{"id":305202,"date":"2026-02-23T01:28:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T01:28:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/305202\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T01:28:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T01:28:15","slug":"supreme-court-conservatives-were-united-against-biden-heres-why-they-split-against-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/305202\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court conservatives were united against Biden. Here\u2019s why they split against Trump."},"content":{"rendered":"

\n On the surface, the Supreme Court\u2019s massive decision shutting down Donald Trump\u2019s sweeping tariffs<\/a> was a case about the president\u2019s power to pursue a global economic agenda and levy what the majority said amounted to a $134 billion tax on American<\/a> consumers.\n <\/p>\n

\n But just below the court\u2019s bottom-line repudiation of Trump\u2019s tariffs, a testy debate unfolded among the court\u2019s conservative justices about a little understood \u2014 and often criticized \u2014 legal theory known as the \u201cmajor questions doctrine.\u201d<\/a> It is a fight that could have enormous consequences for the remainder of Trump\u2019s term, and beyond.\n <\/p>\n

\n In an opinion running more than twice as long as the 21 pages Chief Justice John Roberts<\/a> used to resolve the case, Justice Neil Gorsuch took his colleagues on the left and the right to task for their views of the doctrine, which stipulates that Congress \u201cspeak clearly\u201d when it is granting a president power to deal with matters of \u201cmajor\u201d economic or political significance.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Supreme Court, therefore, may say that presidents can\u2019t find a specific and significant power in an ambiguous law.\n <\/p>\n

\n Roberts also pushed back on an idea raised by Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas that Congress intended to give presidents flexibility with broad language. It is precisely in cases dealing with major issues, the chief justice wrote, that the court should be skeptical of sweeping claims of presidential power.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThere is,\u201d Roberts wrote, \u201cno major questions exception to the major questions doctrine.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The spirited back-and-forth may explain why the tariffs case took months for the court to resolve<\/a>, and it exposed rifts that could prove meaningful for Trump and for future presidents.\n <\/p>\n

\n Conservatives seemed united about how the major questions doctrine worked when they were applying it to a Democratic president. They cited it to invalidate President Joe Biden\u2019s policies \u2014 including his student loan forgiveness<\/a> program, environmental policies and his responses to the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/a>\n <\/p>\n

\n But those same justices were nevertheless deeply divided Friday about its use when it came to Trump\u2019s tariffs.\n <\/p>\n

\n Three conservatives in dissent claimed it didn\u2019t apply, three liberals in the majority said it wasn\u2019t needed and two conservatives spent dozens of pages debating what, exactly, it is.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cPast critics of the major questions doctrine do not object to its application in this case,\u201d Gorsuch, who was Trump\u2019s first nominee to the high court yet voted against the president Friday, wrote of the three-justice liberal wing that also declared the tariffs illegal.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cStill others who have joined major questions decisions in the past dissent from today\u2019s application of the doctrine,\u201d he wrote of the three conservative justices who would have allowed Trump to continue his tariffs. \u201cIt is an interesting turn of events.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n In the end, a combination of conservative and liberal justices concluded<\/a> that the 1977 emergency powers law Trump relied on to impose his sweeping tariffs did not give him the authority to do so. The president has other authorities to levy those duties and made clear in a combative press conference hours after the court\u2019s decision that he would quickly turn to those other laws<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWhen Congress grants the power to impose tariffs, it does so clearly and with careful constraints,\u201d Roberts wrote. \u201cIt did neither here.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"videoframe_2160994.png\"<\/p>\n

Business owner who challenged Trump’s tariffs reacts to Supreme Court decision\n <\/p>\n

\"videoframe_2160994.png\"<\/p>\n

Business owner who challenged Trump’s tariffs reacts to Supreme Court decision<\/p>\n

4:32 <\/p>\n

\n The doctrine has long been criticized, especially from the left, as a judge-invented theory that can be applied inconsistently. The bickering in Friday\u2019s decision about how \u2014 and whether \u2014 the theory applied to Trump will do little to ease that skepticism.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe internal division among the Republican appointees over just how\u202fpowerful a tool it is,\u201d said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at Georgetown University Law Center, \u201cis likely to matter even more for presidents after\u202fTrump than for the rest of this administration \u2014 assuming that presidents of both parties continue to have to rely upon old statutes to implement their domestic agendas rather than new ones.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n In 2023, the court relied on the doctrine to block Biden\u2019s student loan forgiveness plan<\/a>. The Democrat had attempted to forgive student loans via a law that allowed the Education Department to \u201cwaive or modify\u201d rules tied to financial assistance programs. That language, the court ruled with six conservatives in the majority<\/a>, wasn\u2019t clear enough to authorize the cancellation of $430 billion in debt.\n <\/p>\n

