Sessions' reversals on four Obama positions validated by Supreme Court

It seems the Trump administration knows the law better than the Obama administration. The Justice Department under Attorney General Jeff Sessions reversed positions of the Obama administration in four cases decided by the Supreme Court this year — and won all four of them. They included constitutional technicalities, such as whether a certain set of appointments needed Senate confirmation, and politically charged cases over cutting names from voter lists and labor unions charging dues to unwilling workers. “In four cases, after careful review, we changed the department’s position in order to follow the law,” Mr. Sessions said Wednesday as the court closed out its term. “The favorable Supreme Court decisions in all four cases reflect that we took the proper course of action. The decisions speak for themselves.” Reversals of position at the department are a big deal and set tongues wagging in legal circles. That was the case last year when the Trump administration said it was backing an Illinois state employee who objected to being forced to pay dues to a labor union he didn’t belong to, and which took stances he disagreed with. The Obama administration sided with the unions — and a 1977 Supreme Court precedent — in saying the state could make the dues mandatory. The court overturned that precedent this week, sided with the administration and ruled 5-4 in favor of the employee...MORE