At high court and others, Trump reverses legal course
WASHINGTON — Backing employers over employees. Backing the state of Ohio over groups involved in voter registration. Backing a narrow reading of a sexual discrimination law over a broad one.
Those are just some of the legal about-faces President Donald Trump’s administration is making at the Supreme Court and in lower courts.
The Trump administration has found itself in court defending a variety of new policies: the president’s travel ban, the phasing out of a program protecting young immigrants, and the revisiting of a policy that had allowed transgender individuals to serve openly in the military. But it’s also dealing with lawsuits that were in progress before the president took office — and asserting positions different from those of the Obama administration.
The Office of the Solicitor General, the Justice Department office that represents the federal government at the Supreme Court and determines what position it will take in federal appeals court cases, does some position switching every time the White House changes parties. But the office prizes its reputation as largely nonpartisan and switches positions with “a great deal of trepidation,” said Gregory Garre, who served as solicitor general under George W. Bush.