President Joe Biden continued his losing streak in federal court earlier this week — and deservedly so.
Biden already has lost court battles involving his plans to kill oil leases, to punish employers if their workers are unvaccinated, to institute a race-based relief program for farmers and restaurateurs, and to impose a housing eviction moratorium, among others. Then, on Nov. 15, U.S. District Judge L. Scott Coogler blocked a major tax provision from the massive bill Biden pushed through Congress in the name of coronavirus relief.
Thirteen states had objected to the provision, which would bar states receiving federal COVID-19 relief funds from reducing state taxes for the next three years.
The states sued on multiple grounds, and Coogler ruled the states do indeed have legal “standing” to challenge the provision because “they are subject to continuous and ongoing harm [to] … their legislative process[es].” Having acknowledged the states’ standing, Coogler examined whether the no-tax-cut provision amounted to coercion or “compulsion” by the federal government that unconstitutionally interfered with the ordinary taxing authority of the states.
“The Tax Mandate dictates more than what States do with federal funds.” Coogler wrote. “It dictates what States do with State funds as well … [and] pressures States into adopting a particular — and federally preferred — tax policy.” For that reason, he wrote, it “is a federal invasion of State sovereignty.”
Accordingly, Coogler imposed a permanent injunction against the Biden administration from enforcing the no-tax-cut provision against any of the 13 states at issue.
Combined with similar rulings from federal district courts in Ohio and Kentucky, Coogler’s decision presents a compelling justification for the Supreme Court eventually to rule in favor of the states if the Biden administration keeps appealing to impose its “tax mandate.” The federal government is not all-powerful. The U.S. constitutional system, especially the 10th Amendment, promotes the principle of subsidiarity, meaning that policy decisions are rightly handled at the most local level practicable.
States are not merely divisions of the national behemoth — they have independent, sovereign authority that the feds may not infringe. By dispersing power rather than entirely centralizing it, the U.S. system safeguards liberty. Judges are right to block the feds from chipping away at that structural protection of freedom.
