My legislation would curb judicial policymaking and politicization of courts.
By Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)
This month’s NBC poll finds more registered voters believe our country is on the right track than at any other point in the past two decades. But amid President Trump’s flurry of executive action, federal district judges have increasingly—and inappropriately—inserted themselves into the national policy debate. They have repeatedly chosen not only to decide the cases before them, but also to issue orders derailing executive policy nationwide.
These nationwide injunctions have become a favorite tool for those seeking to obstruct Mr. Trump’s agenda. More than two-thirds of all universal injunctions issued over the past 25 years were levied against the first Trump administration. In the past two months alone, judges have issued at least 15 universal injunctions against the administration—surpassing the 14 President Biden faced throughout his four-year term.
Scholars can find no clear record of a universal injunction issued before 1963. The practice has become common only in the past few decades. It can have serious consequences for the American taxpayer. A Biden-appointed judge in the District of Columbia issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) against Mr. Trump’s pause of some U.S. Agency for International Development funding. TROs are supposed to maintain the status quo while review is pending. Had the Supreme Court not directed the judge to clarify this order, it would have forced $2 billion in taxpayer money out the door—most of it to entities that didn’t even sue.
These decisions also place undue stress on the judicial system by inserting political calculation into the selection of the judges and the resolution of disputes. Political and fiscal implications aside, district judges’ abuse of temporary restraining orders and nationwide injunctions is unconstitutional. Article III of the Constitution tasks the judicial branch with resolving “cases” and “controversies,” not making policy.
The obvious solution is to limit district courts to resolving the cases only between the parties before them. If the Supreme Court won’t act to rein in the lower courts, Congress must. Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution authorizes Congress to create and organize federal courts. On Monday I will introduce the Judicial Relief Clarification Act to restore the constitutional role of lower courts by restraining their ability to issue universal injunctions. Under my bill, lower courts could no longer block legitimate executive action by issuing orders to nonparties to the lawsuit. The bill would also make TROs against the government immediately appealable, to make sure that prudence wins out over rash decisions handed down in the heat of a political moment.
I hope lawmakers on both sides of the aisle will join in moving it forward. Not only Republicans have been alarmed by the far-reaching consequences of some district-court decisions. Two-hundred forty Democratic lawmakers, including Sens. Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin, in 2023 submitted a friend-of-the-court brief warning of the “perilous consequences” resulting from a district judge’s move to block the abortion pill mifepristone. Justice Elena Kagan has similarly expressed dismay.
Republicans and Democrats alike, including me, have cheered or criticized the policy implications of universal injunctions. But that approach inappropriately politicizes the federal court system and disrupts the balance of powers. Congress ought to put a stop to it for good.
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