Liberals Cry Dictatorship Over Trump’s Bureaucratic House Cleaning

Every routine firing has become a hysterical “end of democracy” moment for Democrats

President Donald Trump has once again triggered the liberals by exercising his clear constitutional and statutory authority to fire bureaucrats he did not hire who do not fit the agenda voters hired him to carry out. 

On July 9, Trump fired the two remaining Democratic commissioners on the United States Election Assistance Commission (EAC) and pressured the remaining Republican member to resign. This cleared the four-member EAC of all its commissioners—the other Republican having resigned in April. 

Predictably, this prompted a massive wailing and rending of garments among Democrats.

A White House official stated: “The President, and head of the Executive Branch, reserves the right to remove individuals that may not be totally aligned with the important task of securing America’s elections and ensuring every legal vote is counted. The Slaughter decision gives the President precedent to do so."

Trump has the constitutional authority to fire these commissioners at will, and it will have no meaningful effect on the midterm elections if he doesn’t get around to replacing them before then.

Constitutional Authority Is Clear

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) claimed this move undermines our elections, dishonestly adding, “Only Congress can eliminate the EAC.”

This fits a familiar pattern. Whenever Trump fires or removes a bureaucrat, the left screams that it’s the end of the world and proof he’s becoming a dictator.

Although Cantwell is correct that only Congress can end the EAC, the Supreme Court, on June 29, ruled that the president has the authority to fire commissioners of independent agencies at will. The 6–3 ruling in Slaughter v. United States overturned the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTCA) of 1914—a product of the Progressive Era—and the New Deal-era Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, which originally upheld the FTCA. 

Slaughter held that the president heads the executive branch and can remove officials to ensure faithful execution of the laws—it says so in Article II of the Constitution. 

States Don’t Depend on the EAC to Run Their Elections

But beyond the constitutional aspect, it ultimately does not matter if Trump fires the commissioners or even bothers to rehire any before the midterm elections. 

The EAC was created after the 2000 election under the Help America Vote Act. It does not run elections. States and localities do that. Its roles are limited and advisory. It cannot dictate policy to states. 

It distributes federal funds, maintains the national mail voter registration form, certifies voting systems through testing labs, and serves as a clearinghouse for best practices and research. 

Congress allocates funds for HAVA, and the lack of enough commissioners to meet a quorum does not affect those funds’ distribution to states. 

The established national mail voter registration form simply remains in place without commissioners to amend it.

States do not require the EAC to test their voting systems. Doing so is a luxury that will resume when the president replaces the commissioners.

Finally, although the EAC may introduce good ideas at times, states do not need a federal bureaucracy to research and consult with them on how to conduct their election.

Liberals like Sen. Cantwell become hysterical whenever Trump trims bureaucratic dead weight or fires government officials that do not align with his vision. Most of these firings have minimal impact on policy or Americans’ daily lives. Yet they treat these standard executive actions as existential threats to our country’s democracy because they really want to treat the federal bureaucracy as an equal branch of government.

Trump is prioritizing election integrity and has an electoral mandate to fire and hire whomever at the EAC or any other federal agency. Hopefully, he will quickly replace the fired commissioners and those who resigned with competent leaders who will use the commission’s limited role to advance election integrity. This is not dictatorship. This is the president carrying out the duties of his office. If Democrats don’t like it, they should take it up with the voters. 

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