The debate over the propriety of the nationwide or “universal” injunction continues to unfold. Just this month, in a dissenting opinion in Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania, Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor took a stand in favor of the permissibility of such injunctions, balancing off comments to the contrary in earlier opinions by Justices […]

Yesterday, the Fifth Circuit heard oral argument in Texas v. United States. It was pretty brutal: consistent with the reporting, the two Republican-appointed judges on the panel appeared receptive to the argument that the Affordable Care Act should be declared invalid. (The Democrat-appointed judge was silent.) Just how receptive is hard to say, and it’s […]

The Fifth Circuit will hear oral argument tomorrow in Texas v. United States, a sweeping challenge to the Affordable Care Act arising out of Congress’s decision, in late 2017, to eliminate the penalty for going without insurance. The case should never have been taken seriously. The red states that brought the suit don’t have standing […]

Last week, the Fifth Circuit asked the parties to Texas v. United States—the broadside challenge to the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act—to submit letter briefs on whether anyone had standing to appeal. (Jonathan Adler has offered excellent analysis of that order here.) Though the briefs won’t all be filed until Friday, the Justice Department […]

Since the Trump era began more than two years ago with the election of 2016, the administration has put into place an increasingly draconian legal regime of restrictions against immigrants. Navigating these outrageous examples of executive overreach has been challenging. The current administration has attempted to cloak the new restrictions under the guise of quasi-legality. […]

I’ve got a piece at The Atlantic this morning arguing that Judge O’Connor was wrong—and obviously so—to hear the Texas lawsuit at all. The states don’t have standing to challenge a mandate that doesn’t apply to them. And the two Texas consultants they recruited as plaintiffs don’t have standing either. Here’s the key argument: Nantz […]

This morning, HHS released two rules that will allow many more employers to exclude contraception from the insurance plans they offer to their employees. The first expands an existing religious exemption; the second allows employers to exempt themselves by invoking a freestanding “moral objection.” As I explained when a draft of the rules first leaked, […]

This past week Washington state jumped into the fight against President Trump’s executive order limiting immigration, filing suit in district court in Washington. The district court issued a nationwide temporary stay of the order, and the United States has now appealed to the Ninth Circuit. One of the major issues in the case is whether […]