OPINION:
In perhaps the most brazen act of judicial tyranny in American history, a federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to keep taxpayer dollars flowing into Planned Parenthood’s coffers in defiance of federal law.
On July Fourth, President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (H.R. 1), a historic piece of legislation that defunds Planned Parenthood for the first time in history. This has been a goal of pro-life supporters for decades.
The law bars federal Medicaid dollars from going to any community provider that “is primarily engaged in family planning services, reproductive health, and related medical care” and “provides for abortions.” The provision took effect on Independence Day and lasts one year.
The measure is common sense. Fifty-seven percent of Americans oppose using tax dollars to fund abortions, and every penny that Planned Parenthood receives goes to subsidizing the abortion business.
Yes, the abortion giant received $792.2 million, more than $2 million daily, in taxpayer funding last year through government grants, contracts and Medicaid reimbursements.
Indeed, Planned Parenthood performed more than 400,000 abortions last year. According to its data, it has earned a profit of $206 million in the past two years alone. So much for it being a “nonprofit organization.”
When Planned Parenthood couldn’t win the legislative battle, it changed tactics. The abortion giant’s new strategy: Find a nice, friendly federal judge to do its bidding, no questions asked. Literally.
Enter Judge Indira Talwani, who was more than happy to say, “I’m your huckleberry.”
Planned Parenthood requested that Judge Talwani issue a temporary restraining order against the Trump administration from enforcing H.R. 1’s provision defunding abortion providers.
Just hours later, Judge Talwani agreed. In her July 7 decision, the judge ordered the Trump administration to “take all steps necessary to ensure that Medicaid funding continues to be disbursed in the customary manner and timeframes to Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its members, Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, and Planned Parenthood Association of Utah.”
The judge, nominated to the bench by President Obama in 2013, said she found “good cause” to issue the order.
What was that “good cause”? To quote comedian Nate Bargatze, acting as George Washington, “Nobody knows.”
The judge neither explained her decision in the two-page order nor issued a separate opinion explaining her reasoning. Her order has every appearance of a rushed political decision, not a methodical, judicial one.
“Her court look[s] like a fast food drive-through,” said legal expert Thomas Jipping.
It would be amusing if it weren’t so authoritarian.
On Friday, the Trump administration asked Judge Talwani to dissolve her “highly unusual” temporary restraining order, calling out the judge for failing to provide any reason for her July 7 decision.
In response, the judge dissolved her original temporary restraining order and issued a second one stating her reasoning. However, her reasoning is so flawed that Judge Talwani would have been better off saying nothing at all.
She accepted just one of Planned Parenthood’s legal arguments, agreeing that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act violates the organization’s First Amendment right of association by excluding its “affiliates” from Medicaid funding, even though some affiliates don’t provide abortions.
However, she conveniently ignored the fact that Planned Parenthood does not distinguish between the federation and affiliates, combining funds in its financial report. Congress, quite logically, made its funding determination in line with Planned Parenthood’s financial practices.
For the sake of argument, let’s accept Judge Talwani’s contention that the bill violates the affiliates’ First Amendment rights. Why, then, did the judge apply her order to both the federation and the affiliates, including those that perform abortions? She said the bill violates only the affiliates’ First Amendment rights.
Judge Talwani wants to have her cake and eat it too, but her decision doesn’t square with her logic.
Sen. Mike Lee is now floating the idea of initiating impeachment proceedings against the judge, and well he should.
The Constitution explicitly grants Congress the “power of the purse.” Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution states, “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.”
The legislative, not the judicial, branch is responsible for spending taxpayer dollars.
The Constitution also states that the president must “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”
However, Judge Talwani, in violation of the Constitution, has seized legislative power and ordered the executive branch to ignore the law.
In Justice Antonin Scalia’s piercing dissent in Obergefell v. Hodges, he excoriated the court’s majority for seizing power that rightfully belonged to the American people.
Citing Federalist No. 78, he pointed out that “The Judiciary is the ‘least dangerous’ of the federal branches because it has ‘neither Force nor Will, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm’ and the States, ‘even for the efficacy of its judgments.’”
He blasted the hubris and “o’erweening pride” of the court in redefining marriage for the whole nation based on the whims of five unelected lawyers. “And pride,” he wrote, “goeth before a fall.”
“With each decision of ours that takes from the People a question properly left to them,” he continued, “with each decision that is unabashedly based not on law, but on the ‘reasoned judgement’ of a bare majority of this Court — we move one step closer to being reminded of our impotence.”
If that is true for the nine justices on the Supreme Court, it is even more true for one unelected, unaccountable federal district judge in Massachusetts.
The American people must decide: Are we ruled by federal judges, or are we governed by our lawfully elected representatives and a duly elected president?
“No Kings” protests were all the rage earlier this summer, but in Judge Talwani, America has finally found its authoritarian queen.
If American democracy is to survive, Judge Talwani must quickly be reminded of her impotence.
• Zachary Mettler is a writer/analyst for the Daily Citizen at Focus on the Family.
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