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Michael Popak
There are research firms, there are consulting firms, and then there's Forrester. Meet Today's Forrester@forrester.com in another fast moving story, we've got the third win for Donald Trump of the United states supreme court, two in the last less than 24 hours. This one blocks an order of a San Francisco federal judge, Judge Alsop, who ordered about eight or nine different federal agencies to rehire 16,000 federal workers who were thrown on the unemployment line without even real notice and certainly in an arbitrary and capricious fashion. But to this United States Supreme Court in a six to three, another cowardly, undesigned decision in our order list that came out today. We've got the ruling and it is the coward's way out. The Supreme Court ruled that the group that brought the case don't have what we call standing, which is a cognizable injury that allows a party to go into a courtroom. I'll talk about what standing means and why the Supreme Court uses it as an exit ramp when they don't want to deal with a hard case or they want to reward somebody like Donald Trump. I'll put it in the context of the other win from last night involving the Alien Enemies act and the Donald Trump administration violating due process and our constitutional precepts. And on the heels of another win, which was about a week ago involving cutting off funding to teachers and grants because of D E I, what does it mean? What does it mean for another case in Maryland under very similar circumstances that also ordered the return of 20,000 probationary workers? I'll break it all down for you the only way I know how. Telling truth to our audience here on the Midas Touch Network. So I was combing through the order list today. Sometimes opinions are reflected in the list of opinions on the on the Supreme Court's website, and sometimes they're buried on the order list. This one buried on the order list, but it has huge implications. About end of February, after a series of hearings beginning of March, Judge Alsop, senior judge, federal court in San Francisco, ultimately issued a injunction and also found that the Trump administration had lied to him in the courtroom about the basis for the firing. They said it was for cause, he said, how could it be for cause? You just mass fired 20,000 people, many of which just had good reviews a week or two before you violated the Administrative Procedures act because it's arbitrary and capricious. And I order you to rehire them when they weren't rehiring them fast enough or they were putting them on Administrative leave. He also had a hearing about that. Now, the Trump administration has argued a couple of things. One, that many of the groups that brought the case don't have standing. I'll talk about that in a minute. And they also argued that this is the Administrative Procedures act is not the governing body of law, that there's a set of laws about civil servants, and that this allows them to do what they did and they can't sue in court under the Administrative Procedures act because of the civil service laws. That's another argument that they made. But here's what the Supreme Court ruled. It's short, so let me read it to you first. They started out with what we hoped they wouldn't do. They granted the Trump administration the stay. Blocking Judge Alsop's order. It says the March 13, 2025 preliminary injunction entered by the Northern District of California is stayed pending the appeal. Meaning we're going to let the appellate courts figure out through a full briefing schedule. But in the meantime, the Trump administration does not have to hire back 16,000 people. Um, the district court's injunction was based solely on the allegations of the nine not. Not profit organizations, nonprofit organization plaintiffs. In this case, there were two groups. There was like, labor unions and. And not for profits. And for some reason, they interpreted. The Supreme Court interpreted Judge Alsop's ruling as being based on only the claims brought by the not for profits, not by the labor union. Of course, the labor union has standing. They were injured. They were fired. That is the sin qua non of having standing. You've been personally injured. You lost your job, you lost the property. Right. But here they say that the preliminary injunction was really brought by the other group, and therefore they don't have standing. And since the preliminary injunction wasn't based on the labor union, you know, we're going to not grant the stay. Justice Sotomayor dissented. She said I would deny the application. Justice Jackson said she would have declined to reach the standing issue in the context of the emergency relief because the issue is pending in the lower court and there's no urgency or irreparable harm. So this is effectively 6 to 3. Now, what does it mean, standing? Let me do a breakout TED Talk law school legal. I have class on standing. Fundamentally, there are things that a court has to look at, both trial court and appellate court before it makes its ruling or decides. It can even make a ruling, and the case can even survive. We talk about it in terms of jurisdiction, personal jurisdiction, subject matter jurisdiction. We talk about it in terms of venue, the location for the case and we talk about it in terms of standing. The court goes through a checklist early on in a case to determine that it has standing. The plaintiffs and the plaintiff has standing. In other words, has a cognizable injury unique from others, ensuring that this is a live case or controversy in the standing world. Now, when, if there's no standing, then procedurally the party is barred from the courthouse. And even if they're their case is very, very interesting and very, very important. They're the wrong parties to bring the case. It's a exit ramp for courts. When they want to punt and get rid of a case, frankly, they'll say, oh no standing. I don't find the injury happens all the time. Now, as I said, the labor unions representing the federated, the federal workers fired have standing, but the not for profits may not because they may not have a unique injury separate apart from for the general population, jurisdiction is important. Personal jurisdiction means the court has jurisdiction over the person. Usually that means they did something good. I'm sorry, they did something bad in the state, they entered a contract in the state, or they live in the state. Subject matter jurisdiction is similar to standing. The court has power to adjudicate. This dispute doesn't belong in arbitration. It belongs in this court at this time. Venue is in this location. Courts go through that checklist here. The court in the Supreme Court said, I don't know why we're all excited about Judge Alsop's order and is finding that the Trump administration committed a lie to him when he shouldn't even have heard the case. There's no standing. So now, even though that's not the actual ruling from below from the appellate court and they're going to let the appellate court look at standing and let the parties fight out about standing. Their first look under the hood is no standing, no case, no stay. Go fight it out in appellate court. Maybe you'll come back to us at another time. Ridiculous. The weather, it's heating up and your nighttime bedroom temperature has a huge impact on your sleep quality. 