Latest / Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott / Zack Smith of Heritage Foundation Breakds Down The SCOTUS Spring 2024 Rulings

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Zack Smith of Heritage Foundation Breakds Down The SCOTUS Spring 2024 Rulings · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

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All right, five minutes after the hour, and so we begin the third
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hour of the Morning Show with Brustin Scott. Great to be with you this
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morning. We have had Zach Smith on the show several times over the years.
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He's a friend of the program with the Heritage Foundation. He follows the
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Supreme Court, he understands the mechanism of it, and joins us this morning,
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how are you, Zach, I'm doing well. Thanks for having me
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on the show. Always good to hear your voice and get your insights on
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some things. Let's start with this. If I were to ask you,
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what are the most consequential rulings that the Supreme Court made from the spring session,
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understanding that the ruling started rolling out of you know, several weeks ago,
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not just in June. What's on your list of the things that are
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the most important and impactful. Yeah, well, I think one that's blown
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a little bit under the radar given all of the other high profile cases is
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involving kind of an arcane legal doctrine known as Chevron deference. Now, the
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Court recently overruled this difference in two cases called the Loper Bright and Relentless cases
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that involved what sound like a boring issue involving fisheries whether they had to pay
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for monitors on their boats to monitor their catches. Right. But this,
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this Loper Bright case is so important because essentially what the court did is they
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said that instead of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats deciding what the law says, what
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their own power should be, that the courts now are going to decide that
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without giving deference to what those bureaucrats think. And given the vast scope of
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the administrative state, the way it impacts all of our lives on the day
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to day basis in ways we don't even realize. This is a major win
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for the rule of law, and we'll have a significant impact on our lives
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going forward. I've seen some people offer a little analysis that this court has
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limited the scope of government. And while I can see that in some rulings,
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I look at the rulings on social media and I scratch my head and
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I wonder if they really have. Well, it'll be interesting to see you
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today. We expect two more big First Amendment social media cases. The net
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Choice cases went out of Texas went out of Florida as well, where essentially
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the court will answer the question whether states can treat these big tech companies like
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common carriers, require them to carry content, or at least provide reasons for
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why they choose to deplatform certain individuals. And so we'll see a further development
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on that front later today at ten am Eastern. Were you surprised the court
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did not find the federal government was crossing the line when it comes to impacting
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what social media was in fact censoring. Yeah, so that is the Murphy
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versus Missouri case, As your listeners may recall, that's the case where the
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Biden administration essentially coerced big tech companies social media companies to sensor speech that the
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Biden administration disagreed with, and the court unfortunately didn't reach the merits of that
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case. They didn't decide the actual legal question whether the Biden administration had crossed
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the line and inappropriately forced these social media companies to sensor speech they disagreed with
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the court, and set essentially said that the people, the States, and
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the individuals challenging these policies weren't the right parties to do so legally. They
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didn't have something known as standing and so we'll have to wait and see whether
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someone else will bring a similar challenge, whether the Court will find someone else
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has standing. But what's interesting about that is that some thing, some like
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Justice Clarence Thomas, He's written about this before in the past, some are
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worried that the Court will use this standing doctrine to kick cases they simply don't
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want to reach on the merits and can avoid reaching some very difficult, yet
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very important questions that they do need to reach and that they do need to
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resolve. The morning, Joe at Preston Scott go ahead, Make My Day
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on news radio one hundred point seven WUFLA eleven minutes past the hour of Zach
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Smith with us from the Heritage Foundation. We're talking about the constitutional rulings,
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the veracity of them as it relates to the Supreme Court. We'd love to
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think that the Supreme Court is always going to go back to an originalist view
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of it. And I've kind of broken it down. I don't like the
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mainstream media's view of ACT of maybe conservative and liberal justices act. I've always
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preferred the view originalist and activist. But I want to circle back to this
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idea of standing. I've been struggling with this because and this sounds really stupid,
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and that's why you're on here to help say you're an idiot and correct
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me. But I liken this whole standing notion to let's say I pull a
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firearm and pointed at somebody. It's almost as saying I have to pull the
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trigger and hurt somebody before they have standing. I really am struggling with this
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notion that we're seeing used more and more that we don't have standing because we
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don't have a victim yet, and the victim's not in front of the court.
