Bill Ketter column: Showdown over federal powers

Yahoo

12 hours ago

Federal courts rarely agree with presidents who discount the boundaries of the rule of law. But that hasn't deterred President Trump from his concept of unbridled executive powers.
A worrisome example is his dismissive trait for the checks and balances of the co-equal legislative and judicial branches of government ingrained in the Constitution by the republic's Founders 247 years ago.
Trump's first term set the stage for radical change with his selection of three conservative Supreme Court justices to join the three already on the nine-member tribunal. He also appointed over 240 federal appeals court and district court judges.
Now some of those appointees are among the judges pumping the brakes on his goal to bend the government to his will, which he exaggerates as his electoral mandate.
Still, it is damn the torpedoes.
Trump's full speed ahead agenda has tested the nation's nerves with a storm of executive orders overriding Congress, firing thousands of federal workers, imposing teeter-totter tariffs, deporting illegal and legal migrants, stretching conflict of interest rules, punishing adversaries and causing economic uncertainty.
That's just a synopsis.
Trump has already signed over 150 executive orders, many of which encroach on legislative prerogatives or face constitutional challenge. If there is a savior in the system, it is the Supreme Court.
Yet our judicial system is the institution most under Trump's thunderous attack. If the high court finds merit in his effort to upend constitutional restraints, the repercussion will be an authoritarian government. Congress and the judiciary will hold supplicant status.
That may seem far-fetched. But take a few minutes to reflect on Trump's conduct to undermine the divided authority explicit in our three branches of government. His disruptive rhetoric bears witness.
Asked by Atlantic magazine this spring how his second term so far differed from his first term, Trump replied: 'The first time, I had two things to do — run the country and survive. I had all these crooked guys. and the second time, I run the country and the world.'
Back in February, Trump ordered a halt to tolls for vehicles entering New York City's traffic-clogged core streets, declaring on his social media site: 'CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!'
In April, after several court orders blocking his worklist, he said: 'We cannot allow a handful of communist, radical-left judges to obstruct the enforcement of our laws and assume the duties that belong solely to the president of the United States.'
Then came the Supreme Court ruling in May that Trump could not abruptly deport a group of Venezuelan migrants by ignoring their right to due process hearings in court.
The president attacked the justices for 'not allowing me to do what I was elected to do. This is a bad and dangerous day for America.'
Dangerous is a word some legal scholars apply to describe Trump's conduct toward immigrants. Due process, after all, is a right required by the Constitution's 14th Amendment, which makes clear 'any person' subject to the jurisdiction of U.S. laws is entitled to it.
It is not just the rule of law and the Constitution that have invited Trump's ire. He recently lashed out at the Federalist Society, a conservative legal organization, and the American Bar Association for misguiding him on selecting judges in his first term.
He blamed them for bad advice at a time he was new to Washington, relying on their counsel for judges aligned with his political views and sense of justice — even though federal judges take an oath to rule impartially and uphold the rule of law.
This time he's insisting on deeper vetting of candidates for judgeships. Foremost, they must be diehard loyalists to his conservative causes, the same principal characteristic used to pick his lemming-like cabinet.
That's the legacy of a dictator, not a president who promised meritocracy.