House passes bill to limit nationwide injunctions as orders pile up against Trump

The House late Wednesday passed a bill to limit district court judges from imposing nationwide injunctions — the types of rulings that have thwarted several of President Trump’s wide-reaching executive orders.

The 219-213 vote fell mostly along party lines. The only exception was Rep. Mike Turner, Ohio Republican, voting against the bill and his party.

Republicans were not shy about the underlying goal of the bill being to protect Mr. Trump from perceived political interference and “judicial activism,” as the bill’s lead sponsor, California Rep. Darrell Issa, put it.

“Practically every week, another federal judge issues yet another nationwide injunction in yet another gambit to stop President Trump from exercising his constitutional powers and carrying out the policies he promised the American people he would make a reality,” Mr. Issa said. “This isn’t even close to a legal disagreement involving standing, statute or precedent – it is the Trump Resistance in Robe.”

House Republicans united around Mr. Issa’s bill in part as an alternative to impeaching specific district court judges who have ruled against Mr. Trump, as the president and some conservative lawmakers have proposed.

The No Rogue Rulings Act would prevent U.S. district courts from providing injunctive relief, except to limit the actions of a party to the case or those they are representing.

The measure also specifies that cases against the executive branch that are brought by two or more states located in different circuits shall be referred to a three-judge panel and that the judges should be selected at random, instead of the circuit’s chief judge.

That three-judge panel may issue an injunction, considering “the interest of justice, the risk of irreparable harm to non-parties, and the preservation of the constitutional separation of powers.”

Republicans said Mr. Trump should have the authority to make nationwide decisions because he won a nationwide election, but the 677 federal district judges should not have that much power.

“The real question ultimately is who gets to decide?” House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, said. “Some district judge, or the guy who put his name on the ballot? Some bureaucrat, or the guy who ran for the office and got elected by we the people?”

House Democrats universally opposed the bill, arguing it was an overreaction to a perceived political problem.

“Somehow, my colleagues never complained about nationwide injunctions when dozens were issued against former Presidents Obama and Biden,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, Washington Democrat. “But now that it is against Donald Trump, they want to rig the rules to give the president free rein to do whatever he wants, regardless of whether it is illegal or unconstitutional.”

Rep. Mark Harris, North Carolina Republican, said Mr. Trump has faced more than twice as many nationwide injunctions as Presidents Bush, Obama and Biden combined. More than 90% of those injunctions were issued by Democratic appointed judges, he said.

“Activist judges are impeding President Trump’s America First agenda with nationwide injunctions, depriving the American people of the changes they demanded in November,” he said.

Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, admitted the injunctive relief issued in at least 57 different discordant court cases brought against the Trump administration is a record high.

“But if it seems like an incredible number of cases to lose in less than 100 days, recall that Trump is engaged in a record number of illegal actions at a breathtaking velocity never seen before in U.S. history,” he said, citing the 111 executive orders the president had issued as of Tuesday.

Mr. Biden, by comparison, issued 162 executive orders in his entire four years, Mr. Raskin said.

“Trump can issue as many as he wants, but he has got to make them constitutional because if they are not, they are going to get struck down,” he said.

The bill’s proposal to only allowing litigants to request injunctive relief for themselves will limit the courts’ ability to check unlawful actions, Mr. Raskin argued.

“For example, if the president establishes a church or bans newspapers or imposes martial law, then each citizen in America would have to bring his or her own case because the courts would not be able to rule to strike down unconstitutional actions generally,” he said. “That is patently absurd.”

Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, and Sen. Josh Hawley, Missouri Republican, have introduced similar bills in their chamber to limit nationwide injunctions.

Mr. Grassley’s bill would limit federal court orders to the parties before them and would require parties seeking nationwide relief to file a class action lawsuit.