One of the single strongest things about the Article III courts in our federal system is that the judges at every level, from district to SCOTUS, are appointed for life without worry about any election. It allows each judge, indeed encourages them, to use their authority in order to prevent “the tyranny of the majority” override the civil rights of the few, as but one example (Trump supporters might consider a state like Rhode Island enacting strict gun control violating the Second Amendment – they will want the court to enforce the Second Amendment). Compare the rulings one gets in federal court verses state courts, where most judges do face elections. Indeed, if a “judge” is subject to elections, can that person even really be considered a judge? Or is he or she just a politician in a robe? In contradiction, federal judges have the power to stop the president – any president, as President Obama found out over and over.
But at least Obama listened when he got beat and took his lumps. Now we’re already hearing big Trump supporters suggest that JD Vance is suggesting that they might ignore a judge’s ruling. There is nothing more dangerous to our democracy. If the Trump administration ignores judges, we have a fascist dictatorship in stark reality. Today, self-avowed Christian nationalist Matt Walsh, host for Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire suggested that Vice President JD Vance has hinted that the administration may be in a position to ignore rulings:
“Already there are signs, most notably from JD Vance, that this administration recognizes that these judges are breaking the law and that their rulings may not be respected, which they shouldn’t be.
Who decides if they are breaking the law? That is what emergency appeals are for – not ignoring the ruling. Additionally, one gets the sense that all “illegal rulings” would be those that go against the official Trump administration position.
“In particular, Vance wrote, quote, if a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that’s also illegal. Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.
All true. Except no one has suggested that anything remotely like such a ruling has happened and, again – if it did happen, an emergency appeal would easily be taken.
“Now this is an approach that obviously shouldn’t be necessary. If we had judges who respected the separation of powers, it wouldn’t be an issue. But increasingly, unelected judges are telling the executive branch how to spend money and who to employ.
No, they are not telling them how to spend money or who to employ. The judges are enforcing rules in place right now that are being violated by Trump administration decisions with respect to the budget and employment, which had been done under set conditions which were then relied upon. If one has parties who have depended on the rules for funding for decisions to this point facing a new decision to cut them off, only a judge can decide which one has a better legal claim. In this case it has been the people reasonably relying on continued federal funding.
Of course, the judges are unelected, they know that. And it is not “increasingly” – go ask President Obama how “increasingly” it happened under him and his programs, or Joe Biden and student loan action.
“That’s not just unconstitutional, it’s also unsustainable. There is zero popular political support for continuing these expenditures to corrupt agencies like NSF and the NIH, which is why the Trump administration should just ignore these judges and do what they’re gonna do.
“The judges are acting lawlessly. They have no actual authority to make these kinds of decisions.”
Then appeal it! But the tell is in the assertion that the NSF (National Science Foundation) and the National Institutes of Health are “corrupt agencies,” which is kind of ironic since we haven’t heard any big news of any real corruption from these agencies at all. Indeed, these are likely the agencies with the least amount of corruption since there is little money to be had in the first place and a lot of competition for science dollars. There is an agenda at work and that agenda may well violate provisions of the congressional appropriation or the rules in place regarding money that is “half-spent” or something mid-stream which must be continued.
These are decisions that judges make. They decide whether new decisions involving money violate old provisions in place and remaining in control because people rely on the rules in place. It has always been this way and each administration has known it. There is nothing new at work here except the idea that Trump is “special” and should have the ability to ignore rulings.
If the administration begins ignoring the “unelected judges” of this nation then it is truly a tragic situation in which we lose our democracy, tenderly nurtured into more perfect fruition over the centuries – gone in months.
God Bless: I can be reached at [email protected] and on X at @JasonMiciak and now on Bluesky.
I really hope those “unelected” Conservative Heritage Foundation justices on the Supreme Court are paying close attention to what THEY enabled in their “limited immunity” decision.
It will be extremely interesting to see how the Far-Right Six, especially Alito and Thomas who *claim* to be “strict” Constitutionalists (except, of course, when a strict interpretation of the Constitution goes against their own ideology), try to figure out a way of getting Drumpf back onto the “leash” that keeps the Executive Branch in its proper place.
None of what Vance said is true. Judges can tell a general what is wrong to do. That’s JAG’s role. And a judge can tell a prosecutor what not to do.