Shooting Blanks From the Bench – The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator

Sigmund Freud dies and goes to Heaven, where he is met by a frantic Saint Peter.
“Dr. Freud, we desperately need your help!”
“Why?” asks Freud. “What’s the problem?”
“It’s God. He’s having delusions of grandeur,” Peter replies. “He thinks He’s a federal judge!”

— Old trial lawyer joke

Ordinarily, when a federal district court prohibits the enforcement of a government policy, the ruling protects only the plaintiff(s) in that particular case. But, in recent times, an increasing number of activist federal judges have expanded the application and reach of their rulings by issuing so-called “nationwide injunctions” that preclude the government from enforcing the subject policies against anyone in the nation.

This has resulted in a cottage industry of politically motivated lawyers seeking and obtaining such injunctions from sympathetic judges. Or, as Attorney General William Barr observed in 2019, “These days, virtually every significant congressional or presidential initiative is enjoined — often within hours — threatening our democratic system and undermining the rule of law.” (RELATED: Dictatorship of Obama Judges)

So it is that an unelected federal judge — answerable to no one and insulated by lifetime tenure — can override the elected branches of our government and impose his or her personal policy preferences on the nation. And, until such time as an appellate court may overturn the holding of that judge, the will of the people, as manifested in the actions of their elected representatives, will be thwarted and rendered null and void.

Or, to put it another way, who needs cumbersome elections and messy representative government when we have omniscient and omnipotent federal judges ready, willing, and able to neatly and swiftly restructure society with the stroke of a pen?

According to the Harvard Law Review, six nationwide injunctions were issued against the George W. Bush administration, 12 against the Obama administration, 14 against the Biden administration, and 64 against the first Trump administration.

And the hits just keep on coming. In the first 60 days of the second Trump administration, federal district courts have issued 15 nationwide injunctions halting, among other things, the administration’s ban on transgender individuals from military service and requiring the reinstatement of fired probationary government employees. In short, in a mere 60 days, the federal judiciary has already entered more nationwide injunctions against the second Trump administration than were entered during the entire four years of the Biden administration or the eight years of the Obama administration.

This astounding rate of production may well be attributable to the fact that over 90 percent of the injunctions have been issued by Democrat-appointed judges.

This orchestrated judicial assault follows in the wake of President Trump’s stunning and historic 2024 landslide victory in which he won 312 Electoral College votes and over 77 million popular votes. Which raises the question as to whether the federal judiciary, including the U.S. Supreme Court, comprehends the significance of that victory and the political mandate conferred on President Trump by the American people. (RELATED: John Roberts Is Responsible for the High Court’s Self-Delegitimization)

For its own sake, the federal judiciary should consider whether these nationwide injunctions that run counter to that electoral mandate are undermining the public’s confidence in the fair and nonpartisan administration of justice and testing the very limits of its judicial power. (RELATED: This Mess Is of Your Own Making, Chief Justice Roberts)

For example, assuming for the sake of argument that a nationwide injunction is upheld on appeal, how will the courts compel the Trump administration to comply? Ordinarily, an individual defying a judicial order can be found in contempt of court and either fined or imprisoned. But the enforcement of the contempt order requires the cooperation and resources of the executive branch. (RELATED: ‘Now Let Him Enforce It’)

Suppose an activist judge finds that the Trump administration has not complied with a nationwide injunction. Is the remedy to hold the president or members of his administration in contempt of court and impose fines or sentences of incarceration? If so, how will that work without the active cooperation of the enforcement agencies, such as the U.S. Marshals, all of which are under the authority of the president? (RELATED: Elephant in the Courtroom)

Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter’s dissenting opinion in the 1962 case of Baker v. Carr succinctly spells out the basis of and the limit to the judiciary’s power as follows:

The Court’s authority — possessed of neither the purse nor the sword — ultimately rests on sustained public confidence in its moral sanction.

Just so.

Which is why the federal judiciary — from top to bottom — should recognize that, in any show down with President Trump, other than moral suasion, it is shooting blanks.

Historians disagree as to whether President Andrew Jackson ever said, “[Supreme Court Justice] John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it!” Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t.

But is there any doubt that Donald Trump, having survived judicially supervised attempts to imprison him for life on baseless criminal charges and to bankrupt him in specious civil court proceedings, is not prepared to follow the apocryphal example of Andrew Jackson if it were necessary to carry out the electoral mandate of the American people?

Which is why the Supreme Court would be well advised to put a leash on these activist judges before the president is forced to cross the constitutional Rubicon by telling them to stick their nationwide injunctions in their honorable ears.

George Parry is a former federal and state prosecutor. He blogs at knowledgeisgood.net.

READ MORE:

This Mess Is of Your Own Making, Chief Justice Roberts

Elephant in the Courtroom

Dictatorship of Obama Judges