Supreme Court ruling on Trump’s ‘large-scale’ firings is a win for common sense — and democracy
Notch another win for Team Trump — and common sense — with the Supreme Court’s ruling that the president (at least for now) can fire people who work for him.
Could anything be more basic?
Unions and other groups aiming to shield federal jobs sued to block President Donald Trump’s order instructing agencies to plan for “large-scale” trims to their headcounts.
District Judge Susan Illston in California then issued a temporary injunction banning any employee dismissals while the case was litigated, but the justices — with apparently broad agreement — overruled her Tuesday, paving the way for federal layoffs.
Team Trump “is likely to succeed on its argument” that the president’s February executive order is lawful, the court said in greenlighting pink slips.
And though the justices noted that the legality of any specific downsizing plans was “not before this Court,” nothing can be more fundamental to the role of an executive than hiring and firing employees who work in the executive branch.
The Constitution makes the president the undisputed chief of the executive branch, albeit giving the Senate the right to confirm or reject his top nominees.
Congress writes the laws the chief executive is to execute, and limits him with its power of the purse — but it has no right to make him employ anyone.
Trump’s order explicitly seeks to eliminate “waste, bloat, and insularity” — so as to “empower American families, workers, taxpayers, and our system of Government itself.”
That’s in line with his overall efforts to curb runaway federal spending, such as through the work of his Department of Government Efficiency and budget restraints in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
No wonder why Ketanji Brown Jackson was the sole justice to dissent.
Meanwhile, lone anti-Trump district judges across the country have been merrily issuing “preliminary injunctions,” much like Illston’s, to block the president’s agenda nationwide.
Fortunately, the Supremes last month ruled such “universal injunctions likely exceed” the courts’ authority.
Tuesday’s ruling similarly helps free Trump, at least temporarily, to carry out the agenda the voters elected him to pursue.
That makes it not only a victory for Trump and common sense, but for democracy itself.