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Last Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit denied the government’s motion for an emergency stay of a temporary restraining order blocking enforcement of certain sections of Executive Order 13769, which, among other things, bans individuals from seven countries from entering the United States.
Regardless of your position on the Ninth Circuit’s decision, NTEU thinks it is worth noting that the unanimous decision cited an NTEU First Amendment victory in the Supreme Court, United States v. NTEU, for the proposition that it is not up to the court to rewrite the Executive Order to avoid any constitutional defects.
As the three-judge panel noted, “even if the TRO might be overbroad in some respects, it is not our role to try, in effect, to rewrite the Executive Order. See United States v. Nat’l Treasury Emps. Union, 513 U.S. 454, 479 (1995) (declining to rewrite a statute to eliminate constitutional defects).”
NTEU is proud of its legal advocacy and its strong record of standing up for federal employee rights.
In the 1995 NTEU case cited by the Ninth Circuit—which stemmed from a class action lawsuit filed by NTEU—the Supreme Court concluded that a statute broadly prohibiting federal employees from accepting compensation, called “honoraria,” for articles or speeches unrelated to their federal employment violated their constitutional free speech protections. Thanks to this landmark NTEU legal victory, federal employees can earn extra money through freelance writing assignments or speaking engagements when they are off duty.