THE other Supreme Court decision. Fresh from its unanimous decision to keep former President Donald Trump on the Colorado state ballot, the US Supreme Court has ordered Texas to halt implementation of its controversial immigration law which gives state officials the power to arrest and deport migrants.
The Texas law was expected to take effect next Saturday, the Associated Press reports, thanks to a decision by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that overturned a lower court judge’s opinion blocking the law.
The order issued by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito temporarily pushes back the effective date of the Texas law to March 13. The delay is intended to give the Supreme Court more time to consider whether it will allow Texas to enforce its immigration policies.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed SB 4, the law in question, into law in December 2023. The new law makes it a state crime to cross the border illegally. Repeat offenders can be charged with multiple crimes. According to Texas Grandstandthe law also requires judges to order convicted illegal border crossers to leave for Mexico and authorizes police to drop them off at the border.
Civil liberties groups have rebelled against Texas trying to chart its own path on immigration.
“Make no mistake: SB 4 circumvents federal immigration authority and threatens the integrity of our nation’s Constitution and laws,” the American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights groups said in a joint statement urging the Supreme Court to block the law. “We have long warned that this law will separate families, lead to racial profiling across the state and harm people.”
In the past, the Supreme Court has placed limits on which states could enter the field of immigration enforcement. Most notably, in 2012, he overturned parts of a 2010 Arizona law that allowed police to arrest suspected illegal immigrants without a warrant and made it a state crime for immigrants not to carry immigration documents.
Meanwhile, everyone processes in their own way yesterday’s Supreme Court decision keeping Trump on the ballot. The great man himself was certainly pleased with the court’s unanimous ruling that states cannot unilaterally expel candidates for federal office on the ballot because they participated in an “insurrection.”
“If you want to win or lose, you have to win or lose at the ballot box, not in a courtroom.” She said former President Donald Trump, seemingly without irony, on Fox News Yesterday. “It was a really well thought out decision. People were very happy with it. In fact, all parties were more or less respectful of it.”
“If you want to win or lose, you have to win or lose at the ballot box, not in a courtroom.” – President Trump pic.twitter.com/CPoo7z8GBO
— Anthony Hughes (@CallMeAntwan) March 5, 2024
Obviously not everyone he was satisfied with the court’s ruling. Liberal commentator Keith Olbermann, measured as ever, said the decision marks the end of democracy and the need to completely dissolve the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court has betrayed democracy. Its members, including Jackson, Kagan and Sotomayor, have proven incompetent in reading comprehension. And overall the “court” turned out to be corrupt and illegitimate.
It must be dissolved.
— Keith Olbermann⌚️ (@KeithOlbermann) March 4, 2024
Less hysterical liberal commentators are concerned about what the decision signals about the courts’ overall willingness to sanction Trump.
“For anyone hoping that Trump’s efforts to overturn the last election will lead to the justice system penalizing him significantly before the next one, recent developments have proven disappointing,” wrote Sarah Ellison and Toluse Olorunnipa on at THE Washington Post.
Read Jacob Sullum’s analysis for Reason about the relatively unsurprising ruling and some of the more sensitive points the judges argued over.
Scenes from DC
Politicians in the nation’s capital are once again making changes to the city’s overturned minimum wage policy. In 2022, D.C. voters approved a ballot initiative that phases out the ability of businesses to pay a lower hourly minimum wage to workers who earned tips.
This ballot initiative had already been approved once in 2018, and then repealed by the city council at the behest of the city’s restaurants and bars and many of their workers.
To address the demise of the minimum wage, businesses in the city are starting to apply automatic service fees to their checks, leading to quite a bit of confusion and complaints from customers.
Today, the City Council will consider a bill that would reset the minimum wage to zero by 2025 (instead of 2027), while reducing this year’s planned base minimum wage increase to 25 cents instead of $2 .
.@consigliofdc will consider accelerating the elimination of the tipped minimum wage by 2 years (2025 instead of 2027) in exchange for a substantial increase of 25 cents instead of $2 in July.
This is why for @ChmnMendelson
My story. h/t @amanduhgomezhttps://t.co/50NIyFXGCi pic.twitter.com/ncOIm0kGwX— Barred in Washington (@BarredinDC) March 5, 2024
QUICK SHOTS
- California voters go to the polls today. In addition to voting in various primaries, San Francisco voters will decide ballot initiatives that would force some people to undergo drug treatment and provide police with more surveillance cameras.
- Speaking of primaries, today’s Super Tuesday primaries are a make-or-break moment for Nikki Haley. Judging by her past performances, it will mostly be a break.
- White House announces “intervention force” to counter “illegal” price increases, reports Politic.
- The Chinese National People’s Congress met today and decided to pursue the whole communism thing.
- The United Nations has released a report finding “compelling” evidence that Hamas raped and tortured Israeli prisoners.