Washington, DC – On news today that the U.S. Department of Justice filed a petition for rehearing at the U.S. Supreme Court in U.S. v. Texas, after the shorthanded Court issued a deadlocked non-decision in June that left intact a national injunction against President Obama’s immigration actions by a single U.S. District Court judge, Constitutional Accountability Center president Elizabeth Wydra released the following reaction:

“The Justice Department made exactly the right move today. By filing a petition for rehearing, the government is giving the Court the option of retaining the case so that the Justices can, if they wish, address this profoundly important issue as soon as it has nine Members again. Filing such a petition is unusual,” Wydra continued, “but we are in unusual times. Because we have a short-staffed Court unable to issue a decision on the DAPA program, a regional lower court has been able to put unprecedented constraints on the executive and stop a federal policy nationwide, affecting millions of American families. This petition highlights why the Senate leadership needs to stop its hyper-partisan gamesmanship and consider the President’s Supreme Court nominee, so the Court can fulfill its constitutional role of declaring what the law is.” 

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Resources:

CAC “friend of the court” brief in U.S. v. Texas: http://theusconstitution.org/cases/united-states-v-texas-us-sup-ct

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Constitutional Accountability Center (www.theusconstitution.org) is a think tank, public interest law firm, and action center dedicated to fulfilling the progressive promise of the Constitution’s text and history.

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