WASHINGTON – As a court order against his administration mount, President Trump has recently stepped up attacks on federal judges, opposed their authority and called for a bounce each.
In particular, the president appears to be focusing on the idea of limiting the ability of federal district judges to issue injunctions with national significance.
“The illegal national injunction by a radical left judge can lead to the destruction of our country very well!” Trump posted on his social media platform on Thursday night. “These people are crazy people and don’t care at all about the impact of very dangerous and false decisions and rulings.”
Trump is furious on social media, but he has called on the U.S. Supreme Court to limit his ability to grant injunctions, but one California Republican in Congress is working to curb a judge checking Trump’s authority.
Rep. Darrell Issa of Bonsall introduced the No Rogue Sulings Act or Norra last month, limiting the federal judge’s ability to issue national injunctions and reducing his ability to make decisions that affect people outside his district.
Issa’s law has gained traction among several prominent Republicans, including the president, who is determined to advance his anti-immigration agenda despite his courtroom set-up.
“You can’t stop it with a judge sitting behind a bench where you don’t know what’s going on.
In Washington, where Republicans control the White House, Senate and House. Issa’s bill reflects a broader push for Republicans to crack down on justice. This has proven to be the only area where Trump has encountered consistent opposition.
Following Trump’s lead, some Republicans have targeted judges they consider to be “activists” for each. Elon Musk, one of the president’s closest advisors and one of the subjects of several cases, repeated those calls last week, posted on X. “This is a judicial coup.”
In countless lawsuits, Trump has faced dozens of drastic executive orders and actions since taking office in January. Perhaps the most prominent responsibilities came earlier this month when District of Columbia Judge James Boasberg came.
The government ordered the planes carrying migrants to be turned around for deportation. The plane landed at its destination in El Salvador, and the judge has been making a fuss over whether he ignored the president’s lawyer and his orders.
The episode escalated democratic concerns that the Trump administration refused to follow judges’ orders, launched a “constitutional crisis” and threatened American democracy. For Republicans, Boasberg’s order has become another notch in the long line of judicial attacks against Trump.
“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 when introducing Nora at a House Judiciary Committee hearing. “This allowed activist judges to shape national policies across the country, something this Constitution never thought of.”
Judge Boasberg, who attempted to block the flight of Venezuelan immigrants who eventually landed in a prison in San Salvador, was appointed to the Superior Court by President George W. Bush and promoted to the federal bench by President Obama. Many other judges that stifled Trump’s efforts have been appointed by Democratic presidents, including banning transgender forces from the military and attempts to cripple the US international development agency.
Justin Levitt, a constitutional law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said the authority of district court judges to make rulings that restrain the national level has been worrisome to Democrats and Republicans for decades.
In recent years, the Federal District and Court of Appeals have issued injunctions limiting some of the former president’s attempts to allow student debt and parts of former Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
“This is actually a serious problem that has happened many times on both sides of the aisle,” Levitt said. “It’s a bit difficult to know how to adopt this particular version, because different members of Congress seem to really like or dislike this aggressive court behaviour, depending on who tends to take power at any time.”
When introducing Nora to the Judicial Committee, Issa brought a chart showing the number of injunctions that the president has in office. In his first term, Trump received 64, far surpassing former President Biden (14), Obama (12), or Bush (6). According to Issa’s charts, Trump has already faced 12 injunctions in his second term.
“The meaning of this chart is that Donald Trump didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow the court did something wrong,” Sen. Jamie Ruskin (D-MD) said at the hearing. “The reason there are 64 injunctions against him is because he tramples on the laws and expenditure powers of the US Congress.”
Irwin Kemerinski, dean of Berkeley Law School, California, said Issa’s bill was a “terrifying idea” that would confuse in federal court. In fact, the measure probably produced conflicting rulings between districts, saying it would be subject to different rules across different parts of the country on complex issues such as birthright citizenship and the rights of transgender soldiers in the military.
“If the Northern California district issues an order to not do anything to the Cabinet Secretary, the Cabinet Secretary will say they are not bound by that order outside the Northern California district,” he said.
Chemerinsky said the bill is a hammer seeking nails as national injunctions issued by the district courts are already limited. Such issues are often appealed immediately, and cases can move forward to the US Supreme Court if the federal court overturns a judge in a lower court.
However, he acknowledged that the issuance of national injunctions has become more common as the country’s partisan disparities become sharper.
“Conservatives in the Biden administration went on a continuous basis to Texas courts to get an injunction, and the liberals did that in the Trump administration,” he said.
Judge James Boasberg, shown in 2023, pulled an attack from President Trump after ordering a plane carrying Venezuelan immigrants during deportation flights.
(Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Republican lawmakers seeking to defend the president leapt to support the law. It is expected to sail from the House Judiciary Committee, where Issa sits in early March, and soon reach the House floor for a vote.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), another eager Trump supporter in Congress, announced Thursday that he would bring laws to the Senate limiting national injunctions.
“You can feel when the momentum of the bill you’re working on comes in,” said Jonathan Wilcox, a spokesman for Issa. “When the White House is all set, the Senate is involved, leadership is positive. You don’t get it every day.”
Issa’s law shows how Republicans have come to be in perfect alignment behind the president since their first inauguration in 2017. At the time, Issa, a conservative representative of the southwestern corner of California, joined Democrats in search of independent investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Issa has since faced several tough challengers in the election, but in November he won the district seat of the 48th Congress, winning 59% of the votes. He has since set himself as one of the president’s most solid allies in California. Earlier this month, Issa said she would nominate Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Despite his support and his charts, Issa heard on the committee that Nora was not about Trump.
“We have not passed the law for current White House residents,” Issa said. “We are improving the legislation that improves the effectiveness of the administrative sector and the reasonable challenges to the actions of the administrative sector now and for the rest of our longstanding years.”
Issa’s bill also includes amendments from Rep. Derek Schmidt, Kansas Republican and former attorney general. This allows multiple districts to be filed by the state and examined by a panel of three courts, and to be examined, and to be suited with the ability to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Levitt questioned Trump’s complaints about the practical ability of Issa’s measures to cure his complaints about the district judge’s actions in relation to his executive order. The exception cited in Issa’s bill refers to the Administrative Procedure Act, a 1946 law that gives federal courts overseeing the conduct of federal agencies, Levitt said.
When plaintiffs sued to block actions carried out by the executive order, they are actually suing the institutions that are tasked with carrying out the president’s instructions – judges are still institutions that can be banned under the Management Procedure Act, Levitt said.
If Trump recently infuriated – the judge’s order to block his push to deport members of Venezuelan gangs without legitimate proceedings or eliminate birthright citizenship – Levitt said Issa’s bill would be ineffective.
Levitt didn’t think that Issa’s bill would achieve a weakening of jurisdiction that Trump seems hoped for, but he warned that Republicans are once again in minority and are walking the paths they could regret when they need injunctive relief.
“As much as you’re protesting here, do you equally oppose the ultra-conservative ruling that influenced the Biden administration?” asked Levitt.
Chemerinsky said Issa’s bill is more concerned when the Trump administration appears to be set to weaken the powers of the legislative and judicial departments.
“You have a president who is trying to define a presidential power more broadly than anyone has in American history,” he said. “This bill is trying to take away the check of its power at this critical moment.”
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