Last month, the Supreme Court voted 5-4, denied blocking a low-court order that requires nearly $2 billion in funds through USAID. Today, the Supreme Court blocked a lower court order, which demanded about $65 million in funds through the Department of Education, in a 5-4 vote Supreme Court. Can these cases be distinguished? Probably, however, the cases seem quite similar. The cited by Curiam Opinion appears to be equivalent to the USAID case. If anything, administrative agencies need to have more freer hands to spend money on foreign policy, not domestic issues.
In both cases, the only member of the majority court is Judge Amy Connie Barrett. Given this obvious flip-flop, we would expect Judge Jackson’s opponents to call for contradictions. But the opponents hold her fire. This is probably a careful move to avoid alienating Judge Barrett. If I had to guess, this Friday afternoon opinion would be a prelude to Judge Barrett handing over some serious losses to President Trump. Minimum funding for teachers is quickly forgotten.