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Why is that? Why can't we just determine whether the law is constitutional
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or not. Well, Look, standing is rooted in the separation of powers.
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It's a constitutional requirement because Article three at the Constitution says that federal courts
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can only hear cases and controversies, and so as that's been interpreted, it
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means that there has to be an injured party. The problem I think you're
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alluding to, Preston, is the fact that starting really in the nineteen sixties
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and the nineteen seventies, the court diluted what it meant to have an injury.
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And the concern, again by Justice Thomas and others, is that it
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seems like the Court has been more willing to bend that standing doctrine reach cases
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on the merits when they involve cases favored by the left leading components of our
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society, typically environmental type cases. And yet they stringently apply those standing requirements
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when the cases seem to be favored by those on the right or conservative causes
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are being brought before the Court. And so I think what needs to happen
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is that the Court needs to reevaluate, readdress its standing doctrine and make sure
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that it's applying it equally across the board instead of essentially trying to gain the
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system to get rid of cases that they just don't want to hear on the
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merriage. So how does that happen? I mean, do they they can't
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just sit down and talk about it over dinner. Right? Do they have
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to have a course a case that challenges the very issue of standing. Yeah,
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they may have to do that, and I think Justice Thomas again has
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explicitly caught for the Court to do that. And again there's some very bad
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case flak in the sixties and seventies on the standing front. The Court would
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likely need to reevaluate and probably overturn as a result of that. But I
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think the fact that we're having this conversation at all right now, Preston,
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is a good sign that people are recognizing this is a problem and that it
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may be time for the Court to reevaluate it. I'm also curious your take
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on let's use Joe Biden's decision to thumb his nose at the ruling by the
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Supreme Court on student loans and that he did not have the authority to do
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that. I mean, Nancy Pelosi said it on the front end, but
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yet he goes around and continues to try to find ways. Is that ruling
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so narrow that it doesn't just say, look, Joe, you cannot do
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this, so stop it. Well, you know, he recently tried to
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do the same thing again, just using a slightly different statutory provision. Lower
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federal courts did enjoin. That's say you have to stop that. It's unconstitutional.
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Unfortunately, it looks like that case may be making its way back to
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the Supreme Court again as the Biden administration continues to defend its policy. But
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look, if one of these student loan following cases makes his way back to
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the Supreme Court, it seems like it'd be very difficult for the Biden administration
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to prevail. But I think again you hit the nail on the head and
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are highlighting a more fundamental problem in that the Biden administration in the student loan
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area, in other areas as well, essentially has said we're gonna take these
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actions we know are illegal, We're going to do it for political purposes,
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and then you know, cast up our hands in frustration when the courts strike
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it down, even though we know they have an obligation to do so.
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And so I think that's important for everyone to keep in mind that the Biden
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administration is take actions they know they don't have the power to do. In
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less than a minute, what was the ruling that surprised you the most this
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term, Well, there was a very interesting rule involving the funding of the
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Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. And what was interesting about that decision is you had
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two very conservative, two very originalist, constitutionally solid justices, Justice Thomas and
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Justice Samuel Alito on opposite sides of that decision. And so I just think
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it goes to show and push back against the narrative from many on the left
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that all of the conservative justices think alike, they're always going to reach the
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same result because of that case and the others. This term show that's just
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not the case. Back with Zach Smith from the Heritage Foundation, and when
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it comes to the Supreme Court in the law and the Constitution, he's smarter
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than us. Let's just go there, settle it with that statement, Zach.
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We've talked about a lot of consequential rulings. There was another ruling,
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Fisher, that you wanted to touch on before we get to some other things.
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Yeah, that's right. It's Fisher versus the United States. This was
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a case involving January sixth defendant. He was challenging one of the statutes that
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has been used to prosecute many of the January sixth defendants. It also is
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involved in some of the charges against President Donald Trump as well. And essentially,
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what mister Fisher said is that the Justice Department interpreted this statute too broadly.
