WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Senate will soon take up a bill to strip the country’s 677 federal district judges of the power to issue nationwide injunctions, said Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyoming.
“The Senate Judiciary Committee already started hearings on this legislation, and I expect it will be debated on the Senate floor soon,” Barrasso told Cowboy State Daily about the Judicial Relief Clarification Act (JRCA).
As of Monday morning, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, had not scheduled a markup or a vote to send the bill to the full Senate.
Barrasso and U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyoming, are cosponsoring JRCA along with 22 other senators. Grassley is JRCA's lead sponsor. He held the first committee hearing April 2, just two days after the bill was unveiled.
Under the bill, injunctions from judges at the district level could pertain only to the parties before the court. There is an exception for class-action lawsuits, but essentially under JRCA, judges could not halt actions by President Donald Trump's administration on a national level.
The bill would also make temporary restraining orders immediately appealable.
Federal district judges have issued at least 17 nationwide injunctions this year against President Donald Trump’s administration, according to the Congressional Research Service. Many of the restraining orders pertain to mass deportations, birthright citizenship and government downsizing.
Lummis: Judges Are ‘Not Policymakers’
“Judges are not policymakers — and they have not been elected by the American people to legislate,” Lummis told Cowboy State Daily. “Our courts should not be a tool for far-left activists to obstruct every part of President Trump's agenda.”
Lummis noted that she signed on to JRCA as an original cosponsor.
“I’m pleased to introduce legislation with my colleagues to defend our Constitution and end this unconstitutional judicial overreach,” she said.
Barrasso touted the bill on the Senate floor last week, saying “partisan, unelected, district court judges” are trying to “micromanage the president of the United States.”
House Bill Stalled
The House is mulling legislation similar to JRCA — the No Rogue Rulings Act (NORRA).
But the bill, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-California, stalled April 1 on the House floor.
The bill was grouped with unrelated bills for preliminary advancement — and one of the other measures drew enough Republican defections to derail the whole package. The GOP holds narrow majorities in both the House and Senate.
It is not clear when — or under what specific procedures — NORRA will be brought back before the House.
Hageman, Boasberg, Tren De Aragua
U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyoming, said at a House Judiciary Committee meeting last week that the judges issuing nationwide 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 to cover the costs to defendants in the event that a TRO is granted, but later found to be wrongly issued.
Hageman and others at the hearing criticized Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., for his injunction barring Trump from deporting illegal immigrants tied to gangs.
Boasberg’s case dealt with a small number of deportees linked to the Venezuela-based Tren de Aragua gang, and he extended his initially narrow order into a blanket edict barring Trump from using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 for deportations.
Democrats at the House Judiciary hearing complained such deportations lack due process and said it is the Trump administration, not the judiciary, that is overstepping its constitutional bounds.
Meanwhile, as of Monday morning, the House Judiciary Committee has taken no action on a resolution sponsored by Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, to impeach Boasberg.
New Twists In Tren De Aragua Case
The alleged Tren de Aragua members at issue in the Boasberg case were sent to an El Salvador prison. A Justice Department lawyer, Erez Reuveni, later told a court that one of the deportees, Albrego Garcia of Maryland, was deported in “error.”
The administration said Garcia is a member of a different gang, MS-13. Issa, the congressman sponsoring NORRA, echoed those remarks at the House committee hearing.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Maryland ordered Garcia flown back to the United States — an order the Trump administration rejected.
In the latest developments Sunday, Xinis issued another opinion, casting doubt on whether Garcia is a member of any gang.
Also Sunday, Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Fox News that Reuveni, the DOJ lawyer who said Garcia was deported in error, has been placed on administrative leave.
Sean Barry can be reached at sean@cowboystatedaily.com.
