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Another unelected judge has decided they run the executive branch. A Biden-appointed federal judge, according to the ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, 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, according to the court’s preliminary injunction, issued a ruling in San Francisco claiming the administration couldn’t force civilian Defense Department employees back to their desks. 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, as detailed in the injunction documents from that court.
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 this court 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.
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 campaigned on this issue and voters gave him a mandate according to his campaign statements. Taxpayers have been footing the bill for empty office buildings while bureaucrats collect full salaries from their kitchen tables, a situation highlighted in statements from the Trump administration. But the judicial resistance continues—this is the same playbook we’ve seen for months, with activist judges in blue districts issuing nationwide injunctions to stop the administration’s agenda before it can even get started, based on recent legal filings from various courts.
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, per analysis from legal experts such as those cited in reports from conservative think tanks. 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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