JD Vance’s ‘Constitutional Crisis’ in the Making    Opinion by Ankush Khardori • 11h Politico

JD Vance may have had a rocky start as a vice-presidential nominee, but he still holds some sway in the book publishing industry. That influence recently took the form of a book that will not be immediately published — a conservative manifesto by Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation and the face of Project 2025, which was supposed to come out next month but has now beenpushed until after the election. The hardline agenda of Project 2025, of course, became a drag on Donald Trump’s reelection bid and the book was likely to make things even worse since Vance had written an admiring foreword.

One key policy pushed repeatedly by Vance and outlined in Project 2025 is Trump’s controversial “Schedule F” proposal, which would strip civil service protections from potentially tens of thousands of federal employees so that they can be replaced by Republican political appointees.

Most provocatively, Vance has suggested in a series of interviews this year that Trump should defy the Supreme Court if the justices invalidated the effort.

The episode is worth scrutinizing not just because the proposal is a key piece of Trump’s likely governing agenda if he wins in November. It also suggests Vance, whom Trump touts as a Yale-educated lawyer, is oblivious to the underlying legal and practical mechanics of this sweeping overhaul as well as the realities of today’s Supreme Court.

The fact is this proposal is almost certainly unlawful and unworkable — but that doesn’t mean the court would block it. The conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court has proved more than willing to contort itself to achieve Republican goals, so there’s no reason to assume any legal challenge to such a policy would result in a clash between Trump and the court.

If Vance isn’t ignorant of the law, then he is instead merely eager to play the role of demagogue and further inflame an already bitter political debate. Ultimately, neither scenario is ideal for a potential vice president.

On the merits, Schedule F is a controversial idea — one that would undermine the civil service system as it has existed for more than a century and severely impair the integrity and effectiveness of the federal government, with grave consequences.

READ HERE