WASHINGTON — House Republicans forced a bill through committee Tuesday that would limit the reach of so-called “rogue” judges who have paused some of President Trump’s executive orders from taking effect — including his invocation of an 18th-century law to deport vicious Venezuelan gang members without trial.
The GOP-led House Rules Committee voted 9-4 along party lines to send the No Rogue Rulings Act, which would do away with nationwide injunctions unless they apply to specific parties bringing a complaint, to the floor of the lower chamber for a full House vote on Wednesday.
A senior GOP aide said the measure is headed for approval, but it was unlikely the Senate will take it up. Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) have already introduced their own bills to curtail lower courts’ authority.
Federal judges have slapped Trump with at least 15 sweeping injunctions since he returned to the White House, including pausing the president’s orders to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, end birthright citizenship and bar transgender Americans from serving in the military.
As members of the Rules panel were deliberating Monday night, a California district judge issued another nationwide injunction keeping in place a Biden-era program that granted up to 350,000 Venezuelan migrants temporary protected status to live and work in the US.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) told The Post last week when introducing the measure, which was co-sponsored by New York Republican Reps. Claudia Tenney, Nick Langworthy and Nick LaLota, that it was “a constitutional solution to a national problem.”
“Time and again, solitary judges have usurped congressional intent and confronted President Trump, rather than dispassionately interpreted the law,” Issa said.
Grassley, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, authored a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Sunday announcing similar legislation to rein in the “abuse of temporary restraining orders and nationwide injunctions.”
“The obvious solution is to limit district courts to resolving the cases only between the parties before them,” Grassley wrote. “If the Supreme Court won’t act to rein in the lower courts, Congress must.”
Appeals courts have lifted some of the national injunctions — including those with widespread public support like the DEI ban — but the Trump administration in other cases has asked the US Supreme Court to step in.
Washington, DC, Chief US District Judge James Boasberg hit the Trump administration with an injunction March 15 blocking the use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to fly hundreds of purported Tren de Aragua gangbangers to a mega-prison in El Salvador.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is representing five Venezuelan migrants who were detained under the wartime authority, says its plaintiffs were non-gang members but were still detained — and that others have not been afforded due process rights.
A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld Boasberg’s injunction — and the DC jurist is holding a Thursday hearing on whether the White House violated his order and continued sending flights to CECOT, a maximum-security prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador.
Issa’s bill would fast-track the appeals process by appointing three-judge panels at random to hear cases involving the same dispute in different jurisdictions — and allowing that panel to “issue an injunction that would otherwise be prohibited.”
Grassley’s measure would also make judges’ temporary restraining orders “immediately appealable, to make sure that prudence wins out over rash decisions handed down in the heat of a political moment.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary panel, said in March that the judges bill pushed by House Republicans will only help Trump “dismantle the power of the courts.”
“He’s engaged in terribly lawless and irresponsible violations of people’s rights — whether that’s trying to nullify the citizenship of millions of people by deleting the birthright citizenship clause or dismantling federally created, congressionally created agencies and departments,” Raskin said in a video statement.
Other GOP bills have also been floated to kneecap the federal judiciary — including a resolution from freshman Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) to impeach Boasberg and a bill from Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) to remove the jurist “for failure to remain in good behavior.”
The Biggs bill would circumvent the 60-vote threshold in the Senate needed for conviction after a judge is impeached in the House.
