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In this moment, the future of our rights, our bodily autonomy, our freedom feels uncertain. What we do next will make a difference for decades to come.
This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (at Work): Trump-Appointed Judges
The new Trump presidency hasn’t even started yet, but the chaos sure has. With astonishingly unqualified nominees piling up for key Cabinet positions and devouring media attention, one can be forgiven for forgetting that Joe Biden is still the president. But he is — and he is still in charge of nominating judges to fill federal court vacancies, while the current Senate is still in charge of confirming them.
You might think confirming judges sounds like a mundane administrative task, but you would be incorrect. That’s because federal judges — from the district courts all the way up to the Supreme Court—play a critically important role in interpreting our laws and protecting our civil rights. When presidents choose qualified individuals with a strong commitment to the rule of law and affirming equal justice under it, we generally get court decisions that are in line with that commitment and advance justice for all of us. When presidents choose partisan hacks who are dismissive of, say, women’s bodily autonomy or the very purpose and function of government itself, we get decisions that strip us of our autonomy and undermine our government’s ability to address important problems.
Federal judges are appointed for life — so their impact extends well beyond any individual presidency. The Biden-Harris administration has taken many important regulatory actions to protect workers and boost pay for people across the country. But roughly one-third of the federal judges on the bench during President Biden’s term were appointed by President-elect Trump during his first term, and they have consistently sided with corporate employers, not workers. Recent decisions from Trump’s judges have:
- Taken away eligibility for overtime pay from millions of workers;
- Reversed minimum wage increases for workers on federal contracts;
- Gutted policies to protect tipped workers from wage theft; and
- Allowed employers to continue locking workers into bad jobs through coercive non-compete agreements.
Trump’s judges have taken money right out of the pockets of workers. And even when the current administration appeals these decisions, those appeals will be heard by still more Trump-appointed judges—potentially even the three Trump-appointed judges currently on the Supreme Court. SCOTUS’s Trump triumvirate recently added to their string of appalling, precedent-defying decisions with Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which upended decades of case law by allowing un-elected judges to ignore expert federal agencies when interpreting ambiguous provisions of laws.
Judges also have the power to make it harder — or easier — for people to enforce their rights at work and hold their employers accountable for discrimination. Trump-appointed judges have consistently chosen to make it harder. For example:
- In 2022, Congress enacted the bipartisan Pregnant Workers Fairness Act to ensure that pregnant workers can obtain reasonable pregnancy-related accommodations so they can meet their health needs while continuing to work. But right-wing extremists have tried to hamstring the law by challenging its implementing regulations in multiple courts—and so far, these challenges have been successful before Trump-appointed judges in Louisiana and North Dakota.
- Right-wing extremists are similarly seeking to get rid of updated enforcement guidance from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) designed to help employers and employees understand how to avoid harassment in the workplace — all because the guidance takes the position that persistently misgendering transgender workers could, under certain circumstances, rise to the level of illegal harassment under federal civil rights laws. One lawsuit challenging this guidance has already been successful before a Trump-appointed judge in North Dakota. Three others haven’t been decided yet — two will be heard by Trump-appointed judges (and one by a George W. Bush appointee).
As president, Donald Trump will undoubtedly appoint more judges who want to unravel workplace protections, shifting even more power from workers to employers and empowering workplace bullies to intimidate and harass their coworkers with impunity. The Senate must not leave any current vacancies for Trump to fill—and must instead confirm judges who will protect our rights and benefits at work.
Take action: Tell the Senate to confirm judges committed to expanding civil rights.
