A new report on rulings from judges at different levels of the judicial branch indicates that the Trump administration receives more favorable rulings from the Supreme Court than it does from district or circuit courts, indicating a “bipartisan fight for the rule of law” at lower courts and more “ideologically driven” outcomes at higher levels.
The report from Court Accountability, an organization that “works to combat corrupt abuse of government power and support movements in advancing a thriving democratic future,” examined hundreds of cases dealing with the Trump administration, including executive orders or actions taken by President Donald Trump himself.
Legal challenges to the administration at the district court level won around 60 percent of the 240 orders judges have issued. That includes their winning 55 percent of the time when Trump-appointed judges were rendering the decisions.
At circuit courts of appeals, there was a similar win rate, with challengers to Trump winning around 59 percent of the time in the 90 orders examined by Court Accountability. However, there were more partisan outcomes: Republican-appointed judges sided with the president in 84 percent of the cases, while Democratic-appointed judges sided with the challengers in 85 percent of the cases.
At the Supreme Court, however, the rate was unquestionably pro-Trump — among the 23 rulings and temporary orders made and examined by Court Accountability relating to the administration’s actions, Trump had a 90 percent win rate.
Most of these wins for the president came from the court’s “shadow docket” slate of opinions — where the court has typically, in the past, only ruled on administrative measures. However, in recent years, the Supreme Court has been making announcements on cases, issuing injunctions or allowances of actions to remain in place, that have the same effect, essentially, as a final decision. Shadow docket rulings are also made without full oral arguments delivered before the justices of the Supreme Court.
Court Accountability’s report suggested that judges at the district court level were engaged in more rigorous examination than judges and justices in higher courts.
“Our findings reveal that the district courts are engaged in a bipartisan fight for the rule of law — but when cases against the administration reach the circuit courts, Republican-appointed judges have largely voted in Trump’s favor, often writing ideologically driven dissents that their MAGA allies on the Roberts Court have then adopted to enable Trump’s autocratic rule,” the report stated.
It added:
On the Roberts Court, Republicans rule. And as the Roberts Court begins its first full term of the second Trump administration, Trump has already amassed a 21-2 record on the so-called “shadow docket” to prevent lower court orders against the administration’s lawlessness from going into effect.
The use of the shadow docket obscured the legal rationale of the rulings, the organization said.
“The justices have left us to guess why they are letting Trump persist in his lawlessness across a wide range of issues from immigration to federal spending, while leaving lower courts without guidance on how to carry out the high court’s unexplained orders,” the report said.
The report calls for reforms to “stop the Supreme Court’s abuse of its outsized power to abase itself before an anti-constitutional executive.”
“In Trump’s second term, it’s clear that the courts Congress created to be closest to our country’s cases and controversies are demonstrating far more respect for the Constitution and the democratic processes it protects than their right-wing appellate overlords sitting on — or auditioning for — the ‘one supreme Court’ ordained by the document that Trump, with their blessing, defies daily,” the organization concluded in its report.
Court Accountability isn’t alone in its criticism of the Supreme Court — polling shows that American voters themselves are not happy with how the court has performed in recent years.
According to a Gallup survey published this month, a majority of respondents, 51 percent, say they have distrust in the high court, maintaining a level of skepticism that arose in 2022, following the controversial and anti-precedential anti-abortion ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health.
A plurality of respondents in that poll, 43 percent, also said the Supreme Court is “too conservative.”
“As the Supreme Court prepares to open its 2025-2026 term, it does so with Americans’ opinions of it near record lows,” Gallup stated in its analysis.
Other polling suggests that trust in the Supreme Court could be restored with judicial reforms, including installing term limits for justices. According to a fall 2024 poll from the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, nearly 7 in 10 U.S. voters (68 percent) backed the idea, with only 17 percent opposed to it.
Term limits for justices were also well-received across political lines, with 79 percent of Democratic-leaning voters and 58 percent of Republican-leaners backing the reform, the survey found.
Establishing a stronger ethics code for justices — including stronger mechanisms for enforcing such a code — could also go a long way toward restoring trust, as some liberal justices of the court have recognized.
“It seems like a good idea in terms of ensuring that we comply with our own code of conduct going forward in the future. It seems like a good idea in terms of ensuring that people have confidence that we’re doing exactly that,” Justice Elena Kagan said in 2024.
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