'Too far': Liberal justice rips new Supreme Court ruling in sharp dissent
A liberal Supreme Court justice tore into her conservative colleagues' latest decision on Friday afternoon after the high court delivered a significant win to President Donald Trump, allowing his administration to continue freezing nearly $4 billion in foreign aid funding that Congress had allocated.
Justice Elena Kagan issued a scathing dissent in the Supreme Court case Department of State v. Aids Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, noting the emergency application raised "novel issues fundamental to the relationship between the President and Congress."
She said the high court was working in "uncharted territory" and that the "stakes are high: At issue is the allocation of power between the Executive and Congress over the expenditure of public monies."
She lamented that they had less than three weeks to consider the application — "a short fuse" — and that they did so "with scant briefing, no oral argument, and no opportunity to deliberate in conference."
"Because of how this case came to us, we likewise do not have the benefit of a pertinent court of appeals decision, much less a set of decisions expressing different views. In a few weeks’ time—when we turn to our regular docket—we will decide cases of far less import with far more process and reflection," she wrote.
Kagan credited her colleagues for emphasizing it was merely a "preliminary view" on the issues rather than a “final determination on the merits.”
"But even at that, the majority goes too far," she said. "The Executive has not met our standard for emergency relief—the appropriately high bar we have erected because a stay like this one disrupts 'the ordinary processes of administration and judicial review.'"
She added the Executive "has not 'made a strong showing that [it] is likely to succeed on the merits'... Nor has it shown that, in the absence of relief, it will suffer irreparable harm. We therefore should have denied this application, allowed the lower courts to go forward, and ensured that the weighty question presented here receives the consideration it deserves."
She warned that the conservative majority's ruling will have a lasting impact.
"The effect is to prevent the funds from reaching their intended recipients—not just now but (because of their impending expiration) for all time," she wrote.
Kagan also took a shot at Trump's argument about irreparable harm. The administration said that to comply with a lower court's order to spend the $4 billion, it would have to negotiate with other countries or international groups. The administration complained it would have to “advocate against its own objectives,” “undermin[ing]” its view that the expenditures are “contrary to U. S. foreign policy.”
Kagan was unsympathetic to the administration's plight, calling it "just the price of living under a Constitution that gives Congress the power to make spending decisions through the enactment of appropriations laws."
"If those laws require obligation of the money, and if Congress has not by rescission or other action relieved the Executive of that duty, then the Executive must comply. It cannot be heard to complain, as it does here, that the laws clash with the President’s differing view of 'American values' and 'American interests.' ... That inconsistency, in other words, is not a cognizable harm, to be weighed in the equitable balance. It is merely a frustration any President must bear."