There are a lot of things that would surprise the Founding Fathers about modern-day America. But perhaps among the top ticket items would be how the country’s “least dangerous” branch has usurped the constitutionally guaranteed powers of the other two.
That’s the reality currently unfolding throughout the federal judiciary, where a significant number of “judges” have flipped separation of powers on its head. While supposed to perform in an objective manner, these rogue actors have greenlit leftists’ lawfare against the Trump administration and Republicans by issuing overreaching orders — many of which have little basis in the Constitution or law.
A decision by Massachusetts District Judge Angel Kelley is a perfect example of this phenomenon at play.
Last Friday, the Biden appointee ordered the administration to reinstall national park signs that advanced left-wing narratives about LGBT ideology, climate alarmism, and American historical figures. As Skye Graham wrote in these pages, her directive came dripping with “political activism [and her] eagerness to defend promoting woke agendas at taxpayer-funded national parks.”
To the casual observer, Kelley’s bid to hijack the functions of the executive branch may seem like a one-off — if not for the even more egregious decision that preceded it.
A day prior, a different Massachusetts-based district judge, Richard Stearns, unilaterally halted Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s lawsuit against ActBlue. The major Democrat-aligned fundraising platform is currently facing scrutiny over allegations of accepting contributions from foreign nationals and other corrupt activities.
The Clinton-appointed Stearns apparently based his preliminary injunction on pure speculation. Writing as if he were an ActBlue employee, he regurgitated the fundraising platform’s claim that Paxton’s statements as a candidate criticizing ActBlue are proof that his suit was “filed in retaliation for (and in an attempt to suppress) ActBlue’s efforts” to support Paxton’s Senate opponent, James Talarico.
“Paxton’s public statements in the wake of filing the case against ActBlue reveal his true motivation,” Stearns wrote matter-of-factly. “While a prosecutor is entitled to a large degree of prosecutorial discretion and has a right to make a considered public accounting of his actions, Paxton did not hesitate in drawing a connection between the lawsuit and his candidacy for Senate.”
A Biden-appointed district judge followed this activist blueprint on Tuesday by blocking an Idaho law requiring individuals to use the restroom that corresponds with their sex.
While certainly outrageous, these types of outcome-oriented decisions aren’t surprising. Like a frog in boiling water, Americans have slowly become accustomed to activist judges overstepping their bounds to produce partisan rulings that their left-wing allies want.
That in itself is problematic, given that such a dynamic is at complete odds with the framer’s view of how American government is intended to function.
Alexander Hamilton aptly noted in Federalist No. 78 how, if there were to be a weaker branch, it would be the judiciary because it “has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever.” In possessing only the power of “judgment,” it relies upon “the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy” of its decisions, he added.
To put it another way, the judiciary has no power to enforce its own rulings. Its authority is wholly dependent upon the people and their government’s willingness to respect it.
Leftists regularly foment fears that President Trump will “defy” court orders he finds unfavorable and thus throw America into a full-blown constitutional crisis. In addition to being baseless, these claims miss a more fundamental point.
That is, it’s actually rogue judges (like those documented in this article) who are pushing America toward a crisis by forgoing their sworn duty to apply the law in an objective manner.
If the judiciary refuses to operate within the limits enacted by the Constitution, then why should the other branches? And why should the people and their representatives respect the courts’ judgments if they’re continuously based on anything but the law?
Those are questions 5th Circuit Judge James Ho addressed in a Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy article earlier this year. Taking aim at the courts’ judicial supremacy problem, he wrote, “If the American people can’t expect the judiciary to stay in its lane, then federal judges shouldn’t expect the American people to follow them.”
Leftists and their judicial accomplices have a choice to make: They can either heed Ho’s warning and call off their abuse of America’s legal system, or they can continue their lawfare campaign and leave it burning in their wake. Given their actions to date, it’s not hard to guess which path they’ll likely choose.
