Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson stood alone in dissent Tuesday as the nation’s highest court ruled 8–1 in favor of allowing the Trump administration to move forward with a sweeping plan to reduce the size of the federal workforce.
The decision clears the way for the White House’s long-promised Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) agenda.
The DOGE agenda includes large-scale layoffs across federal agencies.
The ruling reverses a lower court injunction that had temporarily blocked the effort following legal challenges from left-wing advocacy groups aligned with public sector unions.
In a sharply worded dissent, Justice Jackson accused the Court of prematurely intervening in what she called a still-developing legal dispute.
“For some reason, this Court sees fit to step in now and release the President’s wrecking ball at the outset of this litigation,” Jackson wrote.
“In my view, this decision is not only truly unfortunate but also hubristic and senseless.”
Notably, none of the Court’s other liberal justices joined Jackson’s opinion.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, while not endorsing the layoffs, did not oppose the majority’s decision to allow the case to move forward in the lower courts.
She argued that it was too early to intervene.
However, Sotomayor stopped short of signing onto Jackson’s sweeping dissent.
The majority opinion included both conservative and liberal justices.
It effectively affirms the administration’s authority to proceed with its federal downsizing initiative while legal arguments are still being heard.
The White House has maintained that the current federal workforce is bloated and inefficient.
In a February memo circulated among agency heads, officials described the bureaucracy as “costly, inefficient, and deeply in debt,” urging agencies to brace for budget tightening and job cuts.
Legal challenges soon followed, prompting a lower court to issue an injunction, now lifted by the Supreme Court.
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley blasted Jackson over the scathing rebuke.
“This is another shot across the bow to lower courts,” Turley said on “Fox & Friends” Wednesday.
“They’ve got to knock this off.
“They’ve got to stop with these injunctions.”
Turley noted that disagreements among the liberal justices aren’t new, but Jackson’s solo dissent stands out.
“On this occasion, Jackson is alone,” the renowned legal scholar said.
“She couldn’t even get Justice Sotomayor to sign on to this dissent.”
Turley said the court’s ruling sends a strong message to lower courts that delays to the Trump administration’s plans not firmly grounded in legal standing won’t be tolerated.
“This is six months of delay,” Turley said.
“It could have been much longer.
“The court is signaling, ‘We’re going to be on you very quickly if you continue to do these kinds of orders.’”
He added that the dissent from Jackson is part of a larger pattern in her judicial style.
“This is part of a signature of what’s becoming a type of judicial abandon that Jackson has towards the power of these courts,” Turley said.
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