Gorsuch’s Shameful Silence 

Hello it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕️

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court ruled that an anti-trans health care law out of Tennessee does not qualify as sex discrimination, thus doesn’t trigger heightened legal scrutiny. 

The decision, United States v. Skrmetti, is poorly reasoned, transparently reverse engineered to get the conservatives to the result they want. Perhaps the most difficult task for Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Neil Gorsuch was to find a way out of the conclusion they’d drawn in Bostock five years earlier: That discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation counts as sex-based discrimination, banned by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. 

At least Roberts strained himself to produce Wednesday’s nonsensical slop that somehow didn’t extend that black-and-white conclusion to Equal Protection cases. Gorsuch, the only justice who didn’t speak during oral arguments, quietly cosigned Roberts’ conclusion. The wrist slap from the right after Bostock must have really stung. 

In the end, the Skrmetti decision isn’t surprising; what is is that just five years ago, Roberts and Gorsuch still possessed the independence and the spine to break with their party’s orthodoxy. 

— Kate Riga

Here’s what else TPM has on tap this weekend:

• While Trump attempts to keep everyone in the dark on whether he wants to launch the U.S. into war with Iran, a look at congressional efforts to take back its war making power.
• Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has been kicked out of Senate Republican talks around the reconciliation package for being too annoying to his colleagues, a specialty of his.
• A look at House Republicans’ latest messaging gimmick on the protests in Los Angeles.

Just A Little Bit Of Power? Please?

The President has a way of turning everything into a game show. Look at the decision over whether to join Israel’s war with Iran: will he or won’t he? Trump likes to leave everyone guessing.

It’s partly a feature of personality systems. Before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, there was a similar guessing game over whether Putin was bluffing or if he truly intended to invade. We now know the answer, but it’s a feature of a system in which one person gets to make world-altering decisions.

There is an effort in Congress to at least try to fix this. We’re all so accustomed to the President being able to invoke old AUMFs for military force that we forget how contrary that power is to Congress’ constitutional role as the branch with the power to declare war. But a resolution introduced by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) aims to change that. It has a companion in the House, introduced by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA). It’s unclear if other House Republicans will sign onto the measure, though it is unlikely. Republicans in this Congress have gone out of their way to cede chunk of their authority to the executive branch.

The resolution would assert Congress’ power over any potential strike on Iran. The White House would have to get congressional approval — meaning a lengthy debate — before attacking. Kaine proposed a similar resolution in 2020. That one passed both chambers of Congress. And yet Trump, for all his canny posturing and media narratives proclaiming him a dove, didn’t brook that kind of encroachment on his power: in May 2020, he vetoed it.

— Josh Kovensky

The Thorne In Thune’s Side

Senate GOP leadership has sidelined Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) from the “big, beautiful” reconciliation bill negotiations, Politico reported.

The move is very much out of the norm as Paul is the chair of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and chairs often are involved in high level negotiations with the White House regarding their portions of budget bills.

Paul finds himself in the position he is in after breaking with Trump over border security funding. He has also been loud in opposing the reconciliation package overall as it is projected to increase the national debt too much for his liking, making it clear to Senate GOP leadership and Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) he isn’t planning to vote in favor of the  megabill.

Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is now leading the negotiations around how Republicans will distribute the billions of dollars for Trump’s border wall and related infrastructure in the budget. With every other committee chair helping manage negotiations for their panels’ portions of the text, Paul’s position is a clear demotion.

“Senator Paul usually votes ‘no’ and blames everybody else for not being pure enough,” Graham told Politico. “As chairman, you … don’t have that luxury sometimes. You have to do things as chairman you wouldn’t have to do as a rank-and-file member.”

— Emine Yücel

House GOP Moves To Condemn ‘Riots’ Trump Stoked

House Republicans led by Rep. Young Kim (R-CA) are putting forward a resolution that would condemn the supposed “riots” in Los Angeles a few weeks after the Trump administration clamped down on primarily peaceful protests in the city by federalizing the state’s National Guard. There were some clashes between civilians and ICE agents leading up to Trump’s decision to deploy the military to crack down on protesters, including some instances of protesters trying to block ICE from carrying out raids. Trump’s sweeping mass deportation agenda has resulted in ICE arresting and detaining non-violent undocumented immigrants and immigrants with legal status alike.

The House Rules Committee will consider the resolution — which is mostly seen as a messaging gimmick — on Monday to tee up consideration on the House floor. On top of condemning the protests in LA, it also thanks law enforcement and ICE for “keeping our communities safe in the face of danger.”

It is unclear who exactly is perpetuating said danger.

— Nicole Lafond