Republican Bill Shows Contempt for the Rule of Law

Last Thursday, the House narrowly passed a Republican bill rewriting huge swaths of American domestic policy. The bill would slash public safety net programs to shreds, pulling nearly a trillion dollars from health coverage and food assistance programs that serve low-income individuals and families. And even with these vicious cuts, the legislation will still add nearly $4 trillion to the federal deficit, in large part because of its massive tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The bill represents a drastic and draconian new agenda. But one of the most dangerous provisions in the legislation is directed not at a federal program, but at an entire branch of the federal government: the judiciary. Republicans want to make it all but impossible for the courts to actually stop the administration from breaking the law.

The bill would do this by significantly reducing federal judges’ power to hold federal officials in contempt of court. Why is such a power necessary? The early days of the second Trump administration have been marked by illegality after illegality. Arresting or deporting immigrants and legal residents without due process; refusing to follow laws directing federal spending, including spending on vital, lifesaving programs fighting disease, violence, and starvation; and firing officials and civil servants without cause or the legal authority to do so, leaving government offices hamstrung and unready to serve the public, among many other actions. Courts have stepped in to block many of these, but given the administration’s willingness to brazenly break the law in the first place, there is already reason to fear that its officials will defy court orders to undo or correct their actions.

If the executive branch has no fear of real consequences for illegal actions, then the courts will no longer be able to protect Americans from an administration that has little regard for the rule of law.

But if and when Trump and his team decide to ignore the courts, judges have few tools to enforce the law. These illegalities are not crimes committed by individuals; there is no prison sentence promised in law for bureaucrats (or presidents) who revoke visas or withhold appropriated funds. One of the only ways courts have to ensure that the law is followed is holding officials in contempt of court if they don’t follow through on a court order. Now, as several members of Congress warned and legal experts warned before the legislation passed, this provision would essentially nullify contempt orders in nearly all cases against the administration and protect officials who defy the courts from any real consequences.

Organizations and media outlets are tracking the ongoing lawsuits against the administration in many areas, including civil rights, immigration, international relations, government spending, and the environment. But the administration’s illegal moves threaten education, as well. Students, schools, and educators are relying heavily on the courts to strike down these actions—and to meaningfully enforce those orders. The following is a list of administration actions affecting education that are currently facing legal challenges:

• Mass layoffs at the United States Department of Education
• Mass layoffs at the Institute of Museum and Library Services
• The gutting of research programs at the National Science Foundation
• Defunding and dismantling the Institute of Education Sciences, hamstringing education research, and resulting in harms to educators, policymakers, and families and students who benefit from the research
• The sudden pullback of K-12 COVID relief dollars a year ahead of the previously announced deadline
• The cancellation of many teacher training grants that were funded via congressionally-appropriated programs
• The National Institutes of Health capping funding for indirect research costs at a 15 percent rate
• Blocking Harvard and other universities’ ability to enroll international students

EdWeek has a more comprehensive interactive chart listing all of the lawsuits here.

This is a perilous moment—for students, educators, and places of learning—but also for the country as a whole. If the executive branch has no fear of real consequences for illegal actions, then the courts will no longer be able to protect Americans from an administration that has little regard for the rule of law.