The Supreme Court rejected President Donald Trump’s executive order, which blocked congressionally appropriated foreign aid funding, ruling that USAID will have to resume payments of nearly $2 billion.
This is a rude awakening for Trump who is attempting to block the provisions of the legislative branch with his executive orders. The SCOTUS ruling reaffirms the separation of powers mandated by the Constitution.
Two conservatives, Chief Justice John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett, voted along with three liberals, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. The dissenting opinion written by conservative Justice Sam Alito and shared by Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh, sidestepped the constitutional merits of the balance-of-powers case, resting instead on political considerations.
“Does a single district-court judge who likely lacks jurisdiction have the unchecked power to compel the Government of the United States to pay out (and probably lose forever) 2 billion taxpayer dollars? The answer to that question should be an emphatic ‘No,’ but a majority of this Court apparently thinks otherwise,” Alito wrote.
Last week, Washington federal court Judge Amir Ali ordered the resumption of funding after the Trump administration ignored an earlier ruling that asked the federal government to promptly release funds to contractors and grantees from USAID and the State Department for their past work.
However, the government challenged the Feb. 26 deadline, arguing that it would take several weeks for the two federal agencies to resume payments, in part because Elon Musk’s DOGE has since laid off employees and terminated contracts already in place.
DC, USA, 23 April 2021. ANSA/EPA/Erin Schaff / POOL
This is the first Supreme Court decision on a measure by the Trump administration, which is currently involved in more than 100 court cases related to executive orders issued by the president.
In Congress, Democrats said the ruling shows that Trump’s power to freeze spending is not as unlimited as he claims. “That money had already been appropriated, the contracts signed. I think the Supreme Court ruled the right way, and now the administration needs to unfreeze them and allow those contractors and the work to be done,” said New York Congressman Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Democratic Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal called it “a very important ruling” from “a Trump-dominated court.” “I think it reinforces the fact that Congress has the authorization to allocate money, that people rely on that authorization for those programs, and that when you do the work you should be paid when the contracts are signed.” Asked if she is sure the payments will be triggered, Jayapal said she is not sure of anything, “but I hope the Trump administration will pay attention to the Supreme Court.”
Independent Senator Bernie Sanders commented on the Supreme Court decision saying that “the dismantling of USAID by Elon Musk and Donald Trump will lead to millions of preventable deaths. The decision by the richest person in the world to destroy an agency that provides life-saving aid to the poorest people on the planet is unacceptable. Congress created USAID as an independent agency—it cannot be unilaterally eliminated by the president based on the whim of an unelected billionaire. These cuts will not only lead to millions of unnecessary deaths around the world, they are also an attack on our democracy and the checks and balances of the division of power on which our democracy is founded.”
After the ruling, Secretary of State Marco Rubio received a letter signed by more than 700 State Department and Foreign Service officials expressing their opposition to the dismantling of the agency.
