Who Runs Bartertown?
By Brent Regan
Can a rogue judge stop a President from doing his job?
Early during the first Trump administration, Sean Spicer was the Press Secretary and was also appointed by the president to a three year term on the Board of Visitors for the Naval Academy. When the Biden Administration took over, they sent Spicer a letter inviting him to resign or be fired so they could appoint a progressive ideolog. Spicer refused to resign but instead sued Biden claiming that the term of the office to which he was appointed had not expired.
I am not an attorney. I’m just a citizen who wants to obey the law. Our Constitution was written in plain language so that citizens like us can read and understand the meaning without having to consult with the priests of the law, lawyers. How can one be expected to obey the law if you don’t understand what it says?
Everyone learned in civics class that our federal government has three co-equal branches. The Legislature’s 535 members make the laws. The Judiciary’s nine justices of the Supreme Court and the various minor justices of the appellate and district courts interpret the law. And the President is the Executive and is tasked with enforcing the law. The legislature can’t enforce the law or direct how it is to be interpreted beyond the words in the law. The Judiciary can’t enforce the law or make new laws. The Executive can’t make law or interpret the law.
For the system to work all three branches need to stay in their lanes, but stray they do. The Legislature will often pass a bill that’s vague, so it is not too objectionable to pass, and that vagueness leads to interpretation by the courts and the executive. Justices will occasionally become activists and read features into a law that were never intended. The president may sometimes claim authority that was not granted in the Constitution or by the legislature. Despite these shortcomings, the system has remained operational for 250 years.
Executive Orders are basically memos from the boss to the workers where highlevel instructions are given on how to execute the various functions of the Executive branch. Executive Orders are powerful as they can initiate significant events and create entire departments. The confiscation of gold bullion in the 1930s was done by Executive Order. The Department of Education was created by Executive Order. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) was created by Executive Order. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was created by Executive Order.
There are somewhere between 450 and 550 government departments or agencies; apparently nobody knows the exact number or the purpose for each of them.
It seems reasonable that anything done with an Executive Order can be undone with an Executive Order so if the current president wants to create, restructure or eliminate a department or agency within the Executive Branch he should be able to do so.
Unfortunately there are activist judges who seem intent on blocking the president from acting within his Constitutional authority. In some instances, liberal judges are issuing injunctions without hearing arguments from both sides or citing any law. What is a president to do?
If “I was just following orders” is not a valid reason for committing an illegal act, can the president be compelled by a judge’s order that exceeds the judge’s authority? Can a judge issue a valid order without a basis in the law?
The president has two options. He can obey the illegal court order and appeal it to a higher court OR he can ignore the illegal order citing separation of powers between the branches of government.
One imagines that Trump would choose the second option. It seems to fit his style. But he is taking the first option. Why? Remember Spicer v. Biden? Spicer sued Biden and lost…deliberately. By losing he established that the president had broad powers to remove individuals from their appointed positions. Biden’s win in Spicer v. Biden proved to be a Pyrrhic victory as Trump is now using that legal precedence to clean house.
Trump’s first term was plagued by lawfare. Instead of resisting the legal assaults, Trump may be fast tracking them into court so that he can quickly set legal precedence and neuter the opposition.
Trump may have learned from Spicer v. Biden that sometimes to win the war you must strategically lose a battle.
It’s just common sense.