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Executive Summary
This essay explains what Article III actually says; how the Constitution and the Supreme Court have limited federal courts to deciding real “cases” and “controversies”; the doctrines that enforce those limits (no advisory opinions, standing, ripeness, mootness, political questions); the tools courts can and cannot use to remedy legal wrongs (injunctions, declaratory judgments, class actions); Congress’s power to shape—yet not control—the courts (jurisdiction, exceptions, and separation-of-powers guardrails); and what happens when the executive branch resists judicial orders. Along the way we connect those principles to live issues—most recently the Supreme Court’s 2025 order in Trump v. CASA, Inc., restricting district courts’ use of “universal” injunctions.
Continue reading the entire piece here at Advancing the Republic
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Ilya Shapiro is a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute.
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