The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that Trump’s administration could dismiss more than half of the Education Department’s workforce – massives, the words of the Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, “the first step on the road to the closure of the department.”
Judgment McMahon against New Yorkwas served in the “shadow document”, the combination of urgent suggestions and other accelerated subjects, which the judges often decide without detailed briefing or verbal arguments. As often in the decisions of the shadow documents, none of the Republican judges explained their decision. Justice, Sonia Sotomayor, wrote disagreements to which both judges of her colleague democracy joined.
Technically judgment McMahon is temporary – it allows the Trump administration to dismiss most of the Education Department staff while the claim is still expected in the Federal Court. However, it is far from clear how the Department of Education could relax more than half of its 4,000 employees.
McMahon The decision is particularly frustrated because it shows that President Donald Trump is allowed to “cancel” the federal costs – unilaterally refusing to spend money or continue federal programs obliged by the Congress act. While McMahon Not very authorized by a clin at the Trump’s administration to dismiss so many federal staff, with so many key roles that the practical effect is to cancel all federal programs.
Long -term is unconstitutional, and even some of the courts have previously said so much.
As Judge Brett Kavanaugh wrote in 2013. In the opinion, when he was still a lower court judge, “Even the president has no unilateral authority to refuse to issue funds. Instead, the president must offer the annulment of the funds and the congress may decide whether to confirm the annulment account”.
If the President had the power to cancel the funds, he could effectively annul any federal law by terminating the costs imposed by that law or terminating the money needed to implement him.
Until recently, the argument that the president could eliminate the funds was considered so funny that even Republican legal chandeliers rejected him out of hand. As in 1969 In the memorandum of the Department of Justice, the future chief judge William Rehnquist wrote, “In our opinion, it is very difficult to formulate a constitutional theory based on the President’s refusal to follow the Congress Directive to release.”
The plaintiffs McMahonCoalition of States and the School District, which is losing funding due to short mass shootings, said that only Congress could eliminate the entire Federal Department or otherwise withdraw the federal expenditure programs authorized by federal laws. And, as Sotomayor explains in her disagreement, mass shootings, her republic’s colleagues are simply green, effectively destroying many such programs.
E.g. The Special Education and Rehabilitation Services Bureau, which is tasked with providing technical assistance and advice related to persons with disabilities and the Education Act.
In addition, all of these shootings are the first step in implementing Trump’s executive order with the unit entitled “Closing the Department of Education and the Refund to States”.
Thus, it seems that Republican judges have decided that Trump can indirectly do what the Constitution prohibits him directly. Even if they will eventually prevent him from destroying the Education Department’s funding-it will close the department, allowing the short to remove all of their money, the GOP-controlled court will allow the short to achieve the same result by releasing the department’s staff.
McMahon resolves the secret of less than a week old
Last week, in Short before the American Government Federation (Found), The Supreme Court issued a similar decision to restore another short executive order that required mass shootings. As a result of this order, federal agencies have come up with aggressive plans for fire agencies, but did not provide much information on what would be dismissed.
Important is that the judgment is made Found Divide three democratic judges. While judge Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote disagreements saying that Trump cannot get involved Found The case is too early.
According to Sotomayor, and the order of the executive order Found The necessary agencies come up with mass shooting plans: “The plans themselves are not before this trial at this stage, so we have no opportunity to consider whether they can and will be executed in accordance with the restrictions of the law.”
In other words, Sotomayor would have waited for the agencies to release their plans, and then it would have determined whether any of these plans make such deep reductions that they are equivalent to some non -constitutional introduction.
McMahon The case, on the contrary, provided the same problem as the Sotomayor it expected Found Consent. The secretary McMahon has already come up with a plan to dismiss more than half of her department staff, and the plan was in the Supreme Court. Thus, Sotomayor and her colleagues could determine whether any of these incisions are so deep that it effectively removes federal programs authorized by Congress.
But now that the issue was properly at the time of the court, Sotomayor Republican colleagues have said the back to the war.
So why did Republican judges reached this conclusion?
Because most judges did not explain their decision McMahonIt is impossible to determine confidently why they decided to favor Trump. However, Sotomayor’s disagreement summarizes the legal arguments of the short administration and thus gives a certain window why this decision may have been as he did.
The main argument of the administration was that the plaintiffs in this case lacked “helping” to challenge mass shootings – before the party could bring a federal claim, they must show that they were injured in some way by the defendant they expect to apply. Trump’s lawyers argued that the plaintiffs in this case “failed to show” real or imminent “damage, quite traceable” short executive order.
However, according to Sotomayor, this “claim is denied by both record and common sense.” The plaintiffs have identified several specific injuries that have already been caused by the terminations that have already occurred. For example, the State College “did not receive re -certification for one of its university towns on time, starting at the spring semester of 2025”, as the Education Department’s office, which provides that certification was so insufficient. As a result of this failure, the school was forced to give up admission to federal financial aid, and the general time -limit was less than one -fifth of the estimated amount, costing the College to lose science funds. ‘
The Trump administration also stated that its decision to dismiss many of the Education Department’s staff can only be challenged at the Merit Systems Protection Board – no longer used by an agency that can do nothing at the moment because it lacks the quorum to act. And she said the low -court ruling was too wide.
Because Republican judges did not explain their decision, but we cannot know which of these arguments convinced them. The non -explanation of these judges may also be unnecessarily sabota the plaintiffs’ case.
If the Republican judges thought that these plaintiffs were missing, for example, their lawyers could find a different plaintiff or lodge a altered complaint claiming that mass shootings resulted in additional injuries. If the GOP judges thought that a lower -level court order to suspend the shooting is too broad, that court may still issue a narrower order.
Instead, the majority of the courts of the court gave thumbs to mass shootings without any explanation. In addition, this decision shows that Republican judges can substantially alter the balance of short and congressive power by effectively granting the brief unilateral power to abolish federal laws.