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Another unelected judge has decided they run the executive branch. As detailed in court documents from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Biden-appointed federal judge William Alsup issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Trump administration from enforcing return-to-office requirements for Pentagon employees and other federal workers across the government. In his ruling, Judge Alsup claimed the administration couldn’t force civilian Defense Department employees back to their desks, and the injunction extends government-wide, preventing the Office of Personnel Management from directing agencies to recall remote workers.
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, as per the judge’s order. 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.
The Trump administration has been pushing to end the pandemic-era work-from-home arrangements that have become permanent fixtures for thousands of federal employees, as stated in official White House announcements. Taxpayers have been footing the bill for empty office buildings while bureaucrats collect full salaries from their kitchen tables, a situation Trump campaigned on fixing, and voters gave him a mandate to address it.
But the judicial resistance continues, as seen in similar cases like those involving immigration enforcement. This is the same playbook we’ve seen for months—activist judges in blue districts issuing nationwide injunctions to stop the administration’s agenda before it can even get started, including blocks on spending cuts. The administration will undoubtedly appeal, but the damage is done, with every day these injunctions remain in place being another day the administrative state operates as an unaccountable fiefdom.
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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