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He looked at federal laws about when you can reduce your labor force. It's called a rif, a reduction in force. So he used reduction in force analysis to reach his same conclusion. That and he just expanded it to 19 different states and about 10 different agencies. About 20,000 different probationary workers all have to be rehired because the states were not given proper notice before these people were dumped down to the unemployment lines. And that's a RIF violation. So that order is still there. Now what's my prediction? My prediction is based on this. I think that the labor unions that brought the case in front of Judge Berdar are going to get over the standing hurdle and we're not going to see this particular type of order against Judge Bredar's overlapping order of rehire. Okay, so it's a little bit weird now when you have multiple judges ruling on the same matter with overlapping remedies. What do you do? So Alsop has been blocked, but Berdar's preliminary injunction as of right now hasn't. I'm not sure it will be. But the way this MAGA court is working in the last few days, if they don't find standing as the reason to get rid of it and help Donald Trump, they'll come up with some other excuse. Now, I said at the top of the hot take, this is the third win in about a week. About a week, week and a half ago, we reported on a 5 to 4 decision in which Roberts slid over in the dissent. But Amy Coney Barrett joined the majority MAGA right wing to allow Donald Trump to cut off school funding, teacher grants for inner city schools because he doesn't like the color of their party, of their students, of their teachers. You see where this is going. But to the Supreme Court was like, well, the administrative, the executive branch, this is executive branch. This is their funding. They can cut it off in the middle of a school year regardless of what happens to children and teachers. And Amy Coney Barrett sided with it. I had a hot take where I said, I think that was a makeup or a make good for Amy Coney Barrett because she had gotten so attacked by Maga, violently attacked by Maga, when she sided with Justice Roberts 5 to 4 to make the Trump administration pay $2 billion that he didn't want to pay for U.S. humanitarian aid. I think this was a makeup now that in that one, five to four she joins in the majority. Then we had last night the Alien Enemies act and Donald Trump getting rewarded for putting people on a plane without notice, with hoods over their heads and without due process and shipping them off to rot in an El Salvador in jail. And the Supreme Court found a way to put blinders on on the MAGA majority with a cowardly unsigned opinion. Five to four with now, yeah, five to four with Amy Coney Barrett now joining the liberals and them saying, yeah, due process in the future by rid of habeas corpus, individual applications in front of individual judges. Yeah, we're okay with that. But we're not going to make a declaration that he didn't properly exercise Trump the war powers or declare war against a phony war against Venezuela. And we don't like it all being in D.C. it should be where they're in prison. And they totally ignore the 250 people now in El Salvador who apparently have no due process rights. Because last I looked, there is no federal prison or, sorry, federal court in El Salvador. I mean a federal prison either. So, so that's where. That's three. And oh, for Trump now at the United States Supreme Court, which is his wet dream, it's what they wanted. They wanted to get through the gauntlet of these moderate and democratic appointed federal judges up and down The East Coast, D.C. maryland, California, Washington, Oregon and all that. And just get to the Supreme Court and keep firing away. Shot on goal, shot on goal, shot on goal. The fire at the Supreme Court and hope they can get either. Remember, in order for them to win, they just have to bat 500. They already have a solid block of four. Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Alito and Thomas every time. But you got to count to five so they only have to bat 500. Between Amy Coney Barrett and Roberts, they need one of the two. In order for us to win, in order for moderates, for free thinking people, for people who believe in democracy and the rule of law, we got about a thousand. We need Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett to join Jackson, Kagan and Sotomayor to form a five person block. And it's these five, four decisions that are so important to our democracy and rule of law. And right now, unfortunately, democracy is on the losing end. Three and it is over. Three in the last week and a half. I'm Michael Popak come back here for the reporting for the what happens next including the Judge Berdar's similar ruling in Maryland. Only one place I know of, well, two places, Midas Touch on the YouTube dial and it's legal AF legal AF MTN for Midas Dutch network. It's a. We're up to 520,000 in about six months of subscriber base. I curate the channel there. We got some amazing content contributors over there. Dave Aronberg, Court Accountability Action, Chan Wu, Deena Dahl and me. All together we got about a dozen different people all there on the Midas Touch Network and Legal af. So until my next reporting, I'm Michael Popak in collaboration with the Midas Touch Network we just launched the Legal AF YouTube channel. Help us build this pro democracy channel where I'll be curating the top stories the intersection of law and politics. Go to YouTube now and and free subscribe at Legal AFMTN. That's at Legal AFMTN.