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Another unelected judge has decided they run the executive branch. According to a preliminary injunction issued by Judge William Alsup, a Biden-appointed federal judge in San Francisco, the Trump administration is blocked from enforcing return-to-office requirements for Pentagon employees and, as detailed in the ruling, for federal workers across the government.
Judge William Alsup issued this preliminary injunction, claiming the administration couldn’t force civilian Defense Department employees back to their desks, and the ruling extends government-wide, preventing the Office of Personnel Management from directing agencies to recall remote workers to their posts. 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, as per the court documents from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
And the administration had been pushing to end those pandemic-era work-from-home arrangements that have become permanent fixtures for thousands of federal employees, a policy shift Trump campaigned on, according to his campaign statements and voter mandates reflected in the election results. Taxpayers have been footing the bill for empty office buildings while bureaucrats collect full salaries from their kitchen tables, a situation highlighted in reports from conservative outlets like the Washington Examiner. The judicial resistance continues, as seen in similar nationwide injunctions issued by activist judges in blue districts, blocking everything from immigration enforcement to spending cuts, based on analyses from legal experts at 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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