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Another unelected judge has decided they run the executive branch. As per Judge William Alsup’s preliminary injunction in the Northern District of California, a Biden-appointed federal judge just blocked the Trump administration from enforcing return-to-office requirements for Pentagon employees—and every other federal worker across the government.
Judge William Alsup issued a preliminary injunction claiming the administration couldn’t force civilian Defense Department employees back to their desks. And as detailed in his ruling, this injunction extends government-wide, preventing the Office of Personnel Management from directing agencies to recall remote workers to their posts.
Think about what this means. The President of the United States, constitutionally charged with running the executive branch, can’t tell his own employees to show up for work, according to Alsup’s decision. A single district judge in California has decided that the administrative state answers to him, not to the voters who elected Trump to drain the swamp.
As stated in Trump administration policies, the administration had been pushing to end the pandemic-era work-from-home arrangements that have become permanent fixtures for thousands of federal employees. Taxpayers have been footing the bill for empty office buildings while bureaucrats collect full salaries from their kitchen tables, a point emphasized in campaign rhetoric from Trump. But the judicial resistance continues, as seen in similar nationwide injunctions from activist judges in blue districts.
This is the same playbook we’ve seen for months—activist judges issuing nationwide injunctions to stop the administration’s agenda before it can even get started. The administration will undoubtedly appeal, but the damage is done, per legal experts familiar with such cases. Every day these injunctions remain in place is another day the administrative state operates as an unaccountable fiefdom, insulated from the democratic process and the President the Constitution puts in charge of it.
When did we decide that district judges get veto power over the executive branch? And how many more mandates from the American people will be nullified by judicial fiat before something gives?
Providence watches over the bold.
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