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Law in the Twilight Zone
Will There Be a Citizenship Question on the Census?
Those of us burdened with a law degree are having to speak — or not — about the citizenship question on the Census form. Non-lawyers ask, logically enough, what happens if President Trump continues to defy the Supreme Court? While there is no harm in speculating, anybody who claims to know should turn in their law license. For the record, my law license is already inactive as a result of my cancer diagnosis, so don’t bother to suggest to the State Bar of Texas that I should be disciplined for my opinions (something that has happened in the past to no result).
Can a POTUS Trump (pun intended) a SCOTUS opinion with an executive order? Of course not, but that’s unlikely to be raised as a clean issue.
Does it matter that the Chief Justice wrote an incoherent opinion? Of course not. That happens all the time. At least a third of federal Indian law opinions cannot stand up to a close reading for logic. They are still the law, and the folks who labor in the trenches must do the best they can to obey.
As a former judge, I think of “the folks who labor in the trenches” as people like myself: lower court judges and the lawyers who practice in front of them. Should Mr. Trump maintain his current course, we will be talking about a different set of folks who are not used to parsing…
