A Trump Appointee

U.S. District Judge Ada Brown, who serves in the Northern District of (Of Course) Texas, who was appointed (Of Course) by Donald Trump, has struck down the Federal Trade Comission's ban on non-compete agreements, because she believes that the FTC Act does not grant the FTC rule making authority.

Once again, we see nakedly corrupt rulings from nakedly corrupt judges whose jurisprudence originated somewhere beyond the plant Skaro.:

A federal judge in Texas yesterday blocked the Federal Trade Commission's attempt to ban noncompete agreements that make it difficult for workers to change jobs or start new businesses. Judge Ada Brown in the Northern District of Texas granted a motion for summary judgment that was requested by a tax services firm and business groups such as the US Chamber of Commerce.

"The Court sets aside the Non-Compete Rule. Consequently, the Rule shall not be enforced or otherwise take effect on its effective date of September 4, 2024 or thereafter," the ruling said.

The judge wrote in a previous ruling that the FTC lacks authority to issue a rule banning noncompete agreements and granted a preliminary injunction. But that previous ruling only postponed the effective date of the rule as it applied to the plaintiffs, whereas yesterday's order blocks the FTC rule entirely.

Yesterday's ruling is "a final and appealable judgment," the court said. In Texas, appeals go to the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. The FTC is likely to have better luck in less conservative circuits. In July, a federal judge in Pennsylvania upheld the agency's noncompete ban in a ruling that denied a motion for preliminary injunction.

"The FTC's substantive rulemaking authority has been confirmed by circuit courts interpreting the FTC Act, as well as by Congress when it enacted its 1975 and 1980 Amendments to the Act," the judge in Pennsylvania wrote.

It isn't that the judge is concerned about bureaucratic overreach, it's that the judge thinks that the 13th Amendment was an immoral taking of legally owned slaves, but (so far, at least) there is no way that this can be reversed, so peonage of workers must be maintained by all means.

OK, that may be hyperbole, but I do think that the corrupt conservatives in the Federal Judiciary are determined to bring back the Lochner Era, where neither the federal government nor the states could regulate minimum wages, child labor, workplace safety, banking, etc.

To quote John Roberts on Lochner, "It's quite clear that they're not interpreting the law, they're making the law," which equally applies to this judge, and to the Supreme Court ruling striking down Chevron, etc.

They made the law, let them enforce it.