The House passed a bill brought by California Republicans on Wednesday. It limited the ability of federal judges to pass awards that have national influence. This is the issue of pets that Trump seized as his administration faced a string of lawsuits since he took office.
“It has become clear in recent years that federal judges have crossed constitutional boundaries,” (R-Bonsall) said on the floor of the house Wednesday. “District judges should be limited to those in the district and those in the district.”
This limits the federal judge’s ability to issue national injunctions by reducing their ability to make decisions that affect people outside their district.
Democrat leaders ordered the party to vote against the bill, and instead forced them to vote on a resolution condemning increased violence against federal judges, including rhetoric from Trump and his adviser Elon Musk. The solution failed.
The bill was passed by all but one Republican vote. All Democrats voted against it.
“Since President Trump took office, left-leaning activists have worked with ideological judges who have sought to file lawsuits, and to stall dozens of legal enforcement actions and initiatives using national injunctions as weapons,” Isa said in his floor speech.
Trump offered his support for the idea a few weeks ago, saying, “It’s very likely that an illegal national injunction by an extreme left judge will lead to the destruction of our country!”
Issa has denounced federal judges for countless injunctions against Trump’s enforcement actions. When introducing the bill to the House Judiciary Committee, he brought the charts and pointed to the 64 injunctions Trump received in his first term.
“The injunction was nothing more than a partisan judicial overreach and disrupts the president’s ability to carry out his legal constitutional duties,” Issa said at a committee hearing. “This allowed activist judges to shape national policies across the country, something this constitution never thought of.”
But Democrats argue that federal judges are doing their job and that suppressing their capabilities can cause confusion if their ruling is only effective in certain districts and not in other districts.
“If you don’t like the injunction, don’t do anything illegal and unconstitutional. That’s very easy,” Parliament Pramira Jayapal (D-Wash.) said on Wednesday. “National injunctions play an important role in protecting democracy and holding political sectors accountable.”
Lena Zwarensteyn is an advisor to the Citizens and Human Rights Leadership Council, who joined more than 50 other organisations and called it “inducing justice in favor of the judiciary.”
“The Parliament’s efforts to undermine the independence and fairness of the judiciary is a blatant attempt to appease the president he thinks is king, and they will try to signal the arrival of dictatorship in a way that should be wary of everyone,” Zwarenstein said in a statement.
Politicians on both parties have complained for many years about the federal judge’s ability to pass awards that have a national impact. Already, national injunctions from district judges are often appealed and, if reversed, get caught up in the Supreme Court.
The bill is currently heading towards the Senate.
