Supreme Court lets Trump take an axe to federal government 

WASHINGTON (CN) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared President Donald Trump to move forward with mass firings set to dismantle large swaths of the federal government.

The court allowed Trump to enforce his executive order reducing the size of the federal workforce while labor unions challenge it in court, finding the president will likely prove the order was lawful. In a statement, the justices said they were not expressing any views on the legality of any agency cuts or reorganization plans produced pursuant to the executive order.

The White House celebrated the ruling as a definitive victory for the president.

“It clearly rebukes the continued assaults on the president’s constitutionally authorized executive powers by leftist judges who are trying to prevent the president from achieving government efficiency across the federal government,” principal deputy press secretary Harrison Fields said.

In a lone dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson called the decision “not only truly unfortunate but also hubristic and senseless.” The Joe Biden appointee said Trump’s executive authority did not allow him to rewrite Congress’ laws.

“If a president runs roughshod over the carefully crafted statutes that authorize and animate the federal government (as the district court’s preliminary findings show to be likely happening here), he discards and disables the democratic system that created those laws,” Jackson wrote.

Jackson said Trump is targeting congressional policies that are the product of a representative democracy. The limits on executive power, she said, served to protect democracy, not impede it.

“What one person (or president) might call bureaucratic bloat is a farmer’s prospect for a healthy crop, a coal miner’s chance to breathe free from black lung, or a preschooler’s opportunity to learn in a safe environment,” Jackson wrote.

After failing to restructure the government through Congress in his first term, Trump moved to unilaterally execute his policies upon taking office in January. Using reduction-in-force (RIF) notices, the administration carried out mass firings across government agencies.

Labor unions, advocacy groups and local governments sued Trump and almost every executive department, claiming that the administration exceeded its authority and violated the separation of powers.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, a Bill Clinton appointee, issued a preliminary injunction, preventing the administration from carrying out terminations while the lawsuit proceeded. Illston said the restructuring was unconstitutional without congressional authorization.

Trump called Illston’s ruling indefensible, rebuking the idea that he needed congressional authority to oversee executive branch functions.

“The Constitution does not erect a presumption against presidential control of agency staffing, and the president does not need special permission from Congress to exercise core Article II powers,” U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer wrote, citing the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling.

Labor unions and advocacy groups stated that the cuts would be impossible to reverse, pushing the justices to keep the terminations on hold for now.

“Rather than permitting this scheme to become a fait accompli before the courts can play their proper role, this court should allow the status quo to remain in place while the case proceeds through the regular judicial process,” the labor unions wrote.

The coalition of advocacy groups said the ruling left services that the American people rely on in grave jeopardy.

“ This decision does not change the simple and clear fact that reorganizing government functions and laying off federal workers en masse haphazardly without any congressional approval is not allowed by our Constitution,” the groups said in a statement. “While we are disappointed in this decision, we will continue to fight on behalf of the communities we represent and argue this case to protect critical public services that we rely on to stay safe and healthy.”

Jackson said her colleagues made the wrong decision at the wrong moment, citing the justices’ lack of insight into the facts of the dispute. She said the lower courts are better suited to decide whether Trump’s order constitutes a massive restructuring of the federal government or minor workforce reductions consistent with federal law.

“From its lofty perch far from the facts or the evidence, this court lacks the capacity to fully evaluate, much less responsibly override, reasoned lower court factfinding about what this challenged executive action actually entails,” Jackson wrote.

The high court determined that Trump will likely succeed on the merits, so he could enforce the order before the courts had decided whether it was unlawful. However, Jackson said the justices couldn’t possibly know at this juncture that the government would prevail.

As she has in other opinions, Jackson took aim at her colleagues’ contempt for lower court decisions.

“Lower court judges have their fingers on the pulse of what is happening on the ground and are indisputably best positioned to determine the relevant facts — including those that underlie fair assessments of the merits, harms, and equities.”

Jackson said allowing Trump to enforce the order now will allow an “apparently unprecedented and congressionally unsanctioned dismantling of the federal government to continue apace, causing irreparable harm before courts can determine whether the president has the authority to engage in the actions he proposes.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who typically sides with Jackson in such disputes, joined the majority, stating that the order directed agencies to plan reorganizations and reductions in force consistent with applicable law.

“The plans themselves are not before this court, at this stage, and we thus have no occasion to consider whether they can and will be carried out consistent with the constraints of law,” Sotomayor, the Barack Obama appointee, wrote. “I join the court’s stay because it leaves the district court free to consider those questions in the first instance.”

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