The Daily Populous Sunday June 29th, 2025 evening edition
Authored by chicago.suntimes.com and submitted by thieh

It’s a lesson most American schoolchildren learn in the primary grades: The legislative branch makes the laws. The executive branch enforces the laws. The judicial branch interprets the laws.

This separation of powers — “checks and balances” — is intended to prevent any one branch from becoming too powerful.

With a cowed legislature too intimidated to challenge the executive branch, it has fallen to the judiciary to serve as a check on the Trump administration’s extreme, authoritarian agenda.

A provision in what I call the Big Ugly Bill — the budget reconciliation bill currently pending in the Senate — would devastate the judicial branch’s ability to carry out its constitutional role. It would forbid courts from issuing temporary restraining orders or preliminary injunctions against the federal government unless the plaintiffs post a bond to cover any damages or costs to the government if the government eventually wins the case.

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Effectively, only billionaires and huge corporations would have the ability to challenge the federal government. As Arizona Supreme Court justice Clint Bolick wrote , “This means that many parties would have no choice but accept violations of their rights rather than seek legal redress, severely undermining the Constitution.”

The good news — or at least, potentially good news — is that if the president’s allies in Congress want to avoid a filibuster under current rules, that provision may have to go.

Because the Big Ugly Bill is being pushed through the Senate using special rules that shield it from a filibuster, it can include only proposals that directly change federal spending and not add to long-term deficits. The Senate parliamentarian ruled that bond requirement does not qualify.

It’s unclear whether senators will drop the provision or use other means at their disposal to push it through — such as eliminating the filibuster entirely. On one hand, Senate Majority Leader John Thune has promised not to eliminate the filibuster; on the other, he has been known to ignore the parliamentarian’s ruling .

Individuals and organizations, including the National Urban League , have filed about 300 lawsuits challenging the Trump administration’s actions. While only about 12 cases are closed, federal courts have at least temporarily blocked the administration’s initiatives at least 198 times.

If the administration gets its way with the Big Ugly Bill, those court rulings can’t be enforced unless the plaintiffs post enormous bonds, which almost none of them will be able to do.

Even if the Big Ugly Bill is rewritten to comply with the parliamentarian’s rulings and avoid a filibuster under current rules, its passage is not a foregone conclusion. The bill is wildly unpopular with the American people and does not have enough support in its current form to pass.

Whatever sycophantic loyalty members of the Senate may hold for President Donald Trump, every one of them swore an oath to the Constitution, not to the president. Now is the time for them to uphold that oath and stand up for the constituents they were elected to represent.

Marc H. Morial is president and CEO of the National Urban League and was mayor of New Orleans from 1994 to 2002.

He writes a twice-monthly column for the Sun-Times.

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zumba_fitness_ on June 29th, 2025 at 13:27 UTC »

This is outrageous. Only the ultra rich get to challenge the government? It's holding average people for ransom!

Affectionate_Tax4775 on June 29th, 2025 at 13:10 UTC »

Another classic case of politicians forgetting they work for the people, not the other way around.

mangoserpent on June 29th, 2025 at 13:06 UTC »

MAGA will be okay with it. The issue is the other half of Americans who are not excited about that.