The Justice Department filed a lawsuit in federal court this week to block Texas’s new pro-life law, which bans abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected. The suit is purely political, since the Supreme Court already held that the law cannot be struck down until it has been enforced, and Attorney General Merrick Garland is to blame.
Garland knows just as well as anyone that the Supreme Court’s ruling was, legally, the right one. The defendants who opposed Texas’s law did not have standing to sue because the law, which empowers private individuals rather than state officials to enforce the ban, had not been enforced against them. Until a plaintiff emerges to enforce the law, there is simply no case against it.
But the Biden administration, eager as ever to please abortion advocates, is trying to launch another legal effort against the law even though it will inevitably fail just as the first one did. The DOJ claimed in its suit that it has a federal interest because the Texas statute “conflicts with federal law by purporting to prohibit federal agencies from carrying out their responsibilities under federal law related to abortion services.” But this makes no sense. The federal government is not responsible for abortion services at all. In fact, it is explicitly banned from funding anything related to abortion by the Hyde Amendment. So, unless the federal government is now providing and/or funding abortive services, how is it affected by an abortion ban that does not involve a single government official?
Again, Garland knows better. He knows the Biden administration doesn’t have legal standing, and he knows the only way to overturn the Texas law is to wait until someone tries to enforce it so a defendant can then claim that it is unconstitutional. But he’s helping the Biden administration orchestrate this political stunt anyway.
If this had been the Trump administration and former Attorney General Bill Barr were still in charge of the DOJ, it’s easy to assume what the headlines would have been. He would have been called a “ruthless, relentless political hack and thug” and a “danger to democracy.” Indeed, he was called that and much more for doing far less than what Garland is trying to do right now. Apparently, DOJ politicking is only acceptable when it’s the right kind.