\n Two years earlier, the court ruled that a 1944 public health law that allows the government to impose quarantines did not empower the Biden administration to enforce a nationwide eviction moratorium during the Covid-19 pandemic.\n <\/p>\n

\n In the tariffs decision, Gorsuch embraced the most robust view of the doctrine, accusing fellow conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett of putting a \u201cgloss\u201d on it that would render it unworkable. He blamed the three dissenting conservatives of carving out exceptions that would lead to outcomes \u201chard to reconcile with the Constitution.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Gorsuch also said that the court\u2019s three liberals had repeatedly criticized the doctrine\u2019s use during the Biden administration but that their reasoning for opposing Trump\u2019s tariffs seemed suspiciously similar.\n <\/p>\n

\n Barrett \u2014 who also voted against Trump \u2014 fired back that Gorsuch was targeting a \u201cstraw man\u201d and suggested his approach might \u201cveer beyond interpretation and into policymaking.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the court\u2019s three-justice liberal wing, balked at Gorsuch\u2019s hint of hypocrisy.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cGiven how strong his apparent desire for converts, I almost regret to inform him that I am not one,\u201d Kagan wrote in a footnote.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cBut that,\u201d she said, \u201cis the fact of the matter.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The skirmishes among conservatives are particularly fascinating because it was the modern conservative legal movement that brought the major questions doctrine to the forefront.\n <\/p>\n

\n When the majority relied on the theory in a 2022 decision that kneecapped Biden\u2019s<\/a> ability to regulate power plant emissions, Kagan lamented in dissent that \u201ccanons like the \u2018major questions doctrine\u2019 magically appear as get out-of-text-free cards.\u201d Kagan\u2019s point was that justices who proclaim to rely on the clear text of a law, in her view, would use the doctrine to get their desired result.\n <\/p>\n

\n Stephanie Barclay, a Georgetown law professor who clerked for Gorsuch, said the debate among the justices showed they were \u201cdoing the hard work of theorizing\u201d the major questions doctrine. That kind of sustained engagement, she said, is a sign of a legal approach that is \u201cmaturing and deepening.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n And in the end, she noted, the doctrine was key to Roberts\u2019 majority opinion.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cOne of the most important things about this decision is what it tells us about the major questions doctrine\u2019s neutrality,\u201d Barclay said. \u201cThe major questions doctrine is not about who occupies the White House; it is about whether the person who occupies the White House can claim powers that Congress never clearly granted.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n On the other hand, six of the justices \u2014 three conservatives and three liberals \u2014 claimed the doctrine didn\u2019t apply at all.\n <\/p>\n

\n Writing for the dissenters, Kavanaugh found an exception from the major questions doctrine because the case implicated foreign policy, an area where courts have often deferred to a president\u2019s authority.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe court has never before applied the major questions doctrine in the foreign affairs context, including foreign trade,\u201d Kavanaugh wrote. In those cases, Trump\u2019s second nominee to the high court said, \u201ccourts read the statute as written and do not employ the major questions doctrine as a thumb on the scale against the president.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Kavanaugh, more than any other justice, drew heavy praise from Trump on Friday for his approach to the tariffs case. The president applauded Kavanaugh\u2019s \u201cgenius and his great ability\u201d and said he was \u201cvery proud of that appointment.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Trump\u2019s other nominees to court who voted against him, Gorsuch and Barrett, the president said, were an \u201cembarrassment to their families.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"President<\/p>\n

\n Still, at times Kavanaugh\u2019s position sounded like the same arguments Biden made to defend his policies. Kavanaugh said that federal trade law Trump used was intended to \u201cprovide flexibility\u201d to the president \u201cto address the unusual and extraordinary threats specified in a declared national emergency.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Former Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, defending the Biden administration\u2019s eviction moratorium during the pandemic, wrote that the law at issue in that case was designed to provide \u201cflexibility needed to address new threats to public health as they emerge.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n But as both conservative and liberal justices often suggest in their writing, the most dependable way for Congress to grant power to a president \u2014 regardless of that president\u2019s party \u2014 is to enact a law that makes their intentions clear.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIf history is any guide,\u201d Gorsuch wrote, \u201cthe tables will turn and the day will come when those disappointed by today\u2019s result will appreciate the legislative process for the bulwark of liberty it is.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the surface, the Supreme Court\u2019s massive decision shutting down Donald Trump\u2019s sweeping tariffs was a case about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[114,184,85,46],"class_list":["post-305202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}