“The practice of sweeping nationwide injunctions, broad restraining orders, and judicial policymaking must end.”
WASHINGTON – Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) today challenged Democrats’ continued refusal to acknowledge the judicial branch’s constitutional limits.
In response to Ranking Member Dick Durbin’s (D-Ill.) request for unanimous consent on a resolution demanding the executive branch comply with all federal court rulings, Grassley offered amendments to reflect the limits of judicial power. Grassley’s amendments affirmed that the executive branch must comply with all lawful federal court rulings. Durbin objected to the commonsense amendments.
Grassley further spoke on the recent uptick in sweeping and potentially lawless orders issued by individual district judges and reaffirmed the Senate Judiciary Committee's intent to take action.
“The President of the United States shouldn’t have to ask permission from more than 600 different district judges to manage the executive branch he was elected to lead… The practice of sweeping nationwide injunctions, broad restraining orders and judicial policymaking must end. It’s unconstitutional, it’s anti-democratic and it’s imprudent. If the Supreme Court won’t stop it, Congress must,” Grassley said.
View Grassley's amendments HERE and HERE.
Before I give my reasons for objecting, I want to comment on a couple things in your remarks.
You spoke about the time that we often agree.
Just today, you and I cosponsored a bill together, as an example.
The other thing I’d like to say before I go to my remarks is that I want to associate myself with your quote from our colleague Senator Cornyn – that you don’t impeach judges just because of a decision, because we’d be impeaching judges all the time.
That’s my additional comment.
And the third thing is, to inform you, I hope I can get, as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, something moving in this area.
I happen to agree with some Democrats that in previous years have said some judges have gone way beyond what a judge should do on national injunctions.
I hope to find a solution for that, and I hope that you and I could work on that together.
I know Democrats have made that same accusation about district court judges in one district out of 93 in the United States applying their decision nationally.
So, now I would like to go to my reason for objecting.
A few weeks ago, I objected to a version of this resolution because it’s a political messaging exercise. Today, I come here for the same reason.
I won’t stand by and allow my colleagues to imply that the “Rule of Law,” those three words, only matters when there’s a Republican President.
As I explained a few weeks ago, the Biden administration engaged in four years of complete lawlessness.
Instead of condemning it, Democrats viciously attacked the legitimacy of the courts for ruling against the Biden administration.
The silence we heard from Democrats about the rule of law during the Biden years was quite deafening.
I won’t repeat my last speech, but I’ll expand on one of my previous objections.
This resolution demands that the President comply with all court orders, but it’s completely silent about the role of the federal courts to adhere to the law themselves.
For a number of years, but particularly in the last few months, we’ve seen increasingly sweeping, potentially lawless orders coming from any one of our 600 district judges out of the 93 districts we have.
Although our founders saw an important role for the judiciary, individual district judges have empowered themselves to become nationwide policymakers, as opposed to interpreting the law.
I consider this as very dangerous.
In the last few weeks, individual, unelected judges made policy decisions for the whole country.
Some examples include:
One judge even went so far as to order the government to pay out 2 billion taxpayer dollars and do it within 36 hours.
Much of this would go to organizations not even involved in the case, and the government wouldn’t ever be able to get this money back, even if they ultimately won on appeal.
In the two months since President Trump has entered office, his administration has suffered more of these sweeping orders at the hands of district court judges than the Biden administration experienced in four years.
I want to emphasize that.
Has President Trump chosen to ignore this avalanche of irresponsible court orders?
Flat out, no!
He’s appealed these outrageous decisions, just as he promised he would do when he said, “I always abide by the courts and then I’ll have to appeal it… the answer is I always abide by the courts.”
Appellate courts have responded by striking down many of the unlawful intrusions into Presidential authority.
But the core problem remains – the President of the United States shouldn’t have to ask permission from more than 600 different district judges to manage the executive branch he was elected to lead.
The practice of sweeping nationwide injunctions, broad restraining orders, and judicial policymaking must end.
It’s unconstitutional, it’s anti-democratic and it’s imprudent.
If the Supreme Court won’t stop it, then Congress must.
I wish the Supreme Court would get on this and do it right away.
This issue isn’t a partisan one, and I want to work with Democrats, as I just said to the Senator from Illinois.
In the past, Democrats and Republicans have both criticized nationwide injunctions and the power of individual district judges.
My Democratic colleagues have even proposed legislation to rein in some of these abuses.
You don’t have to take my word for it.
In 2022, Justice Elena Kagan correctly observed, “It just can’t be right that one district judge can stop a nationwide policy in its tracks and leave it stopped for the years it takes to go through the normal process.”
In 2024, President Biden’s Solicitor General, Elizabeth Prelogar, argued before the Supreme Court, now listen to this quote, that, “A court of equity may grant relief only to the parties before it. The district court violated that principle by issuing a universal injunction purporting to enjoin the Act itself and forbidding the enforcement of the Act even against non-parties.”
So, as I told Senator Durbin, I hope to soon hold a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee to address this matter and even introduce legislation to end these abuses.
I hope both my Democratic and Republican colleagues will join me in this effort.
For the resolution at hand, Mr. President, I propose an amendment, so it reads, “the Constitution of the United States and established precedent require the executive branch to comply with all lawful Federal court rulings.”
This simple change of one word, “lawful,” will show that Congress expects both the executive branch and the judicial branch to respect the rule of law and Constitutional constraints.
My amendment mirrors what the Chief Justice said in 2024.
The Chief Justice rightly raised concerns about the intimidation and threats leveled at the Court in the wake of the Dobbs decision. He said, “The final threat to judicial independence is defiance of judgments lawfully entered by courts of competent jurisdiction.”
He had no problem adding the word lawful in; we shouldn’t have it any other way.
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