Many of Obama’s Rule by Decree Cases Will Go Away

The Cato Institute’s Ilya Shapiro brings some welcome news to conservative Americans.

Although the vacancy left on the Supreme Court by Justice Antonin Scalia’s passing—and judicial nominations more broadly—didn’t play as big a role in the campaign as leaked videos and emails, this issue is now at the forefront of the new administration’s transition plan. Here are some lessons we can take into that political fight:

1. The nomination of Judge Merrick Garland nomination is dead.
2. Senate Republicans’ strategy of not even considering Garland, of letting the American people decide who gets to fill Scalia’s seat, worked.
3. The Swing Justice Anthony Kennedy will almost certainly continue to be the “swing justice” on most controversial issues—all of those on Trump’s list would be considered more conservative—so he may have been the biggest winner last night.
4. It’s Not About Garland
5. Obamacare If you live by executive action, you die by executive action—which means that many looming high-profile cases involving President Obama’s rule-by-decree will simply go away. DAPA (executive action on immigration) and the Clean Power Plan (carbon-emission regulation despite congressional rejection) will be rescinded, religious nonprofits will be exempt from Obamacare, the Department of Health and Human Services won’t make the illegal payments that have led the House of Representatives to sue Secretary Sylvia Burwell, and more. That may also include the transgender-bathroom guidance, which if rescinded would moot the biggest case from the Court’s current term.

Can Trump reverse Obama’s executive orders?