President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order aimed at abolishing the Department of Education and returning most of its resources to the state level, delivering on one of his biggest campaign promises. While the order is a step in the right direction, Trump alone can’t dismantle the department. Jimmy Carter first created the agency, and later, Congress cemented it into law, meaning only Congress can dismantle it. The president can’t just wave a magic wand and make it disappear.
Democrats would have you believe that Trump’s executive order is a constitutional crisis — that education is, and always was intended to be, under the jurisdiction of the federal government. This simply is not the case.
Today, the Department of Education operates beyond its charter, and activist judges make law from the bench.
According to the Department of Education Organization Act, the federal government never intended to usurp state and local governments’ authority over education:
It is the intention of the Congress in the establishment of the Department to protect the rights of State and local governments and public and private educational institutions in the areas of educational policies and administration of programs and to strengthen and improve the control of such governments and institutions over their own educational programs and policies.
The ED has metastasized into the opposite of its original intention. Instead of protecting local control, the agency has become a federal behemoth dictating curriculum, policy, and administration at every level — a total inversion of its founding purpose.
Moreover, the founding document states that “the establishment of the Department of Education shall not increase the authority of the federal government over education.”
That didn’t age well, did it? Today, the federal government wields tremendous authority over what schools teach, how they operate, and who gets funding. It’s a bureaucratic monstrosity that Congress never intended to exist in its current form.
This pattern of government action straying away from its original intention is nothing new. In recent memory, the authors of the Patriot Act have bemoaned how the government currently uses the Act to broaden federal authority beyond its indented scope. However, one lesson from history always holds true: Once you give the government an inch, it takes a mile — every single time. America’s founders knew this, and that’s why they designed a system of checks and balances.
Overreach spreads to the courts
The left’s backlash against Trump’s actions on the Department of Education highlights a broader issue: government institutions, particularly the courts, overstepping their authority. Judges are increasingly issuing rulings based on ideology rather than law, using injunctions as a tool to block Trump’s policies with little to no recourse for appeal.
This is judicial activism. Judges are supposed to interpret the law, not write it. Imagine a football referee deciding that a touchdown is suddenly worth 10 points instead of six — just because he feels like it. That’s exactly what activist judges are doing — changing the rules mid-game to fit their agenda.
The Constitution’s framers foresaw the potential for activist judges and offered solutions to keep them in check. In Federalist 78, Alexander Hamilton states that judges should not have life tenure unless they maintain “good behavior,” meaning they can be removed if they step out of line. In Federalist 81, Hamilton goes farther, making it clear that judges can be impeached if they abuse their power.
History has since established precedent. In the 1832 case Worcester v. Georgia, the Supreme Court ruled that Georgia had to stop interfering with Cherokee land. Georgia ignored it. The judge could rule about the legality of the case, but ultimately, he lacked the final authority to enforce the law.
I’m not suggesting that we ignore the courts entirely. However, we must recognize that the judiciary was never meant to be the ultimate authority. It was designed to be the weakest branch of government — it has no army, no budget, and no enforcement power beyond its rulings. Congress holds the purse strings, and the president commands the military.
Time to restore balance
The president’s move to cut the Department of Education, along with his other major checks against our unhinged federal bureaucracy, is a step in the right direction. But it’s not enough to just trim it — we need to restore it to its original purpose or dismantle it entirely.
Likewise, we need to rein in the courts. Judges should not be legislators in robes, and it’s this unchecked power that has enabled the federal bureaucracy to mutate into its current form today. Congress has the power to check them, and it’s time that lawmakers use it.
Our founders designed a system where no single branch could dominate the others. But today, the Department of Education operates beyond its charter, and activist judges make law from the bench. We have strayed far from the system of government America’s founders envisioned.
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