Vance Says The Courts Cannot Overturn Executive Actions (He's Wrong!)

Vance has hit the trail to try and justify Trump's massive number of executive orders. He's saying "Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power." He is both right and wrong.

The operative word is "legitimate". No judge should/can overturn an executive order that is legitimate (does not violate the law or the Constitution). An example would be Trump's overturning of Biden's executive orders. It may not be good policy, but any executive order can be overturned by another executive order. That's just common sense - and it's legal.

But Trump has issued some (perhaps many) executive orders that are not legal and/or constitutional. One example is the order to ban birthright citizenship. The Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution clearly states that anyone born in the United States (and subject to its laws) is a citizen. Denying that citizenship is a clear violation of the Constitution - and any judge doing his duty must negate that executive order.

Another example is Trump trying to freeze funds that Congress authorized or doing away with organizations created by Congress. The Constitution gives Congress the power to create needed organizations and fund them. In fact, all funding for the government must come from Congress. A president can negotiate funding with Congress or refuse to sign a funding bill. But he cannot refuse to fund anything authorized by Congress after a funding bill becomes law. That's another clear violation of the Constitution - and it's just Trump trying to grab the power of Congress for himself.

When writing the Constitution, our Founding Fathers feared that someday a president might try to grab dictatorial powers (maybe even with the acceptance of Congress). That why they didn't create a government with only one, or two power centers, but created three separate and equal branches of government. The judiciary was created not just to administer the law, but also to make sure the other two branches did not violate the Constitution.

Trump's legal executive orders should survive judicial scrutiny (even if they create bad policy - like his tariffs). But his illegal and/or unconstitutional executive orders should be overturned.Not doing so would seriously damage our constitutional democracy.