Just wow - talk about a well written decision. The Democrats must be spitting tacks as this will cut into the Mexican cartels' revenue and those sweet campaign contributions will dry up if the wall gets built. (Can you think of any other reason why they are stalling so much?) From Conservative Review:
Judge denies Democrats standing to sue against border wall construction
“The Court declines to take sides in this fight between the House and the President.”
If more judges would think as Judge Trevor McFadden wrote yesterday in a memorandum denying House Democrats’ standing to sue Trump’s border wall, we’d have a semblance of a republic left.
Yesterday, in direct contradiction of a California judge’s ruling last week, Judge Trevor McFadden of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia ruled that House Democrats have no standing to sue the Trump administration over using defense funding for a border wall. He did not write on the merits of whether the president interpreted the statutes correctly or not. That does not matter. The judiciary does not stand above the other two branches and is not the final arbiter of political disputes. It decides cases or controversies and grants relief to specific plaintiffs with legitimate standing before a court. In this case, “the Constitution grants the House no standing to litigate these claims,” according to Judge McFadden.
In the 24-page ruling in U.S. House of Representatives v. Steven Mnuchin, McFadden noted that more broadly, “Intervening in a contest between the House and President over the border wall would entangle the Court ‘in a power contest nearly at the height of its political tension’ and would ‘risk damaging the public confidence that is vital to the functioning of the Judicial Branch.’”
The opinion is a wonderful piece of writing - here are the first three paragraphs:
Few ideas are more central to the American political tradition than the doctrine of separation of powers. Our Founders emerged from the Revolution determined to establish a government incapable of repeating the tyranny from which the Thirteen Colonies escaped. They did so by splitting power aross three branches of the federal government and by providing each the tools required to preserve control over its functions. The “great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department,” James Madison explained, “consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others.” The Federalist No. 51.
This is a case about whether one chamber of Congress has the “constitutional means” to conscript the Judiciary in a political turf war with the President over the implementation of legislation. The U.S. House of Representatives seeks to enjoin the Secretaries and Departments of the Treasury, Defense, Homeland Security, and the Interior (collectively, the “Administration”) from spending certain funds to build a wall along our southern border. The House argues that this expenditure would violate the Appropriations Clause of the Constitution and usurp Congress’s authority. This harm, the House suggests, constitutes an “institutional injury” supporting Article III standing.
The Administration disagrees.
It is not what the Dems want but this is what the Constitution dictates. I love it. Sounds like they need a refresher course in the law - specifically Title 5, Section 3331 of the United States Code. It reads:
“I, (name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”
This is what an elected Representative to Congress swears as their Oath of Office - that includes all enemies, foreign and domestic
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