Obama–The Most Unconstitutional President

The Federal government usually wins 70% of its cases before the Supreme Court basically because the solicitor general is seen as the 10^th justice. The Obama administration has lost over two thirds of its cases (including cases the White House has backed). And while most people feel the Supreme Court is divided, nearly half the cases lost by the Obama administration has come by a unanimous decision (9-0) since 2012. The number of cases the administration has lost 9-0 has increased to 13 this year since 2012. Ilya Somin, a constitutional law professor at George Mason University, said it is striking to take into account the number of times the Obama administration has been on the losing end of unanimous decisions. “When the administration loses significant cases in unanimous decisions and cannot even hold the votes of its own appointees — Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — it is an indication that they adopted such an extreme position on the scope of federal power that even generally sympathetic judges could not even support it,” said Mr. Somin.

Some of the cases this administration has lost 9-0 include: In 2013 the court held that churches have the right to make employment decisions free from government interference over discrimination laws; the court said an Idaho couple could challenge the Environmental Protection Agency over government claims that they could not build a home on private property that was deemed a protected wetland; The nine justices also agreed to clear the way for California raisin growers to challenge the constitutionality of a Depression-era farming law that makes them keep part of their annual crop off the market; The court went against the wishes of the White House in cases that involved affirmative action in Texas, private property rights in Florida and a challenge to the Voting Rights Act of 1965; this year the Court rejected the administration’s power grab on recess appointments by making clear it could not decide when the Senate was in recess; the court also voted 9-0 in an opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts that the right of police to search an arrested suspect at the scene without a warrant does not extend in most circumstances to data held on a cellphone; and finally the court unanimously tossed out a law establishing abortion-clinic “buffer zones” against pro-life protests. Also, in a 2013 case between the U.S. v. Jones, the Justice Department essentially tried to convince the Supreme Court that the Fourth Amendment’s protections against search and seizure should not prevent the government from tracking any American at any time without any reason. According to John Fund “The DOJ vision is one of unchecked federal power on immigration and environmental issues, on presidential prerogatives, and the taking of private property by the government; hostility to First Amendment freedoms that don’t meet the politically correct norms; and disregard of Fourth Amendment protections against warrantless government intrusion. These are positions that should alarm all Americans regardless of their political views, political-party affiliations, or background. It is also important to note that the Supreme Court finally ruled against the Obama Administration’s power grab by the EPA when it comes to carbon emissions in a 5-4 decision. To go further and require permits for all industries, Scalia said, “permitting this law would contradict the principle that Congress, not the president, makes the law, and would undermine the separation of powers that is crucial to our constitutional system of government.”

Obama has won many important cases such as ObamaCare, Prop 8, and DOMA, but in all three cases the Supreme Court discarded the arguments made by the administration. For instance, the Chief Justice called the individual mandate in ObamaCare a tax and voted that the law was constitutional. The court may have decided that it had no standing to review Prop 8 and ruled that DOMA is unconstitutional, but White House arguments were not considered in the decisions. The administration also considered the Arizona Immigration law battle with the Supreme Court as a win, but they lost on the most controversial provision where law enforcement has the right to check for citizenship. So even when the Obama administration is winning big cases, they are actually losing.

Obama was supposed to be the President who pushed for civil liberty rights. But as Obama pushes for increased civil liberty rights for enemy combatants, he has continually sided with civil liberty violations for Americans such as killing American citizens without due process or NSA expansion or targeting conservative groups by the IRS, DOJ, or EPA. Obama wants to have the power of a dictatorship and wants to use that power to punish enemies. And thankfully, the Supreme Court is not backing the Obama power grab and even the liberal justices are making him look foolish.