The Supreme Court delivered a much-needed reality check to the lower courts on June 27, ruling 6–3 in Trump v. CASA, Inc. that federal district judges don’t get to play emperor.
For years, any one of the 677 district judges could slam the brakes on national policy with a single gavel. That era is over.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, writing for the majority, reminded the judiciary that their job is to resolve disputes, not to run the country.
The ruling wasn’t about Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship; it was about curbing the fantasy that district judges have coast-to-coast authority.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, on the other hand, responded like someone told her the Constitution had been set on fire.
Her dissent, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Kagan, warned of an “existential threat to the rule of law.”
According to Jackson, if a district court can’t freeze national policy for everyone, we might as well shred the Bill of Rights and hand the keys to a runaway president.
She called the majority opinion a “smokescreen.” She warned of a “patchwork” of legal rights. She spun a vision of legal chaos so breathless you’d think the Supreme Court had just dissolved the republic.
If melodrama were a legal argument, Jackson would’ve won hands down.
Quoting Jackson’s own words about the law binding everyone from the President on down, Barrett gently reminded her: “That goes for judges too.”
This decision affirms a simple truth: no district judge has the power to govern 330 million Americans.
You don’t get to override the elected branches with a flick of your pen just because you found the right plaintiff in the right courtroom.
Jackson’s warning that courts must act instantly or else liberty dies? That’s saying a lot.
Some said it read more like a campaign speech than a court opinion. Others noted the irony of a judge lamenting overreach while demanding unchecked judicial power.
The online commentary was harsher still. One user joked that Jackson seemed to believe the judiciary should wear capes, not robes. Another said her dissent sounded like it was ghostwritten by MSNBC.
To be generous, she did raise one practical point: that without nationwide injunctions, some people may face unlawful policies until they can sue.
That’s fair, but it doesn’t justify turning trial judges into national overlords.
The Constitution doesn’t promise instant, universal relief. It promises a process. And no, that process isn’t “whatever a judge in Boston feels like today.”
This ruling doesn’t end judicial review. It just restores sanity.
If a law is unconstitutional, courts will say so; but they’ll do it case by case, not by turning the judiciary into a one-stop veto shop.
Jackson’s dissent made headlines – mission accomplished. But no matter how dramatic the dissent, the Constitution doesn’t change to match the volume of the complaint.
