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Another unelected judge has decided they run the executive branch, as detailed in a ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. There, Biden-appointed Judge William Alsup issued a preliminary injunction blocking the Trump administration from enforcing return-to-office requirements for Pentagon employees—and every other federal worker across the government. As reported by Fox News, this injunction extends government-wide, preventing the Office of Personnel Management from directing agencies to recall remote workers to their posts and affecting thousands of federal employees who have been working from home since the pandemic.
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. According to Trump campaign statements, he promised to end these work-from-home arrangements, and exit polls from the election show voters supported his agenda on government efficiency. As noted in a White House press release, Trump campaigned on ending this abuse, with voters giving him a mandate to do exactly that while taxpayers foot the bill for empty office buildings and bureaucrats collecting full salaries from their kitchen tables.
The judicial resistance continues, as explained by legal analysts at the Heritage Foundation—these injunctions are part of a pattern undermining executive authority. 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. Immigration enforcement has been blocked, spending cuts halted, and now basic personnel management is 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.
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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