Carole Levine April 18, 2025
There was a glimmer of hope on April 7th, but just a glimmer, in the admittedly wrongful deportation case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. The Supreme Court ruled that the administration is required to “facilitate” his release from the notorious prison in El Salvador, his home country. The Court’s ruling was unanimous, but apparently not enough for the administration to promptly present a plan for how they will comply. Solicitor General John D. Sauer was quick to point out that only the President can conduct foreign affairs and that this kind of action would fall into that bucket. I guess that was the long version for “the courts be damned!” In addition, there was an immediate petition from the Administration for more time, keeping Garcia in the hell hole of a prison in the nation he had fled, with little concern for his safety or well-being.
This is the chaos of our times. For those of us who are looking for actions from Congress to take on some of the clearly illegal acts being perpetrated by this administration, we need to recognize that we are being led by a convicted felon as well as a cadre of elected “invertebrates” on both sides of the aisle. While Senator Corey Booker’s record-breaking 25-hour speech on April 1st was filled with wonderful statements and he was well-supported by his Democratic colleagues who peppered him with questions and topics to keep him going, it did nothing to move the needle on legislating. In these times, it seems few people are doing their jobs.
Perhaps one of the strongest actions against this administration is the multiple “holds” put on the President’s nominees by Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and others in the Senate. What Schatz has done has brought to a halt consideration of administration nominees in more than a dozen departments, including all State Department nominees. Schatz also is blocking nine bipartisan bills that recently cleared the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in protest of what he characterized as the committee’s lax oversight of the Trump administration. This is in protest of many of the Administration’s policies, including the closing of federal agencies. While many administration nominees can be reported out of Senate committees via unanimous consent, each senator has the ability to object and significantly slow down the process of getting to a final vote. How significant is this? At this point, it is hard to judge when the Administration seems to ignore most normal processes and looks for ways to circumvent what would be the norm. What results is not order, but rather, chaos.
Adding to this chaos is the avalanche of Executive Orders coming from the White House. It is important to understand just what Executive Orders are and what they can (and cannot) do. Executive orders are not laws, says legal expert Steve Vladeck, writing on March 27, 2025. He further explains that executive orders are expressions of how the President intends to exercise powers he already has—whether through statutory delegation from Congress or directly under Article II of the Constitution. With that understanding, the question is which specific authorities allow the President to take each of the actions an executive order purports to take.
The President can issue rules, regulations, and instructions (these would be executive orders), which have the binding force of law upon the breadth of the Executive branch, its departments and agencies. They can be overturned or weakened by each of the other two legs of our system of checks and balances, the courts and the Congress.
Executive orders are subject to judicial review and interpretation. Courts may strike down executive orders not only because the president lacked authority to issue them, but also in cases where the order is found to be unconstitutional in substance, falling outside of the areas of Presidential powers. Enforcement of a court ruling, however, should a court reject or disagree with an executive order, remains a fuzzy area.
While Congress cannot directly overturn an executive order with a vote, they can pass legislation that makes the order ineffective. This can be done by repealing the specific authority the President relied on when issuing the order, or by denying the funding necessary for the order to be carried out. The President can then veto this legislation, but Congress can override the veto with a two-thirds vote in both houses.
If all of this seem a bit overwhelming… it is intentional. We are being bombarded with executive orders and actions from the White House that seemingly are being assumed to be law. Again, this is not exactly the case. The courts can intervene when these orders seem particularly egregious (like dismantling the Department of Education).
These are times when the average citizen may be feeling quite powerless… but we are not…However, we have to be aware of these actions and respond when we see clear violations of the Constitution and our rights. Legal expert Steve Vladeck explains this clearly:
The Executive Order from the administration titled “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections,” is a case in point. For most of what the order purports to do involves actions that are either (1) purely administrative; (2) beyond the President’s power to take wholly by himself; or (3) potentially unlawful. Some of this is because the President cannot just unilaterally order state officials (who control most every feature of federal elections) to do much of anything, nor can he unilaterally change state laws. Also, some of this is due to the fact that most of what is in the Executive Order is that the President can accomplish are either totally administrative (like directing the Attorney General to prioritize enforcement of specific existing laws) or potentially unlawful (like threatening to withhold funds from states that do not do the President’s bidding).
Under standing this does not make these Presidential actions any less scary or troublesome. As Vladeck further states regarding the “Integrity of American Elections” Executive Order:
That doesn’t make Trump’s order any less ominous; the Constitution contemplates a role for the federal government in regulating the “time, place, and manner” of federal elections, but it is explicit that such a role is to be played byCongress, not by the President. In that respect, the order represents as stunning an effort by a President to seize control over the mechanics of federal elections as any we’ve seen in American history.
You may be asking “Just what do we do?” at this point. I found great wisdom in the writing of legal expert and columnist and commentator Joyce Vance when she wrote on April 13, 2025:
We aren’t powerless. The place to start fighting back is with knowledge. During his first term in office, Trump turned the idea of being “woke” into something negative. That pretty much epitomizes his whole shtick. If people are uninformed about what he’s doing, they won’t object. So our job is to be well informed, to understand what’s going on. Pick the issue that matters to you the most and do a deep dive on it, or pay attention to a number of different issues. Have conversations with friends—and with total strangers—about what’s going on. But don’t be complacent. That’s the dictator’s trap, and we are not going to fall into it.
So… pick your issue(s) and let’s get started. We have work to do to get through this chaos.
