OPINION: A Big, Beautiful Gateway To Tyranny

Most of us know that nearly all GOP House members, including our own Congressman Dan Meuser, voted to require huge cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and food stamps to line the 1 percent’s already bulging pockets.

 Now the word’s out that the budget megabill that Donald Trump pushed and they passed by one vote wouldn’t just make a lot more people hungrier and sicker (or our air and water dirtier or our population less educated or the national debt even larger, among other changes for the worse).

House Resolution 1, a number signifying that it’s top-priority, would also cripple the federal judiciary, one of the few remaining guardrails against presidential overreach after most GOP members of Congress, especially Meuser, decided their real job is to obey and promote Trump.

(The bill’s eyeroll-inducing name, “The One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” is even based on Trump’s hyperbole.)

The proposed safety net cuts have prompted a justifiable outcry, but fear and anger are also erupting over one short paragraph that would elevate Trump from head oligarch to full-fledged tyrant. And his administration has already shown its cruelty, authoritarianism and incompetence.

A social media meme claimed that H.R. 1 would prevent judges from enforcing orders as well as allow Trump as president to ignore Supreme Court rulings for a year or more and even delay or cancel elections.

It sounds far-fetched, since these nightmare scenarios have nothing to do with the budget, and the bill doesn’t mention them.

We could live under them, though, if Section 70302, “Restriction on Enforcement,” makes it through the Senate and into Trump’s hot little hands: It would remove a federal court’s power to enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order unless the plaintiff issues a bond.

Moreover, it would cover all such rulings, even those issued before H.R. 1’s effective date.

Meuser’s office didn’t comment on this, but at least one GOP congressman, Mike Flood of Nebraska, admitted he didn’t learn about this toxic nugget until after he voted. Since then, he said, he’s expressed his concern to senators.   

More fervent Trump cheerleaders may defend the provision by saying Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65(c) already requires bonds.

But federal courts rarely require them from plaintiffs challenging a government’s unconstitutional actions, according to Erwin Chemerinsky, the University of California at Berkeley’s law school dean.

“Those seeking such court orders generally do not have the resources to post a bond, and insisting on it would immunize unconstitutional government conduct from judicial review,” he wrote for law and policy journal Just Security.  “It always has been understood that courts can choose to set the bond at zero.” 

Hopefully, the Senate will delete this power grab, at the very least because it only allows budget measures in bills like H.R. 1. 

What Pennsylvania’s Senators Say

GOP Dave McCormick’s office had no comment on the enforcement restriction or the megabill, which he wants to study further. Like Meuser, he’s said the targets aren’t safety nets, just “waste, fraud and abuse,” his party’s new favorite buzzwords.

In a statement, Democrat John Fetterman said he’ll vote no for several reasons: “I’ll never abandon our rural hospitals, small farmers, or the millions of Pennsylvanians who rely on Medicaid and SNAP. Working families deserve the programs that help them stay healthy and feed their families in tough times — the ultra-rich don’t need more tax cuts.”

And he opposes the enforcement restriction because it would “allow people to blatantly disregard and disrespect our justice system.”

But sticking it to the courts is an agenda item for Trump, who’s fumed as federal judges rule against his tariffs, deportations and other moves. As NOTUS reporter Jose Pagliery wrote, the enforcement restriction goes hand-in-hand with Trump’s executive order that all federal agencies require a bond when they’re sued.  https://friedman.house.gov/media/in-the-news/notus-big-beautiful-bill-has-tiny-provision-could-tax-trump-legal-resistance

It also fits nicely with Project 2025ers’ plans to drastically empower the presidency.

And the idea isn’t brand-new. JD Vance hinted at something like it in a 2021 interview where he suggested Trump, if re-elected, should replace every government employee with “our people.”

“You will get taken to court,” he said. “And then, when the courts stop you, stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did and say, ‘The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.’”

Lisa Von Ahn is an experienced columnist previously published in the Pottsville Republican Herald newspaper.

Canary note: Opinions expressed in any Op-Ed column appearing on this site are the views of the writer and are not necessarily the opinions of Coal Region Canary.

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