Trump over Newsome!

Ninth Circuit Court rules in favor of Trump in National Guard dispute.

This was the actual ruling on the merits, not just another stay. They ruled that not only did Trump have the authority, but that the minor administrative issues brought up in the first decision were basically moot to the situation. The court ruled correctly criticized the Breyer ruling for going too far in challenging the President's decision making. They ruled that any judicial review must be highly differential to the executive. As it is written, there is no place in this law for a judge to replace the judgement of the President with their own judgement.

So to some degree they did reject the claim that the courts had no judicial review, but rather suggested that the Administrative simply had to provide a reasonable argument for the use of the statute. There is no requirement to convince a judge that they are correct in that argument. They just need to show that they had a reason. Period. This gets back to the the concept that executive actions must not just be arbitrary (which is generally the low bar that needs to be cleared for these sorts of actions).

They also ruled, correctly, that the concept that National Guard members are doing more harm than good (Newsom argument) is entirely speculative, while the issues cited by the Administration were real. They cited the many examples of reasoning brought up by the Federal Government. They cited things being thrown at Federal agents, attacks on federal buildings, the pinning of agents down, and other examples of harm being done to federal interests. They suggested that the evidence is overwhelming that the true harm here would be in giving the guard back to California, not the other way around. Thus the idea of a stay (even if they believed Newsom had a good chance of winning) does not favor the plaintiffs, because the actions they are looking to stop are not actually doing any real harm.

All that being said, look for Newsom to continue to push this issue back in the friendly confines of the Breyer district court. There may be other challenges available, and Newsome may not go as quietly into the night as some might expect. Rather than appeal, he may possible try to argue other issues before the Breyer court, hoping to get another partisan stay that he could brag about for the time being. Either way, I would suspect that the Ninth Circuit Court would stay those rulings as well. Newsom would be better off moving on, but something tells me he believes this is a hill he is willing to die standing on. Of course, I think he is wrong, but perhaps that is because I would never vote for Gavin Newsom.