Democratic lawmakers join court fight against Trump’s rollback of national monuments – By John Siciliano (washingtonexaminer.com) / Nov 19 2018
Over 110 Democratic lawmakers filed court documents on Monday to join environmentalists’ lawsuits opposing President Trump’s rollback of the Obama administration’s expansion of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in Utah.
Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., and Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., led a bicameral group in submitting an amicus brief in support of five lawsuits pending before the federal District Court for the District of Columbia.
“By revoking protections for millions of acres of public lands, President Trump has overstepped the authority delegated to presidents by Congress, putting cherished national monuments like Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante on the chopping block in an egregious giveaway to big corporations,” Udall said in a statement.
The lawsuits are in response to Trump’s order from last December cutting the size of the national monuments by 85 percent. Former President Barack Obama had expanded the monuments, restricting development over an increasing swath of land.
The Democrats argue that the Constitution’s framework provides Congress with plenary control over all federal lands. The president only has the right to establish national monuments, but not rescind them.
Under the Antiquities Act, Trump cannot “abolish or diminish the size of existing monuments,” the lawmakers explain in their court brief.
These “monument reductions are illegal,” Grijalva said.
The case is a test of the nation’s basic separation of powers, he added, that Republicans may feel very differently about if Trump wins “only to have a Democrat follow him in the White House.”
Legal opposition to Trump’s action is not limited to Democrats and liberal groups. Conservative groups also filed briefs with the court on Monday siding against Trump.
Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship, a 14,000-member national grassroots organization, filed a friend of the court brief that calls the Trump administration’s monument rollback illegal.
“As conservatives, we are compelled to defend the plain language meaning of our nation’s laws — and the U.S. Constitution,” said David Jenkins, the group’s president. “There is nothing conservative about ignoring the clear, unambiguous meaning of the Antiquities Act. By doing so, President Trump recklessly tramples all over constitutional separation of powers.”
