Trump Policy Fights Face Court Delays With Government Shutdown
High-profile legal fights challenging Trump administration policies are being paused amid the US government funding impasse.
Courts will remain open during the shutdown that began Wednesday morning after Republican and Democratic lawmakers failed to reach an agreement on a spending bill before the start of the new fiscal year. The Justice Department is planning to keep the bulk of its employees on the job but will scale back work on non-urgent civil cases.
That plan — which reflects how the department has handled past shutdowns — will mean delays in at least some of the hundreds of lawsuits challenging President Donald Trump’s executive orders and directives and agency actions carrying out his agenda.
More than 500 lawsuits have been filed since January by advocacy groups, Democratic attorneys general, unions, migrants, federal officials and workers and others challenging Trump’s policies spanning everything from immigration and funding to firings and tariffs.
The shutdown could also affect civil cases the department is pursuing, such as antitrust matters.
On Wednesday morning, government lawyers asked a federal judge in Manhattan to pause an antitrust case filed by the Justice Department and dozens of state attorneys general to break up Live Nation Inc., which owns Ticketmaster, for its alleged monopoly over much of the live music industry. The judge denied the request for now.
Under the Justice Department’s shutdown plan, government lawyers handling civil cases will continue asking judges to extend upcoming deadlines or put cases fully on hold. Agencies are supposed to be halting all work that isn’t funded unless it involves “the safety of human life or the protection of property.”
In the federal district court in Washington, which has handled the largest proportion of lawsuits against the administration, court leaders have been coordinating with the local US attorney’s office on a plan to manage cases for as long as the shutdown lasts, according to a person familiar with the planning process who wasn’t authorized to discuss it publicly.
Civil Cases
On Wednesday morning, US District Chief Judge James Boasberg released a blanket “standing” order extending upcoming deadlines in cases in the Washington court that involve the federal government as a way to streamline the process. However, that order doesn’t apply to cases in which challengers are asking judges for immediate, emergency relief from Trump administration actions.
A spokesperson for the court and the US attorney’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The parties suing the government can object to delays. Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, one of the liberal-leaning advocacy groups with multiple active cases against the administration, said in a statement that lawyers “will continue to make the case that the emergency circumstances created by the dangerous policies of this administration are cause for ongoing judicial review.”
Judges are largely expected to greenlight shutdown-related delay requests, but do have some discretion to say no.
During a shutdown that lasted just over a month in late 2018 and early 2019, several judges denied the government’s extension requests after concluding that the issues were too high-stakes and time-sensitive to push out.
In West Virginia, the federal district court in January 2019 issued a general order pausing civil cases where the US government was a party. But one judge disagreed with that decision, releasing his own order that the government would be expected to continue business as normal in the cases on his docket. The fact that the government was having an “internal dispute” didn’t justify giving it “special influence or accommodation,” he wrote.
The federal judiciary has said that it has enough money in its reserves to keep up full operations through at least Friday. Judges will stay on the job and courts will continue to function even if funds run out, but each judicial district will have to decide whether to furlough some staff.
The Supreme Court, which opens its new term on Oct 6, would continue normal operations in the event of short-term lapse, said Supreme Court spokeswoman Patricia McCabe. As it has in the post, the court can dip into other available funds that aren’t subject to the annual appropriations process.
Source : Bloomberg.com
