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Another unelected judge has decided they run the executive branch. According to court records from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, 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.
Judge William Alsup, as detailed in his preliminary injunction ruling from the U.S. District Court, claimed 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 outlined in the court’s official order.
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. And the administration had been pushing to end the pandemic-era work-from-home arrangements that have become permanent fixtures for thousands of federal employees, a policy Trump campaigned on according to his official 2024 campaign platform.
Taxpayers have been footing the bill for empty office buildings while bureaucrats collect full salaries from their kitchen tables, as reported by audits from the Government Accountability Office. But the judicial resistance continues, with activist judges in blue districts issuing nationwide injunctions to stop the administration’s agenda before it can even get started—a pattern seen in similar cases like those blocking immigration enforcement, according to legal analyses from conservative think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation.
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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