The Trump administration asked the US Supreme Court on Friday to break judicial protocols and consider the ban on transgender people serving in the US military. Lower courts have issued injunctions on the issue but not yet delivered rulings.
Typically, the nation's top court waits until regional appeals courts have ruled on an issue before weighing its constitutionality. However, Solicitor General Noel J. Francisco asked the nine justices on Friday to circumvent that process, saying the administration can't afford to wait for lower courts to decide, the Washington Post reported Friday. He wants them to hear the case in the current term, which began in October and will be end in June or July of 2019.
“The military has been forced to maintain [its] prior policy for nearly a year,” Francisco lamented, noting that “absent this Court's prompt intervention, it is unlikely that the military will be able to implement its new policy any time soon.”
Francisco added that “[Defense] Secretary [Jim] Mattis and a panel of senior military leaders and other experts determined that the prior policy. . . posed too great a risk to military effectiveness and lethality.”
The president announced on Twitter in 2017 that the country would no longer “accept or allow” transgender Americans to serve in the military, citing “tremendous medical costs and disruption.”
It's unclear why, exactly, all due haste is required in denying…
