Chief justice temporarily blocks access to DOGE records in FOIA suit
Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. temporarily blocked a government watchdog group from obtaining records from the Trump administration's cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency, whose inner workings have largely been shielded from public view.
The brief administrative stay issued Friday will give the court more time to consider the underlying issues.
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Trump DOJ Sues NY Over Law Blocking ICE Arrests at Courthouses
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21 minutes ago
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Welcome to the Era of Abusive Federalism
Anyone who has taken an introductory American politics class probably remembers the way that America's system of federalism has been divided by scholars into "eras" based on understandings about the balance between state and national power. The most recent, ushered in by the Reagan revolution, is known as "The New Federalism," and purported to return various powers to the states. As President Donald Trump orders the military into Los Angeles to crush what are by all accounts fairly modest and largely peaceful protests and prepares to use the federal government to blackmail and starve out states that refuse to bend the knee to MAGA, I think it's safe to say that Reagan's era is over. Welcome, instead, to the age of "Abusive Federalism." The Constitution's power-sharing scheme was creative but deeply underspecified, leaving the task of figuring out the boundaries of state and federal power to future courts and policymakers. Unlike Ronald Reagan, Trump has no ideological preference for state versus national power. The president, after all, claims proudly that he "solved" the abortion issue by appointing the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe and gave states jurisdiction over reproductive rights while simultaneously hurling invective at states that defy his whims on other issues, like education and immigration. Donald Trump listens during an announcement about the Golden Dome missile defense shield, in the Oval Office of the White House on May 20, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Donald Trump listens during an announcement about the Golden Dome missile defense shield, in the Oval Office of the White House on May 20, 2025, in Washington, D.C. JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images The distinctive ethos of Abusive Federalism is one of vengeance, punishment, and submission. Since the day Trump declared his candidacy in 2015, he has spoken about Democratic-controlled states and cities as if they are hellish, renegade provinces that must be brought to heel by force if necessary. This is a target-rich environment, so to choose but one example, Trump said, "Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she's your president," in October 2024, referring to Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. Speaking about a city, region, or state like this would once have been career-ending. Under Abusive Federalism it is just another day at the office. During his first term, Trump repeatedly threatened to cut off federal funding to states and cities that maintained "sanctuary" laws that limit the ability of local law enforcement agencies to cooperate with federal agencies like ICE. Those threats are obviously back, this time with the full backing of the executive branch. But Trump's vengeance politics extend well beyond immigration. The president yearns to use his unchecked power to turn funding on and off to states whenever he wants. He has already gotten into an escalatory battle with Maine Governor Janet Mills over the state's policies for trans athletes, threatening to cut off millions of dollars to the state's schools. As is often the case with Trump, he picks a fight, which then disappears out of the news cycle and into a legal battle. But the damage is done. Instead of making and enforcing policy through normal political channels, Abusive Federalism delights in threatening to bankrupt Democratic states by withholding their own tax dollars from them. He has even threatened to use natural disasters as a point of leverage to force states into policy capitulation over routine political disagreements, something that would have seemed unimaginably corrupt and insane even 10 years ago. In January, he threatened to withhold federal aid from California if the state didn't change its water management practices to suit the president's conspiracy-addled preferences. He also demanded completely unrelated changes to the state's voter ID laws. That he may be unable or unwilling to follow through on many of these threats is not really the point. Under Abusive Federalism, the executive branch has become a tool of scorched-earth partisan warfare, and the federal government's relationship to individual states is dependent on the choices that state's voters made in the previous election. Ordinary disagreements are now seen as grounds to capriciously immiserate and ruin lives, and failing that, to intimidate state leaders into capitulation. What's happening in California is a case in point. Unlike when former President Dwight D. Eisenhower federalized the National Guard to enforce desegregation in 1957, neither California Governor Gavin Newsom nor Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is obstructing federal immigration enforcement, much less ordering the California National Guard to do so as former Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus did in 1957. They are simply refusing to order the kind of unwarranted brute force that Trump seems to desire, and are unwilling to dismantle sanctuary statutes that have never once been deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. We are less than five months into Trump's second term, and despite loss after loss in court, the administration seems determined to stick to Abusive Federalism as both the philosophy and practice of governing. The union was not designed for this kind of naked coercion, and the White House should not be surprised, then, when the blue state targets of Trump's abuse start thinking a little more carefully about their options. David Faris is an associate professor of political science at Roosevelt University and the author of It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics. His writing has appeared in Slate, The Week, The Washington Post, The New Republic, Washington Monthly and more. You can find him on Twitter @davidmfaris. The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
