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This edition’s letter comes from Kristine Garrity in Calabash:
President James Madison, who wrote the Bill of Rights and 29 of the 85 Federalist Papers, is known as the “Father of the Constitution.”
Madison explained in Federalist No. 55 that the Founding Fathers separated power among three branches of government, because “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judicial in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self–appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
Trump’s Executive Order freezing “disbursement of all Federal financial assistance” is clearly unconstitutional. We know that because Richard Nixon tried to do the same thing.
Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution gives Congress sole power to pass laws spending federal money. Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution requires the President to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Nixon claimed that allowed him to decide whether or not to spend money Congress had appropriated. A unanimous Supreme Court rejected that argument and ruled that presidents cannot withhold funds for programs that Congress has authorized.
Two federal judges blocked Trump’s unconstitutional power grab, ruling that Trump’s “failure to spend funds appropriated by Congress violates the separation of powers.” An Appeals Court upheld the lower court’s injunction.
A third federal judge blocked Elon Musk from carrying out Trump’s order by taking over a critical Treasury Department payment system because it risks “disclosure of sensitive and confidential information and…hacking.”
Sen. Tillis (R-NC), a huge Musk cheerleader, shrugged off Musk’s Treasury tampering, saying “innovation requires pushing the envelope and taking calculated risks.
Tillis figures he cannot win reelection without Trump’s support, so he’s decided to rubber stamp whatever Trump does, even when it’s unconstitutional. Tillis agrees that Trump’s freeze “runs afoul of the Constitution,” but, he says,” nobody should bellyache about that.”
Yes, Senator Tillis, somebody should, and that somebody is you, because you swore to defend the Constitution in your Oath of Office. If you won’t honor your oath, step aside so we can elect a senator who will.
Over the last several weeks, President Trump and Elon Musk have blitzed large parts of the federal government, attacking what they've framed as waste and corruption, and sparking a debate about the constitutional limits of the White House's power.
Trump appears to be operating under the "unitary executive theory,” an expansive interpretation of presidential power championed under the Reagan administration.
At least some of the legal challenges to that power – and, by extension, Musk's – are likely to land in the Supreme Court. Garrity is correct that multiple courts blocked President Nixon’s attempts to “impound” funding authorized by Congress, including the Supreme Court’s 1975 ruling on Train v. New York. But it’s worth noting that the Roberts Court looks much different than the Burger Court.
Tillis, a Republican and North Carolina’s senior senator, hasn’t always been in lockstep with Trump. Take for example Trump’s plans for Gaza, announced last week – a plan some, including a coalition of American Rabbis, have decried as ethnic cleansing because it would remove Palestinians with no clear path for them to return. Tillis stopped well short of that sort of criticism, but quipped there were “a couple of kinks in that slinky.” (He then clarified with a more serious, if less quotable, rejection, saying, “Obviously it's not going to happen. I don't know under what circumstance it would make sense even, even for Israel.")
When we’ve covered Tillis in the past, we’ve often received harsh comments about him, from the right, calling him a RINO (or worse). In particular, Tillis’ support of the Biden infrastructure bill seemed to provoke some rancor. And Tillis, it seems, is not immune to that kind of pushback.
“Tillis has publicly differed with Trump on multiple occasions previously, but has also backed down at times — most notably on immigration policy — when pushed by Trump loyalists in the GOP,” as NC Newsline wrote last year, after Tillis criticized Trump’s cozy relationship with far-right activist and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer.
This month, Trump threatened Tillis with a primary after he emerged as a key holdout in the defense secretary nomination process for Pete Hegseth, who has faced allegations of sexual assault, alcohol abuse, and public misconduct. (According to reporting by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, Tillis promised to vote against Hegseth, and made moves to scuttle his nomination, but then backtracked and ultimately cast the 50th ‘yea’ vote, leaving Vice President J.D. Vance to break the tie).
Tillis seemed far less concerned about Trump and Musk’s efforts to reshape the federal government. He did acknowledge that it “runs afoul of the Constitution in the strictest sense.” But he also added the caveat, “It’s not uncommon for presidents to flex a little bit on where they can spend and where they can stop spending,” and offered the headline-worthy judgment, “No one should be bellyaching about that.”
Whether the courts, and voters, agree with Tillis remains to be seen. But, for what it’s worth, I did enjoy this rejoinder from Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute.
“One group of thinkers who were given to bellyache when officials acted in unconstitutional ways were the framers of the Constitution, who had in recent memory the ‘long train of abuses and usurpations’ committed in the name of the British crown,” Olson wrote.
(Have your own thoughts on Tillis, or maybe someone — or something closer — to home? Send them my way.) | 
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