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It was originally passed in the wake of the inrun scandal. It was
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essentially designed to prohibit someone from intimidating or coercing others, or helping others to
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hide evidence or shred documents and that type of thing. And yet this is
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the statute that the Justice Department charged many of the January sixth defendants with violating
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and so what mister Fisher said, he said that was a wrong interpretation of
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that statute, and the Supreme Court ultimately agreed with him. And so as
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a result, the convictions of many January sixth defendants under this statute will likely
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be revisited. And again it's likely that several of the charges against President Donald
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Trump will also have to be dismissed as a result. Speaking of President Trump,
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they are expecting more rulings to come out today highlight what we think will
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happen today. Yeah, we're going to give the ruling today on the Trump
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Community case. You may remember President Donald Trump is facing four criminal prosecutions.
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The state prosecution in New York City by Alvin Bragg, the prosecution in Fulton
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County, Atlanta, Georgia by Fanny Willis, and then the two federal prosecutions
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being brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith, one in Florida related to the classified
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documents of documents Marcus Classified of mar A Lago, and then the case out
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of Washington, DC involving what happened in the wake of the twenty twenty election.
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And so this immunity case that the Supreme Court is hearing is out of
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the Washington DC case, and essentially what President is saying, he's asking the
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court to extend presidential immunity, to say that presidents are immune for being prosecuted
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for actions they took in their official capacity while in office. And look,
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regardless of what the Court decides in this case, this is going to be
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a very consequential pace for presidents of both parties going forward and will likely be
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one of the key cases that's talked about in law schools in terms of presidential
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power presidential immunity for many many years to come. Does that potentially extend the
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vice presidential immunity ie Joe Biden when he was vice president to Barack Obama.
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It could. It's a tougher cell to make because many have adopted what's known
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as the unitary theory of executive power in the United States, essentially meaning that
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all executive power flows from the president. And so for instance, one of
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the things when we talk about classified documents, Donald Trump as president, he
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had the power to declassify documents in his possession while he was president. Joe
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Biden, who took home classified documents from his time as a senator, from
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his time as vice president, didn't have that power, And so they are
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two factually and legally distinct claims. When we talk about each of those classified
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documents cases and issues, does it matter that we've learned that, for example,
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all of the documents in possession of presidents are also kept on a server
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that they have a constant record of everything anyway, So it wasn't like he
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was he had the only copy of documents either of them. Yeah, that's
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right. And look also, like I said, he had the ability to
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declassify those documents while he was a president. You know, I think it's
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also important to emphasize president. When we talk about presidents being immune from criminal
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prosecution, I think it's important to emphasize that doesn't mean that presidents can't be
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held accountable for their actions while in office. They can still be impeached.
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We saw it with Donald we saw it with you know, other presidents in
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the past as well. They can still the Congress still controls the power of
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the purse. They can try to influence the executive branch in that manner,
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and there are other mechanisms to hold presidents accountable as well. But you know,
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many of the left wants you to think that if Donald Trump our other
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presidents get immunity, it essentially means they can do whatever they want, whenever
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they want, however they want, and that is just not the case at
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all. Last question, weigh in with whatever you like on this. Can
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Joe Biden be replaced before the election. It'd be very, very difficult.
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You know, it's interesting, we've seen some talk about this. The mechanism
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for making that happen would be different depending on whether it happens before the convention
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or after the convention. It could also matter whether Joe Biden simply chooses to
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step aside or whether he would unfortunately pass away or something like that, which
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of course no one wants, but it would be very different scenario. But
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look, the bottom line is that at this point in the cycle, it
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would be very difficult to replace Joe Biden and would take some significant legal maneuvering
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on the part of the DNC and other democratic entities to make that happen.
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Zach has always I appreciate you carbon out time for us when we have some
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questions we can't possibly get our brain around, and appreciate it very much.
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Of course, thanks for having me on. Zach Smith with US Heritage Foundation
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legal scholar expert on the Supreme Court. That's what he does. He studies.
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I mean. I asked him off air about the Florida State Supreme Court
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and he's a Floridian, so he lives in the state. He had some
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interesting comments on that, but he said the bulk of his focus is on
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the United States Supreme Court, and so we'll see if standing, he said,
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standing is becoming a bigger and bigger issue as well. It should be