The Latest /
Lower Federal Courts

PFAW's "Confirmed Judges, Confirmed Fears" Highlights March Rulings

Lady Justice
Press Release
Contact:
Laurie Kinney
People For the American Way
Email:
[email protected]
Phone number:
202.467.2307

Washington, D.C.— People For the American Way's "Confirmed Judges, Confirmed Fears” blog series covers troubling votes and decisions by Trump appellate judges.

Even as we and so many others continue to work on promoting a strong, fair, and effective response to the coronavirus crisis, PFAW has also continued our ongoing research and reporting on the troubling votes and decisions by Trump appellate judges and justices, some of which relate directly to the crisis. Linked below are 21 posts from PFAW’s “Confirmed Judges, Confirmed Fears” blog series for March, 2020. Two trends emerge: rulings harming ordinary people in the face of disturbing actions by corporations and government, and dissents supporting troubling actions by President Trump.

  • Led by the deciding vote of a Trump judge to uphold Texas’s ban on abortions, a ban that used Covid-19 as an excuse, March saw seven civil cases where Trump judges ruled in favor of big corporations and governments that are harming individuals. These include appellate rulings dismissing race discrimination claims against government agencies, dismissing a labor-related antitrust claim against two large electronics companies, and in favor of an insurance company against a homeowner, as well as cases concerning immigration and excessive use of force by police.
  • Trump appellate judges also wrote dissents supporting disturbing conduct by President Trump and his administration. These included a dissent in a case rejecting DOJ’s claim that it could withhold from Congress grand jury material gathered as part of the Mueller report, an issue that may go to the Supreme Court, as well as dissents in support of allowing Trump to block critics from his Twitter account and a troubling immigration policy that would have deprived 25,000 immigrants of any ability to seek asylum.

All these cases and more underline the importance of speaking out and fighting against Trump’s judicial nominations and making this a critical issue in this year’s elections. These cases have all been entered in our Confirmed Judges, Confirmed Fears tool, that you can search by issue or by judge.