Photo by iStockphoto.com/Flory
Last week we obtained our second injunction blocking President Trump's diversion of funds that Congress denied for his border wall, and today the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied Trump's motion to have those injunctions stayed. Members of Congress have reported their horror at the conditions of detainment along the border. All of this happened in the wake of two significant decisions from the Supreme Court: one declining to intervene in anti-democratic gerrymandering; one sending Wilbur Ross's census questionnaire back to the Commerce Department.
The census case is very relevant to the Sierra Club, as it involved a Trump agency decision governed by the Administrative Procedure Act, the law governing many agency decisions affecting the environment. The Supreme Court held that the Commerce Department had failed miserably to justify its decision to put a citizenship question in the census questionnaire. The Court would not defer to an administration that appeared to be misrepresenting its intent. This is a cornerstone of our democracy -- having courts reject Executive Branch misconduct. So breathe a sigh of relief that the Supreme Court still holds true to that principle. In the gerrymandering case, the Supreme Court shut the door on any federal court intervention in state redistricting. However, states retain the power to block gerrymandering, as in Michigan, where a voter initiative set up a citizens committee to govern redistricting.
We need our democracy to hold firm over the last 18 months of Trump's horrific presidency. For if we have no democracy, our natural environment and our human communities will be sacrificed in the name of fossil fuel profits. The oil and gas industries will go after profits in the Arctic, in our oceans, and on sacred Tribal lands. Fossil fuel pipeline companies are running to the Supreme Court in the hope that it will grant them permission to cross the Appalachian Trail, a clear violation of Congress's intent. They are lobbying for devious state laws that will criminalize our right to protest under the First Amendment.
Trump's cronies have no shame. But will they prevail? Over my dead democracy. We will continue to fight for our Constitution, in concert with allies like the ACLU. We will continue to use the Freedom of Information Act to expose to worst types of corruption in this administration, just as we successfully ran some of the worst of Trump's cronies out of office. We will continue to beat back Trump's devious maneuvers to suspend environmental safeguards without following the laws that require public participation and, God forbid, sound science.
We will run in high gear until January 2021 (fingers triple crossed).
Everything is at stake.
Photo of Liberty weeping courtesy of Splendipity.