Supreme Court Denial Rocks Oklahoma Conservatives

Most conservatives are shaking their heads in disbelief over a recent Supreme Court decision.

A shocking 6-3 decision was announced that will continue to allow the Biden administration from blocking funding to Oklahoma over its abortion policies.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch all stated they would have granted the emergency appeal for Oklahoma.

Shock Order

I remember discussing this case when it was initially presented to the Supreme Court.

At the time, I said I expected a 5-4 decision in favor of Oklahoma’s emergency appeal, but my concern was that if Justice Roberts crossed the aisle, the decision could go the other way because at least one of Trump’s justices always seems to follow Roberts when he votes with the liberals on the court.

This time, two of them crossed over, with both Kavanaugh and Barrett joining Roberts in the majority ruling.

The ruling means that the Biden administration can now continue withholding $4.5 million in grants from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that should have gone to Oklahoma.

What baffles me about this decision is that precedent has been set that partisan administration policies are not supposed to dictate funding to states.

Since abortion now lies with the states, the Biden administration should not be able to impose abortion requirements on states regarding releasing funding, but the court did not perceive the case that way.

In 2021, the HHS stated that Title X grants would be tied to states offering pregnant clients “neutral, factual information and nondirective counseling” for all options, which was to include abortion.

Oklahoma argued, “Title X does not unambiguously impose an abortion counseling or referral requirement.

“Therefore, HHS cannot impose an abortion counseling or referral requirement on Title X grantees.”

It continued, “HHS deliberately sought to impose the executive branch’s policy preferences on the states, including Oklahoma, and upset the federal state balance on this important issue.”

The Biden administration countered, “The Oklahoma legislature has already provided substitute funding to make up the shortfall created by the termination of last year’s grant, and there is no reason to doubt that it can do the same this year.”

And the court appeared to buy the excuse, so Biden’s Title X funding will be blocked from Oklahoma.

Of course, you will not hear Democrats tout the court for this decision because the only time they talk about the Supreme Court is when they don’t get their way.