The day before U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson was to rule on Hawaii’s lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s travel ban for six Muslim countries, I got an email from an attorney with whom I’ve communicated for years and whose acumen I respect.
He predicted Hawaii Attorney General Doug Chin’s case would “go down in flames” and wasted resources.
He said he knew Watson and described him as “a guy of great integrity and I cannot see him caving to the political pressure for what should be a (Trump administration) slam dunk victory.”
After Watson granted a temporary injunction, ruling Trump’s order was a Muslim ban that unconstitutionally targeted one religion, I received another email from the lawyer grousing that the judge’s opinion read like a speech by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
He added, “It is another step towards destroying the faith that people have in our government institutions, including an independent judiciary. Any veteran attorney can tell you that this is not a close case. When the people view judges as complete political hacks, we are in big trouble.”
I thought, whoa, what undermines faith in the independent judiciary faster than a lawyer changing his view of a judge from a “guy of great integrity” to a “political hack” based on a preliminary ruling in one case?
Watson’s decision wasn’t off-the-cuff. He wrote a thoughtful 43-page opinion that hung the president on his own words, ruling Trump can’t call it a Muslim ban on the campaign trail and ask his friend Rudy Giuliani to write him a Muslim ban that will stand up in court — and then claim it’s not a Muslim ban. A Maryland judge shortly after came to essentially the same conclusion.
I had my own doubts about Hawaii jumping in first instead of deferring to states such as Washington that had success against Trump’s original travel ban, but the initial favorable ruling gives the state’s move some validation.
The important point is that this is but the first step in a long road that could go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and if we want to inspire confidence in our democracy, we should let the process play out before making angry snap judgments.
Most intent on delegitimizing our institutions for political reasons is the president.
In the course of accusing Watson of “unprecedented judicial overreach” in a seven-minute rant at a Tennessee rally, Trump elicited boos about Hawaii, maligned the 9th Circuit Court, called news media “the most dishonest people in the world” and took a gratuitous swipe at election opponent Hillary Clinton, encouraging chants of “Lock her up!”
This undermines faith in American values far more than a district judge in Hawaii who gave, right or wrong, his honest interpretation of the law.
Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.
