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Clock Ticks on Obama Administration Appeal of Ruling in Immigration Case

http://www.texaslawyer.com/id=120274...migration-Case
I hope the intentional stall by the 5th circuit comes back and bites them in the ass and the Supreme Court decides to expedite this.

Quote:

One member of a three-judge panel issued a strongly worded dissent and criticized the majority for moving slowly when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld a district court's halting of the Obama administration's plans to implement new immigration rules.
"I have a firm and definite conviction that a mistake has been made. That mistake has been exacerbated by the extended delay that has occurred in deciding this 'expedited' appeal. There is no justification for that delay," Fifth Circuit Judge Carolyn King wrote in her dissent to the majority opinion drafted by Fifth Circuit Judge Jerry E. Smith, who was joined by Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod.
Why would a dissenting judge so starkly scold her peers in the majority as pokey? Perhaps because the clock is ticking for the Obama administration to appeal the Fifth Circuit ruling, as it announced Nov. 10 that it would do, to prevail at the U.S. Supreme Court and finally implement its proposed new rules. All that assume that the nation's high court gives the administration the go-ahead before the president leaves office in January 2017.
"It certainly is late in the year but not impossibly late," said Nina Perales, the vice president of litigation for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) in San Antonio, who represents amicus filers in the litigation.
"If it all happens expeditiously, the case could be heard," said Melissa Crow, the legal director for the American Immigration Council, who represents other amici in the litigation, who also sided with the Obama administration.
The immigration case first reached the Fifth Circuit in late February, after U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, who sits in Brownsville, agreed with Texas and 25 other states that sued the federal government. On the basis of the states' allegations that the proposed new immigration rules would unfairly impose burdensome cost on them, Hanen imposed a temporary ban stopping the Obama administration from implementing the changes that would allow work permits and stop deportations of more than 4 million immigrants.
The Obama administration sought a stay of Hanen's ruling. The Fifth Circuit took until late spring to refuse to issue a stay. Then, when the Obama administration appealed the Hanen injunction, arguing that it lacked merit, the Fifth Circuit took until this week to issue its ruling upholding the district judge's ban.
If the Obama administration appeals the Fifth Circuit's most recent ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court and its justices overturn it, that outcome could happen too late for the president to put the new policies into effect. Such a risk exists for the Obama administration, considering the typical months that elapse before the high court considers in a conference a petition for writ of certiorari, schedules and hears oral arguments, and issues an opinion.
In the Fifth Circuit majority opinion, Smith agreed with Texas that the state and its 25 other co-plaintiff states could argue that they were harmed by the costs of the proposed immigration rules, based on such possible increased expenditure as issuing driver's licenses to those allowed to stay and receive documentation.
In trying to implement the new rules, the Obama administration stepped over congressional authority, Smith wrote, stating: "Congress did not intend to make immune from judicial review an agency action that reclassifies millions of illegal aliens in a way that imposes substantial costs on states."
In her dissent, however, King argued that the states had no standing.
"The majority's breathtaking expansion of state standing would inject the courts into far more federal-state disputes and review of the political branches than is now the case," she wrote.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose office represents the plaintiff states, welcomed the Fifth Circuit ruling.
"Today, the Fifth Circuit asserted that the separation of powers remains the law of the land, and the president must follow the rule of law, just like everybody else. Throughout this process, the Obama administration has aggressively disregarded the constitutional limits on executive power, and Texas, leading a charge of 26 states, has secured an important victory to put a halt to the president's lawlessness," he said in a written statement.
But Crow and Perales expressed their hopes that U.S. Department of Justice lawyers, representing the Obama administration, have already put the key in the ignition to get their appeal before the Supreme Court.
Recent precedents show that the high court has moved quickly in litigation of such national importance, Perales said. In redistricting litigation in 2011, in which Texas was a defendant, the state appealed a three-judge ruling to the Supreme Court around Thanksgiving, and the high court decided the case by March of 2012, she said.
"So yes, a case can move quickly, yes, in recent history, and yes, in a case from Texas," Perales said.
Crow said: "We hope that the DOJ will do it very quickly. They have 90 days to file a cert petition, but it wouldn't be wise for them to take that long." Texas and the other states then would have 30 days to supply their response, unless the high court grants an extension, which she would hope they would not do, Crow said.
Maybe that message about no extensions was the one King hoped to deliver when she included the last sentence in her dissent scolding her peers for moving slowly.
"We loved her opinion," Crow said.