Constitutional Opinion No. 2026-0910
Case Information
- Source
- congress.gov / U.S. Government Publishing Office (BILLS-119s23is)
- Author
- 119th Congress (Sen. Joni Ernst)
- Publication Date
- 2025-01-07
- Content Type
- Legal / Normative Text
- Opinion Issued
- 2026-07-22
- AFCS Version
- 1.0
Holding
The drain-the-swamp principle in its most forceful legislative form — a hard mandate, on a hard timeline, to move a third of the headquarters bureaucracy out of Washington and shrink its real-estate footprint by a third — scoring into the top band for a direct, teeth-bearing attack on the concentration of administrative power in the capital. Where its companion (0909) forbids new D.C. HQs and lets relocation unfold by attrition, this orders the move: 30% of HQ staff out within a year, 30% of HQ property gone within two, premium D.C. locality pay recalculated downward, the work-from-the-capital telework loophole closed. It advances the limits of Washington at the article's heart with real force — the concentration of unaccountable power actually broken up, not merely studied (XII); relocates government among the governed (II); cuts real cost via property reduction, recalculated pay, no incentives, no new appropriations (X); and seeds federal employment nationwide (XIII). The honest considerations — disruption, supersession of collective-bargaining agreements, bar on private suit — are, within this framework, minor or affirmative: curbing public-sector-union grip and preventing litigation from strangling a lawful reorganization are part of draining the swamp, and the national-security core is exempted. The disruption is the point, and the framework embraces it. Scores above its gradualist companion (0909, 79) for directness and force. No Rule 6 trigger. Legal/Normative Text (85/15), no JI. America First (81).
It is the judgment of this Court that Opinion No. 2026-0910 is hereby entered into the record, in accordance with the America First Constitutional Standard. The score stands. The reasoning is published. The record is public.