Editorial illustration
Another unelected judge has decided they run the executive branch. In a ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Judge William Alsup—a Biden appointee sitting in San Francisco—issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Trump administration from enforcing return-to-office requirements for Pentagon employees and other federal workers across the government. But he didn’t stop there; the ruling extends government-wide, preventing the Office of Personnel Management from directing agencies to recall remote workers to their posts.
Think about what this means, as outlined in the court’s decision: the President of the United States, constitutionally charged with running the executive branch, can’t tell his own employees to show up for work. 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. According to Trump administration officials, they 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, as reported in analyses from conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation. Trump campaigned on ending this abuse, and voters gave him a mandate to do exactly that, based on his public statements during the election. But the judicial resistance continues; 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, as seen in similar cases involving immigration enforcement and spending cuts.
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? And that’s the heart of it—we can’t let unelected officials override the will of the people.
Providence watches over the bold.
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