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Trump Administration Drops Defense of Obama's Transgender Policy

The Trump administration has found a nationwide injunction it can live with.

The Trump administration has found a nationwide injunction it can live with.

 

In the slew of lawsuits challenging President Donald Trump's travel ban executive order, Justice Department lawyers have repeatedly argued that — whatever the alleged legal defects in his order — nationwide injunctions on its enforcement are improper.

 

However, on Friday night, Justice Department attorneys handling a lawsuit over President Barack Obama's efforts to protect transgender individuals dropped an effort to temporarily rein in a nationwide injunction a Texas federal judge imposed last year. That injunction prohibited the feds from enforcing the Obama administration's view that existing civil rights laws cover discrimination against those who are transgender.

 

Last November, the Justice Department appealed U.S. District Court Judge Reed O'Connor's ruling to the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. But the Obama administration did not ask that O'Connor's injunction be immediately lifted.

 

Instead, Justice Department attorneys urged the appeals court to limit the injunction so it only applied in the 13 states involved in filing the suit challenging the transgender policy.

 

That request to narrow O'Connor's injunction was set to be argued before a three-judge 5th Circuit panel on Tuesday in Austin, Texas, but on Friday evening the Justice Department withdrew the stay request.

 

No explanation for the change in position was given to the court. The move came one day after former Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) was sworn-in as attorney general.

Caroline Cournoyer is GOVERNING's senior web editor.
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