Another GOP Retreat From States’ Rights

Once again, President Trump and his Republican allies have shown that, despite their rhetoric, they have little real regard for freedom or states’ rights. Their governing philosophy has become blunt: if you don’t implement their priorities, expect retribution. So much for letting federalism serve as an engine for liberty and creative policy experimentation

In a new executive order, Trump declares: “It is the policy of my Administration that Federal policies and resources should not be used to support jurisdictions with cashless bail policies, to the maximum extent permitted by law.” The order goes further, directing federal agencies to “identify Federal funds, including grants and contracts, currently provided to cashless bail jurisdictions … that may be suspended or terminated.”

What is striking here is not simply the policy preference but the mechanism of enforcement. Perhaps I am misreading the order, but it does not appear limited to punishing alleged criminals in violation of federal law. Instead, it casts a wider net: the federal government is positioning itself to discipline entire state and local jurisdictions for pursuing a policy that, on its face, not only lies within state and local discretion but also explicitly covers state and local violations. In effect, Trump is telling states what kind of bail policies they must have with respect to its own laws.

I am no expert on crime policy. But as I understand it, cashless bail does not eliminate judicial discretion. Judges still assess whether an accused person presents a flight risk or a danger to the community. Those deemed high risk may still be incarcerated; others may be subject to electronic monitoring. The central justification for cashless bail is that it reduces inequities tied to poverty—keeping people out of jail simply because they cannot afford to pay. It also reinforces a core constitutional principle: innocent until proven guilty. Critics may reasonably argue that cashless bail is flawed, or even dangerous. But in our federal system, the point of state and local experimentation is precisely to test whether such policies prove workable in practice.

Trump’s order cuts that process off at the knees. It prevents communities from experimenting with reforms and instead seeks to impose (or at least moves toward) a single national standard through coercion. That move runs counter not only to the idea of states as “laboratories of democracy” but also to the GOP’s long-professed commitment to federalism and local autonomy.

More than a crime policy initiative, this executive order appears as yet another attempt by the Trump administration to ratchet up the misery on already vulnerable communities—especially the poor. At a deeper level, however, it signals a profound shift in the meaning of conservative governance. The party that once invoked states’ rights and the virtues of decentralization once again turns to the heavy hand of federal power to stamp out any deviation from its own orthodoxy.