Perhaps nothing showcased the cynicism of the Left in trying to deny President Trump the opportunity to follow through on the agenda on which he successfully ran than the recently decided Supreme Court case involving his authority to fire federal employees.
As part of his plan to downsize the size of the federal workforce, President Trump issued an executive order early in his second administration directing federal agency heads to “promptly undertake preparation to initiate large scale reductions in force consistent with applicable law.”
Despite there not being any particular plans in place and nothing to evaluate whether anything was or was not “consistent with applicable law,” federal worker unions challenged the order in federal court and persuaded a district court judge to issue an injunction barring the officials from making plans on how to implement large scale layoffs.
This was too much even for two of the liberal justices on the Supreme Court, who joined their six conservative colleagues in staying the lower court’s injunction, stating matter-of-factly that the president was likely to win on the precise question that was before them – that is, whether he had authority to issue the executive order which merely called for plans to be drawn up.
The eight justices noted, however, that they expressed no view on any particular plan because none was presented to them.
This was some welcome, refreshing commonsense thinking. Unfortunately, that was not the order of the day in several previous cases challenging Mr. Trump’s powers to govern.
