The larger question is whether the Democrats will learn by example. SCOTUS: “You can’t spend unappropriated funds!” President: “We’ll get right on it. We’ll give you a call. Yeah, that’s it…”
Trumpism has revealed a huge, gaping hole in our system of checks and balances. If enforcement power resides solely in the Executive, a lawless President can do almost anything, as long as he has a tame A.G. Neither Congress nor the courts have any real power to give effect to their pronouncements.
“Impeached and convicted? I’ll take it under advisement. I’m told I can’t get a moving company for at least a year or two…”
And don’t forget, just this weekend Trump referred to the $423 million (or maybe $523 million) as “peanuts.” Yeah, a puny sum like that would get lost in the minutia of the federal budget.
One of the first of hundreds of special prosecutors/commissions in a Biden admin surely must be one to assess how much $ these assholes have routed from the treasury to their own accounts.
The Court will have to preserve the “national emergency” exception for future GOP presidents, so it will now anoint itself as the umpire to call balls & strikes on the issue of what constitutes an emergency.
I doubt the arguments will ever be heard, unless some reactionary foundation can find some justification to pick up the case after the Biden DoJ withdraws from the contest.
Without taking a view on the merits, I think that the odds that democrats start straight-up ignoring court orders is probably pretty close to zero. And that is probably a good thing. One of the frustrating things about the situation Democrats find ourselves in is that the other side is engaging in tactics which, at a certain level, we can’t emulate without playing into their hand.
Sure, we can engage in more hardball tactics, expand the court, abolish the filibuster, etc. But, as you see with the stimulus, we can’t simply consign millions of people to avoidable suffering just because we think it will help us win an election. Republicans can, have, and will again.
And, aside from the empathy deficit in their party, this is because failing to help people during a catastrophe reduces faith in government which redounds primarily to Republican’s benefit.
So, at a certain level, we CAN’T replicate their tactics. Weakening institutions might help us in a particular instance, but overall weakening institutions helps the party that thinks that we shouldn’t have institutions that help people in the first place. Weakening the courts helps, on the whole, the people that don’t need courts to vindicate their rights (i.e. the rich and powerful).
I think they may well rule against (in a ruling with no teeth because the money is gone) just to provide a tiny bit of cover for ruling to prevent any useful spending whatsoever by the next administration.
