Embarrassing: Even Liberal Justice Sotomayor Has to Remind Ketanji Jackson What the Case Is Actually About — Jackson Stands Alone in Dissent
In a stunning 8-1 decision Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court obliterated Clinton-appointed Judge Susan Illston’s May 22 injunction that had blocked President Trump’s sweeping plan to slash federal bloat and reorganize 20 agencies.
Only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented—and even her fellow liberal, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, had to coach her on the basics of the case.
Judge Illston’s order froze thousands of Reduction-in-Force (RIF) notices and slammed the brakes on Trump’s Executive Order 14210, which directs agency heads to “promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force.”
The order is the cornerstone of Trump’s pledge to de-weaponize the bureaucracy and return power to the people.
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Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who appeared to be arguing a case entirely different from the one before the Court, was the only dissent.
In her fiery 15-page dissent, Jackson launched into a long-winded history lesson about executive overreach, Congress’s role in creating federal agencies, and past presidents' requests for reorganization authority.
She insisted that Trump’s Executive Order 14210 amounted to an illegal "critical transformation" of the federal bureaucracy that could not move forward without congressional approval.
But her alarmist dissent was so far off base that even Justice Sotomayor had to step in and gently remind Jackson that the Court wasn’t even ruling on the merits of the reorganization plans themselves.
Justice Sotomayor made it abundantly clear in her concurrence: the executive order merely instructed agencies to plan reorganizations “consistent with applicable law.” The actual restructuring plans haven’t even been challenged in this phase. The case isn’t about their legality—yet.
Sotomayor wrote in her opinion:
I agree with JUSTICE JACKSON that the President cannot restructure federal agencies in a manner inconsistent with congressional mandates. See post,at 13. Here, however, the relevant Executive Order directs agencies to plan reorganizations and reductions in force “consistent with applicable law,” App. to Application for Stay 2a, and the resulting joint memorandum from the Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management reiterates as much.
The plans themselves are not before this Court, at this stage, and we thus have no occasion to consider whether they can and will be carried out consistent with the constraints of law. I join the Court’s stay because it leaves the District Court free to consider those questions in the first instance.
OMG: Now a LIBERAL Supreme Court justice is trying to teach Justice Ketanji Jackson how this whole "judicial" thing works...
Jackson is the ONLY dissent. Sotomayor has to remind Jackson, for some reason, that the case before them is NOT about what Jackson thought it was.
My… https://t.co/XC1BkhrMs3 pic.twitter.com/FFGFz41Ous
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) July 8, 2025
For the second time in two weeks, a Supreme Court justice is using her opinion to scold Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson for not understanding what she is talking about.
Twist: This time, it's progressive Justice SONIA SOTOMAYOR doing it, patiently explaining that the Court can't… pic.twitter.com/3POzNEQXOU
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) July 8, 2025
Read the ruling below:
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