WASHINGTON (CN) — It was a judicial pile-on in the House Judiciary Committee Tuesday morning as Republicans and a panel of witnesses excoriated federal judges who they say have improperly leveraged their authority to halt the Donald Trump administration’s agenda.
The legal affairs panel’s hearing, which featured testimony from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, served primarily as a forum for GOP lawmakers to air their grievances with the judiciary — the House is already set to vote this week on a bill that could clamp down on nationally binding court orders Republicans say have improperly employed against the White House.
“These rogue judge rulings are a new resistance to the Trump administration and the only time in which judges in robes, in this number, have felt it necessary to participate in the political process rather than participate in the Article III process,” said California Representative Darrell Issa during opening remarks Tuesday morning.
Issa has led the charge in the House to clamp down on national injunctions, binding court orders that have recently been used to stop the Trump administration from withholding federal funds, rolling back immigration law and shuttering government agencies, among other things.
If made law, the congressman’s “No Rogue Rulings Act” would limit the scope of such injunctions to the parties to the federal court case at hand, preventing their use as emergency relief for presidential actions.
Republicans have argued that lower courts, such as the federal district courts where national injunctions against the Trump administration have originated, do not have the authority to set policy for the entire country.
“[T]here’s no question at all that the third branch has the last word, and we have accepted that for over 200 years,” said Issa. “But that acceptance is for the Supreme Court to make the final decision, not one of over 700 district court judges.”
Ohio Representative Jim Jordan, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, called into question federal courts’ authority to exercise judgment over any White House actions at all — contending that national injunctions have usurped the will of American voters who elected Trump for a second term.
“Who gets to make the call?” he said. “Is it the guy whose name is on the ballot, or some bureaucrat? Is it the guy who got 77 million votes, or some district judge?”
Witnesses invited to testify during Tuesday’s hearing largely backed up GOP complaints about national injunctions. Paul Larkin, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, branded the practice “mistaken as a matter of law and unwise as a matter of policy.”
Larkin argued that courts are constitutionally bound to interpret laws made by Congress in the context of cases or controversies and that any judgment that is “tantamount” to law is a bridge too far.
“In the case of nationwide injunctions, a judgment in favor of non-parties goes too far,” he added.
Larkin further contended that blocking a policy in lower federal district courts does not allow all the arguments in a lawsuit to fully percolate before they are appealed to the Supreme Court for final judgment. And the use of nationwide injunctions, he said, encourages judge shopping — a practice in which litigants file cases in courts where they expect a judge to issue a binding order in their favor.
Gingrich, also testifying before the Judiciary Committee, adopted a more urgent tone.
“There is clearly a potential constitutional crisis involving the judicial branch’s effort to fully override the legislative and executive branches,” he told lawmakers, arguing that federal district court judges have “effectively seized control” of White House duties by blocking the administration’s agenda via nationwide injunctions.
“This is, potentially, a judicial coup d’etat,” said the former House speaker.
Democrats, for their part, accused their Republican colleagues of unfairly attacking federal judges and argued they convened Tuesday’s hearing in an effort to help the Trump administration complete an end run around the courts.
Georgia Representative Hank Johnson, ranking member of the Judiciary Committee’s panel on federal courts, contended that judges who have issued injunctions against the White House are simply “exercising their Article III power” over unconstitutional actions. The judicial system, he said, is “working exactly as it should.”
“Today’s hearing is not just about helping Donald Trump undermine the judicial branch … though it certainly is about that,” Johnson continued. “But Republicans on this committee are sending a message to anyone who dares stand up to Donald Trump: if you step out of line, they will come for you next.”
Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin dinged Jordan for his claim that judges were sidestepping the will of voters, pointing out that popular support for a policy didn’t make it legal.
“[E]ven if you campaign on doing something unconstitutional, like naming people kings and queens or stealing other people’s money, that doesn’t make it constitutional,” he said.
House Democrats’ witness, University of Pennsylvania law professor Kate Shaw, held that Republican lawmakers were “badly mistaken” in arguing that national injunctions represent a kind of judicial overreach.
She pointed out that “broad consensus” by judges who have ruled against a swath of the Trump administration’s executive actions proves that their moves were not motivated by political malice or disagreement with White House policy.
“The lawsuits have been brought, and overwhelmingly succeeded, because many of the challenged actions have been taken without regard for — and often with outright contempt for — both statutes and the Constitution,” Shaw argued.
Democrats also dialed in on recent attempts by some Republican lawmakers to impeach federal judges who have ruled against the Trump administration. As many as a dozen jurists have been subject to such impeachment threats, including D.C. District Judge James Boasberg, whose ouster has been called for by both the president and Elon Musk.
Raskin, railing on the proposed judicial impeachments, argued that the effort puts judges in danger. He pointed to a recent bomb threat made against Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett and what he called a “campaign of vilification” against Boasberg that has targeted his family members.
“I call on my colleagues right now to call off the campaign to impeach federal judges for doing their jobs,” the Maryland Democrat said. “I especially call on them today to denounce all violent threats, doxxing, online vilification and threats against our judges.”
Top Republicans, for their part, have been dismissive of the push to impeach judges. Issa, during a House Rules Committee hearing on Monday, decried a “wanted” poster displayed by Tennessee Representative Andy Ogles that depicted several judges he is trying to impeach.
And during Tuesday’s hearing, the California representative framed judicial impeachments as dead-end legislation — asking Gingrich whether his colleagues had ever proposed bills “whether or not they were moving anywhere.”
“They’re political symbols, not legislative symbols,” the former House speaker replied.
The Judiciary Committee’s hearing is just one of several congressional events this week taking aim at federal courts and national injunctions. The House is slated to vote later this week on Issa’s No Rogue Rulings Act, and the Senate Judiciary Committee will convene Wednesday to examine nationally binding court orders in its own hearing.
Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley and Missouri Senator Josh Hawley have also both unveiled similar bills to clamp down on the scope of national injunctions.