Judge Hanen shows Obama: We're all post-constitutionalists now

Now, let’s put aside the question whether Judge Hanen should be acting on the case at this point. Let’s focus on the action he took.

A federal district judge has no authority to direct the Department of Justice to institute an ethics program, much less one based on the prospect that many of the hundreds of government lawyers in Washington, who have absolutely nothing to do with the misconduct at issue in Texas v. United States, may undertake to appear in any of 26 states, 25 of which are not Judge Hanen’s state of Texas (and only a fraction of Texas constitutes Judge Hanen’s district).

How far off the reservation is Hanen here? So much so that the only “authority” he cites for his outlandish directive is “the beloved [1947] movie Miracle on 34th Street.” Seriously.

In its outrageous overreach, even the Obama administration perceived the need to pretend that its immigration decrees — which the president repeatedly admitted he was without authority to issue — were supported by federal law. Judge Hanen, to the contrary, just flexes raw judicial muscle: purporting to order an executive department, established, funded, and overseen by Congress, to expend taxpayer money on an elaborate five-year program — i.e., funds that Congress has not appropriated for a program that Congress has not authorized.

There are several infuriating things about this, but three stand out.