John Yoo quoted by Las Vegas Review-Journal, Feb. 9, 2017
“They should have lost. The order was done badly,” University of California at Berkeley law professor and former Bush attorney John C. Yoo agreed. “The government badly defended it in court by claiming the 9th Circuit couldn’t even review the executive order.” Yoo called the ruling “a rebuke.”
John Yoo quoted by Los Angeles Times, Feb. 9, 2017
The inclusion of green-card holders in the travel ban doomed it legally, Yoo said, and the Supreme Court rarely agrees to hear such emergency appeals in any case.
Dan Farber writes for The Hill, Feb. 9, 2017
The regulatory process is very elaborate, and adopting a new regulation is a very expensive, time-consuming process. This executive order effectively triples the costs, because agencies not only have to enact new regulations, but also go through equally complex proceedings to eliminate two old ones. Basically, agencies will be able to propose about a third as many new rules as before.
William Fernholz writes for The Hill, Feb. 9, 2017
The Ninth Circuit, the appeals court for the western United States, the temporary restraining order (TRO), which prevents the government from implementing President Trump’s immigration executive order. It was a short trip to the Ninth Circuit, and the lawyers for the government leave it bruised, though not beaten.
John Yoo quoted by Los Angeles Times, Feb. 9, 2017
Yoo said the 9th Circuit ruling was on less solid ground on other issues: whether the states had standing to sue and whether visa holders had a right to a hearing before their visas were canceled. The administration lost because “it rushed out this order in an ill-considered and haphazard way,” the conservative legal scholar said. A “more cautious, more modest” executive order would have survived legal scrutiny, he said.
John Yoo quoted by Los Angeles Times, Feb. 8, 2017
“Someone has to tell the president that what he is doing is illegal or unconstitutional, even when Trump’s instincts and his political advisors are pushing for it. Sessions is the only person in the administration now who can do that, tell the president no. We will have to see how that plays out.”
Anne Joseph O’Connell quoted by Fox News, Feb. 8, 2017
“Deputy secretaries are more important than Cabinet-level positions and they take a long time to fill,” said UC Berkeley Law Professor Anne Joseph O’Connell, who tracks presidential appointees. “You can have a secretary without government experience, but if they are paired with a deputy who understands laws that apply to government and not corporations, it works well—It’s a counter-balancing of expertise.”
Michael Kiparsky co-writes for The Sacramento Bee, Feb. 8, 2017
Few people realize how outdated our systems for water information are. Because of data limitations, real-time, transparent decisions about drought management, flood response and groundwater protection have eluded the state for the past century. Without basic numbers on where, when and how much water is available and being used, we can’t improve how we manage our most precious water and natural resources.
Ethan Elkind quoted by Greenwire, Feb. 8, 2017
California can exert influence over the next four years, said Ethan Elkind. … The state through its programs invests in renewable technologies, helping push down costs. And as California adopts climate rules and sees a healthy economy, he said, “that creates a powerful example for the rest of the world to follow.”
John Yoo, Jesse Choper and Dan Farber quoted by The Daily Californian, Feb. 8. 2017
Yoo said Gorsuch’s past stances on religious liberty, such as in the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. case in 2014, are most likely the reason he was considered for the nomination.
“Yes, (Gorsuch) is qualified, perhaps better than any other nomination (Trump) has made to cabinet seats,” Choper said.
Gorsuch is someone who is open-minded and does not have a knee-jerk response, Farber said. He added he believes Gorsuch’s past opinions on the 10th Circuit have had a more “humane” tone than Scalia’s.