Senator Chuck Grassley is introducing a bill to stop judges from issuing nationwide injunctions, which experts say are an essential part of the judicial branch’s ability to check the power of the executive branch.
Grassley, a 91-year-old Republican from Iowa and president pro tempore of the Senate, is introducing a bill to end nationwide injunctions because they “have become a favorite tool for those seeking to obstruct [President Donald Trump’s] agenda,” according to an op-ed he wrote for the Wall Street Journal.
Grassley says his bill will ensure “lower courts could no longer block legitimate executive action by issuing orders to nonparties to the lawsuit.”
Federal judges have issued at least a dozen nationwide injunctions against Trump’s policies since he took office in January, temporarily blocking a range of orders, including those seeking to ban transgender people from military service and end the Constitutional right to birthright citizenship.
Grassley’s bill would also make temporary restraining orders against the government immediately appealable “to make sure that prudence wins out over rash decisions handed down in the heat of a political moment.”
Temporary restraining orders are a type of injunction that can be issued when a party in a lawsuit convinces a judge that they will suffer immediate and irreparable harm without the judge’s intervention.
One judge used a temporary restraining order earlier this month to pause Trump’s attempt to invoke the Alien Enemies Act to justify his deportation of migrants to Venezuela.
Grassley isn’t alone. Trump and other Republicans have called for nationwide injunctions to end.
“STOP NATIONWIDE INJUNCTIONS NOW, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE,” Trump wrote earlier this month on Truth Social. “If Justice Roberts and the United States Supreme Court do not fix this toxic and unprecedented situation IMMEDIATELY, our Country is in very serious trouble!”
Republican Rep. Darrell Issa of California introduced a similar bill to restrict judges’ ability to impose nationwide injunctions. The House’s Rules Committee is set to vote Monday night to advance the bill, and lawmakers could vote on it later this week. It is likely to pass given the Republicans’ majority in the lower chamber.
But experts say these nationwide injunctions are essential parts of the checks and balances laid out in the U.S. Constitution.
University of Michigan law professor Barbara McQuade wrote an op-ed for Bloomberg last week arguing these orders can “slow down a presidential administration from rapid, drastic change,” but notes that the orders are “the very point of checks and balances.”
McQuade admitted there are problems with nationwide injunctions but warned that getting rid of them all together isn’t the solution.
“Ending nationwide injunctions would create more problems than it solves,” she added. “Without them, a federal judge who finds a substantial likelihood that an executive order violates the law could block its implementation only in that district, leading to a patchwork of rulings across the country.”
One possible change could include limiting nationwide injunctions to “only situations where nationwide uniformity is essential, such as cases involving border enforcement,” McQuade writes.
The Independent has contacted Grassley for comment.
