Republicans in Congress including the Wyoming delegation are challenging the power of federal judges to issue far-reaching injunctions, as the number of orders halting actions by President Donald Trump’s administration continues to mount.
“How can Democrats and their radical views be reflected in what’s happening in this country? They are doing it through radical district court judges who oppose President Trump, oppose his agenda,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyoming, said on the chamber floor Monday.
Some congressional Republicans are employing an impeachment strategy against at least one judge. However, legislation to rein in judges’ power — including the No Rogue Rulings Act, or NORRA — appears to be at the forefront of the party’s efforts.
NORRA is a House bill, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-California, which would generally prevent the 677 judges in the country’s 94 federal district courts from issuing injunctions that apply nationwide.
Under NORRA, a U.S. district court injunction would benefit only the plaintiff or plaintiffs in the particular lawsuit brought before the court. It could not apply to anyone else similarly aggrieved, including those outside a court’s geographical jurisdiction. The bill allows rare exceptions such as certified class-action cases.
Hageman, Boasberg
In a series of town hall meetings across Wyoming during the recent congressional break, some of them contentious, Hageman repeatedly expressed support for NORRA and her consternation for judges in far-reaching jurisdictions making politically motivated rulings.
Nationwide injunctions issued against the Trump administration pertain to federal funding cuts, birthright citizenship and mass deportations, among other subjects.
Debate in the House heated up Tuesday during a hearing held jointly by two subcommittees of the Judiciary Committee, one of which includes U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyoming.
At the hearing, Hageman criticized a recent order by Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on the Trump administration’s recent deportation of alleged Tren De Aragua (TRA) gang members.
Boasberg sought to stop the U.S. government — under Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 — from flying accused members of the Venezuela-based gang to El Salvador.
Hageman said Boasberg wrongly expanded his initial, narrow order into a sweeping edict, something Barrasso also seized on the day before in the Senate.
Due Process, Impeachment
Democrats at Tuesday’s hearing complained there was no due process in the TRA deportations. U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland, said at least one of the deportees was not a TRA gang member.
Issa, who chaired the hearing, said the man in question was a member of a different gang, MS-13.
More broadly, the Judiciary Committee's Democrats said it is the Trump administration that is abusing its constitutional power, not the federal judiciary.
“Maybe if you don’t like injunctions, stop doing the illegal stuff,” said U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Washington.
U.S. Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, has sponsored a House resolution to impeach Boasberg. That measure had 22 co-sponsors as of Tuesday, though Hageman was not among them, according to the Congressional Research Service.
The CRS, Congress’s official arm that summarizes and tracks legislation, also did not list Hageman as a NORRA co-sponsor as of Tuesday.
Injunction Count
According to the CRS, there is no precise definition of "nationwide injunction" and therefore no definitive count as to how many have been issued against Trump.
Still, the CRS says 17 orders against Trump this year — between Inauguration Day and March 27 — appear to fit the description of a nationwide injunction. The CRS said some of those pertain to deportations, government downsizing and birthright citizenship.
Hageman said at Tuesday’s hearing that the judges issuing these injunctions might be violating federal regulations related to bond.
“They have not been requiring the parties seeking the injunction to put up a bond,” she said.
Bonds are generally required of plaintiffs seeking a temporary restraining order, in order to cover the costs to defendants in the event that a TRO is granted but later found to be wrongly issued.
‘Back On Track’
On Monday in his Senate floor speech, Barrasso took aim at Boasberg in particular as he cited the number of federal district court judges.
“Last week, one of them, one of the 677 — just one of them at the district court level — ordered a nationwide ban to stop deportation of illegal immigrant gang members,” he said.
Barrasso said the TRA members were part of a criminal group that Trump has classified as terrorists.
“Let me be very clear: When partisan, unelected, district court judges try to micromanage the president of the United States, that’s not judicial review,” he said. “It isn’t checks and balances. It is purely partisan politics, and it’s wrong.
“Radical district judges are not going to succeed in blocking Republicans from getting this nation back on track.”
Sean Barry can be reached at sean@cowboystatedaily.com.
