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Another unelected judge has decided they run the executive branch. 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, according to a preliminary injunction issued by Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Judge Alsup, sitting in San Francisco, issued the ruling claiming the administration couldn’t force civilian Defense Department employees back to their desks, as detailed in court documents from the case.
And 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, based on the injunction’s scope as reported by legal analysts. 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, a situation highlighted in analyses from conservative outlets like the Washington Examiner.
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 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 stated during his campaign rallies. Taxpayers have been footing the bill for empty office buildings while bureaucrats collect full salaries from their kitchen tables, according to reports from the Government Accountability Office.
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 noted in pieces from Breitbart News. Immigration enforcement? Blocked, per rulings from similar courts. Spending cuts? Halted, according to federal appeals trackers. Now basic personnel management? Forbidden.
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, as argued by constitutional experts at the Heritage Foundation. 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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