Arguments leave Chin optimistic

Lt. Gov. Doug Chin said the discussion and questions by U.S. Supreme Court justices during oral arguments Wednesday have not dampened his optimism that the country’s highest court will strike down President Donald Trump’s latest travel ban.

It was Chin, in his previous job as Hawaii attorney general, who filed the state’s challenges to the current and previous versions of the ban.

National media organizations are predicting that the Supreme Court will uphold the ban, based on the tenor of the justices’ questions.

Chin said in an interview Wednesday that the questions were tough on the government, which is defending the ban, and opponents, including Hawaii. The highlights were, in his view, questions the justices asked of Solicitor Gen. Noel Francisco.

He pointed to Justice Anthony Kennedy’s question of the relevance of what a presidential candidate says during the campaign and what he does after he is elected. Lower courts have relied on statements Trump made during the campaign about terrorists from Muslim-majority countries in striking down the travel ban as unconstitutional.

Chin also thought it was significant that even though the ban has provisions for case-by-case exceptions, Justice Stephen Breyer pointed out that of the approximately 150 million people who are banned, the government has granted exceptions to just 400.

He also highlighted a hypothetical scenario posed by Justice Elena Kagan of a ban imposed by an anti-­Semitic president on travelers from Israel.

“It forced everyone to examine their own biases against certain types of religion,” Chin said.