Aloha Friday

March 6, 2026 — Aloha Friday

Mar 6, 2026

0302 AM SCOTUS TT·0306 March SCOTUS News Update daily AM YT

The court ordered the government to start refunding overturned tariffs — but the computer system that collects tariffs can't separate the illegal ones from the rest, and the man in charge says he needs more time.

After the Supreme Court overturned the IEEPA tariffs, approximately 1,000+ companies filed for refunds at the U.S. Court of International Trade (USCT). One judge took all of the cases to ensure even-handed treatment — and noted that the CASA precedent (barring universal injunctions pre-1789) doesn't apply to USCT, which was created by a separate statute in 1980. The judge ordered CBP to liquidate all outstanding IEEPA-tariff entries without the overturned tariffs. CBP official Brandon Lord responded: the agency's computer system (ACE) processes all entries together in a 314-day automated cycle every Friday, and it can't be reprogrammed quickly enough to separate IEEPA entries from others. Lord warned that stopping the whole system to comply would create an "unprecedented volume of refunds" that would redirect personnel from detecting transhipped goods, free trade abuse, and other enforcement activities. The judge's response to this filing was pending.

Constitutional question: Whether an Article III court can compel the executive branch to implement a tariff refund regime when the executive's administrative systems were not designed for retroactive de-collection at scale.

Oregon v. Trump · (no docket in registry)

The Supreme Court called the IEEPA tariffs unconstitutional — so the administration replaced them, and 23 states say the replacements are just as illegal.

A coalition of 23 states, led by Oregon, filed a new complaint in the Court of International Trade accusing the Trump administration of replacing one unlawful tariff regime with another. The core accusation: the administration continues to use a very broad interpretation of a very narrow delegated power. The tariff authority belongs to Congress; they can delegate it narrowly. The states argued the administration's replacement tariffs fell outside any valid delegation. The case was at the complaint stage as of this episode; Bryan was skeptical that this would break the cycle but said he'd watch it play out.

Tariff authority delegation (Congress vs. executive); IEEPA; Dames & Moore

Constitutional question: Whether Congress's tariff authority can be delegated broadly enough to cover a tariff regime the Supreme Court has already ruled must be congressionally authorized — the second-generation tariff challenge.

Tan v. Trump · 26-1047

Two investors in Google and Meta are in a D.C. appeals court arguing that the TikTok-Oracle deal didn't meet the law's requirements — and that the president had no authority to say it did.

Zhaoxing Anthony Tan (Google stockholder) and Garrett Reed (Meta stockholder) filed in the D.C. Court of Appeals challenging TikTok's sale to Oracle. Their argument: they have standing as investors harmed by the government's failure to follow the TikTok divestiture law (which required a ban if certain conditions weren't met — conditions they say weren't met). They also argue Trump's executive orders extending the divestiture deadline violated the law, which only allowed a single extension. And they argue Trump's "deeming" the Oracle purchase a qualified divestiture was unlawful because it didn't actually meet the statutory requirements. Novel procedural move: they went directly to the Court of Appeals, treating the president's decision as an agency action subject to direct appellate review. Bryan was skeptical of their standing theory but said he'd keep watching.

Constitutional question: Whether a president's decision on whether a foreign divestiture meets statutory requirements is "agency action" reviewable by a federal court — and whether private shareholders have standing to enforce a national security statute.

Harris v. Lee · (no federal docket; Tennessee state court)

Tennessee's governor sent the National Guard to Memphis, called it a state emergency, and a court is deciding whether there was actually an emergency — or just a political decision.

Tennessee Governor Lee deployed the National Guard to Memphis, claiming the city was uniquely plagued by crime in a way that constituted a "grave emergency" justifying the deployment. A lower court ruled that the governor had overstepped his authority; the state AG, John Scrimeti, appealed. The state's argument: Memphis was so distinct from every other city that normal limits on gubernatorial emergency power didn't apply. The plaintiffs' counter: no grave emergency — the Guard was mostly helping with tree removal and flooding cleanup. Bryan noted this is a state-law question but has national implications, particularly given how much courts have discussed National Guard deployments in the context of immigration and protest suppression in 2025-2026.

Constitutional question: State-law only. National implication: this is the state-law parallel to the federal debates about presidential authority to deploy National Guard for domestic purposes — where does the governor's emergency power end?

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