GOP Eyes Next Week to Move Bill to Curb Nationwide Orders (2)

The US House plans to vote next week on a bill to curb the authority of lone federal judges to block executive branch policies nationwide, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said.

The Louisiana Republican offered the timetable in a post on Monday on the social media platform X. Scalise sets the chamber’s legislative agenda.

The bill put forward by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) would “limit the judicial overreach of partisan federal judges issuing political nationwide injunctions to impede President Trump’s agenda the majority of American voters elected him to carry out,” Scalise wrote.

Specifically, the proposal (HR 1526) would block federal trial court judges from issuing decisions that apply beyond those involved in the litigation, with some exceptions for multistate litigation. The House Judiciary Committee advanced the measure this month in a party line vote.

Administrations of both parties have over the years complained about the power of a single federal judge to derail policy priorities.

The latest move comes as the GOP caucus ramps up criticism of judges hearing legal challenges to Donald Trump’s actions on immigration and to overhaul the federal government.

House Republicans have so far filed or announced impeachment articles against five judges who’ve issued decisions against the administration. Impeachment faces slim odds in the House and no chance in the Senate.

Judge Hearings

House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) also told Fox News on Monday that the panel would hold hearings next week on the Washington, D.C, federal judge whose rulings against US efforts to deport accused Venezuelan gang members has angered Trump.

Chief Judge James Boasberg of the US District Court for the District of Columbiahas ruled against the administration in its bid to invoke a centuries-old law to deport alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang to a Salvadoran prison, without hearings.

Jordan said that it “really starts to look like Judge Boasberg is operating purely political against the president.”

“There’s the broader issue of all these judges’ injunctions, and then decisions like Judge Boasberg’s, what he’s trying to do and how that case is working, we’re going to have hearings on all of that,” Jordan said.

Trump has also raged specifically against Boasberg, who was appointed by George W. Bush to the D.C superior court and by Barack Obama to the federal court.

Trump called for Boasberg’s impeachment and described him as a “Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge” and “a troublemaker and agitator” on the social media platform TruthSocial.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said through a spokesperson that judges ruling against the Trump administration “are doing what judges are supposed to do: blocking illegal and unconstitutional actions.”

In the Senate, a spokesperson for Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said the panel “is exploring potential legislative solutions and will closely examine this topic in an upcoming hearing.”

“The recent surge of sweeping decisions by district judges merits serious scrutiny,” the spokesperson, Clare Slattery, said.