump's corruption knows no bounds or precedent The current case involves two consolidated lawsuits that said Trump's plan amounted to an illegal closing of the Education Department. One suit was filed by the Somerville and Easthampton school districts in Massachusetts along with the American Federation of Teachers and other education groups. The other suit was filed by a coalition of 21 Democratic attorneys-general. The suits argued that layoffs left the department unable to carry out responsibilities required by Congress, including duties to support special education, distribute financial aid and enforce civil rights laws. Trump has made it a priority to shut down the Education Department, though he has acknowledged that only Congress has the authority to do that. In the meantime, Trump issued a March order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to wind it down 'to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.' Trump later said the department's functions will be parcelled to other agencies, suggesting that federal student loans should be managed by the Small Business Administration and programs involving students with disabilities would be absorbed by the Department of Health and Human Services. Those changes have not yet happened. The President argues that the Education Department has been overtaken by liberals and has failed to spur improvements to the nation's lagging academic scores. He has promised to 'return education to the states.' Opponents note that K-12 education is already mostly overseen by states and cities. Democrats have blasted the Trump administration's Education Department budget, which seeks a 15-per-cent budget cut including a $4.5-billion cut in K-12 funding as part of the agency's downsizing.
The Independent
06-06-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Trump administration asks Supreme Court to leave mass layoffs at Education Department in place
President Donald Trump 's administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to pause a court order to reinstate Education Department employees who were fired in mass layoffs as part of his plan to dismantle the agency. The Justice Department's emergency appeal to the high court said U.S. District Judge Myong Joun in Boston exceeded his authority last month when he issued a preliminary injunction reversing the layoffs of nearly 1,400 people and putting the broader plan on hold. Joun's order has blocked one of the Republican president's biggest campaign promises and effectively stalled the effort to wind down the department. A federal appeals court refused to put the order on hold while the administration appealed. The judge wrote that the layoffs 'will likely cripple the department.' But Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote on Friday that Joun was substituting his policy preferences for those of the Trump administration. The layoffs help put in the place the 'policy of streamlining the department and eliminating discretionary functions that, in the administration's view, are better left to the states,' Sauer wrote. He also pointed out that the Supreme Court in April voted 5-4 to block Joun's earlier order seeking to keep in place Education Department teacher-training grants. The current case involves two consolidated lawsuits that said Trump's plan amounted to an illegal closure of the Education Department. One suit was filed by the Somerville and Easthampton school districts in Massachusetts along with the American Federation of Teachers and other education groups. The other suit was filed by a coalition of 21 Democratic attorneys general. The suits argued that layoffs left the department unable to carry out responsibilities required by Congress, including duties to support special education, distribute financial aid and enforce civil rights laws. ___
Fast Company
02-06-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
Trump administration asks Supreme Court to allow federal layoffs
President Donald Trump's administration on Monday renewed its request for the Supreme Court to clear the way for plans to downsize the federal workforce, while a lawsuit filed by labor unions and cities proceeds. The high court filing came after an appeals court refused to freeze a California-based judge's order halting the cuts, which have been led by the Department of Government Efficiency. By a 2-1 vote, a panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that the downsizing could have broader effects, including on the nation's food-safety system and health care for veterans. In her ruling last month, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston found that Trump's administration congressional approval to make sizable reductions to the federal workforce. The administration initially asked the justices to step in last month, but withdrew its appeal for technical, legal reasons. The latest filing is one in a series of emergency appeals arguing federal judges had overstepped their authority. Illston's order 'rests on the indefensible premise that the President needs explicit statutory authorization from Congress to exercise his core Article II authority to superintend the internal personnel decisions of the Executive Branch,' Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in the new appeal. Trump has repeatedly said voters gave him a mandate to remake the federal government, and he tapped billionaire ally Elon Musk to lead the charge through DOGE. Musk left his role last week. Tens of thousands of federal workers have been fired, have left their jobs via deferred resignation programs, or have been placed on leave. There is no official figure for the job cuts, but at least 75,000 federal employees took deferred resignation, and thousands of probationary workers have already been let go. Illston's order directs numerous federal agencies to halt acting on the president's workforce executive order signed in February and a subsequent memo issued by DOGE and the Office of Personnel Management. Illston was nominated by former Democratic President Bill Clinton. Among the agencies affected by the order are the departments of Agriculture, Energy, Labor, the Interior, State, the Treasury and Veterans Affairs. It also applies to the National Science Foundation, Small Business Association, Social Security Administration and Environmental Protection Agency. The Supreme Court set a deadline of next Monday for a response from the unions and cities, including Baltimore, Chicago and San Francisco. Some of the labor unions and nonprofit groups are also plaintiffs in another lawsuit before a San Francisco judge challenging the mass firings of probationary workers. In that case, Judge William Alsup ordered the government in March to reinstate those workers, but the U.S. Supreme Court later blocked his order.
