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Another unelected judge has decided they run the executive branch, as detailed in a recent court ruling by Judge William Alsup. The Biden-appointed federal judge, sitting in San Francisco, issued a preliminary injunction that blocks the Trump administration from enforcing return-to-office requirements for Pentagon employees and extends it government-wide, preventing the Office of Personnel Management from directing agencies to recall remote workers to their posts, according to the court’s decision. But 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 outlined in the injunction.
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 had been pushing to end the pandemic-era work-from-home arrangements that have become permanent fixtures for thousands of federal employees, as Trump promised during his campaign, and voters gave him a mandate to do exactly that. Taxpayers have been footing the bill for empty office buildings while bureaucrats collect full salaries from their kitchen tables, a situation highlighted in administration reports.
And the judicial resistance continues, following the same playbook we’ve seen for months with activist judges in blue districts issuing nationwide injunctions to stop the administration’s agenda, as seen in previous cases on immigration enforcement and spending cuts. Now basic personnel management is forbidden, according to legal experts tracking these rulings. The administration will undoubtedly appeal, but the damage is done; 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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