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No Rogue Rulings Act - stop those anti-Trump judges! [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-04-19
Judge and district shopping is commonplace for the Republicans. They got Aileen Cannon by accident and Trump got away with treason and espionage. They went directly to Judge Kacsmaryk in Texas to get him to ban Mifipristone nationwide.
Because there are real judges who believe in the rule of law, the Trump administration has toyed with the idea of just eliminating those troublesome districts to get rid of those judges. That hasn't happened yet, so the Republicans came up with another game plan. Limit the power of federal judges so they can't oppose Trump anymore.
It's called the No Rogue Rulings Act. It's the shortest bill I've ever seen. 2.5 pages as a PDF. It passed the House on April 9th. It's been read on the Senate floor twice and now referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
"To amend title 28, United States Code, to limit the authority of district courts to provide injunctive relief, and for other purposes."
No more injunctions, no more temporary restraining orders. We don't need those. They are overstepping their authority in opposing Trump. We only want Trumpian judges.
"If a case is brought by two or more States located in different circuits challenging an action by the executive branch, that case shall be referred to a three-judge panel... the selection of the judges shall be random, and not by the chief judge of the circuit."
The panel has to have some big discussion about the separation of powers as a result. Can't threaten the power of the presidency anymore.
States are not required to be plaintiffs in current court cases. And certainly not two. And the states have to be in different circuits.
There are 13 circuits. Two of them in Washington D.C., with the District of Columbia Circuit and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The other 11 have multiple States in each circuit. For instance, the 9th circuit is comprised of Alaska, Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington state. These states would not be able to join in a lawsuit together. Ridiculous. That's the point. Make it as hard as possible to cross Trump.
The section before this is about district courts. There are 94 U.S. Districts.
"No United States district Court shall issue any order providing for injunctive relief, except..."
The rest of the citation is very difficult to make out. The intent is to limit the area in which a injunctive order covers. It almost seems like it only covers the district in which the decision is made. The word state is not even used in the text. Some real lawyer should read it and make it out. It's too convoluted for me to make sense of.
The intent of the law is obviously to stop rulings against Trump in the district courts and the circuit, also know as appeals, courts. A case would never get to the Supreme Court under these circumstances. That's the whole point.
The bill is now in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Republicans have the majority because they are the majority in the Senate. Members are:
Chuck Grassley -R - Chairman Dick Durbin- D - Ranking member Lindsey Graham -R John Cornyn -R Mike Lee - R Ted Cruz -R Josh Hawlet - R Thom Tillis - R John Kennedy - R Marsha Blackburn - R Eric Scmidt - R Katie Britt - R Ashley Moodie - R Sheldon Whitehouse - D Amy Klobuchar - D Chris Coons - D Richard Blumenthal - D Mazie Hirono - D Cory Booker - D Alex Padilla - D Peter Welch - D Adam Schiff - D
The Democrats have the more intelligent heavy hitters, but the Republicans have the numbers.
Chuck Grassley introduced a Senate version on April 1. It is called the Judicial Relief Clarification Act (PDF 4 pages).
It does the same as the House version, but spells out non-party relief. Entities not part of the case cannot be affected. No injunctions nationwide.
Temporary restraining orders can no longer be against the U.S. government, a government agency, or an officer of the U.S. government.
The courts just got neutered.
The Senate version is a lot clearer and easily understood to be dangerous.
You've got Republicans talking about impeaching federal judges that impose injunctions against Trump.
These laws would put an end to the 201 cases showing on the Just Security Litigation Tracker today. Everything from trans rights and birthright citizenship to USAID and Voice of America. We instantly lose everything.
This is how much the Republicans want to do to turn Trump into a king. It's amazing how so many, including Ted Cruz, used to talk about the rule of law and how Trump was a Hitler without a disguise. They have fallen so far they will never get back up.
In another age, I would have laughed at these laws as so crackpot that no one would ever take them seriously. I would have said the same about one mandating that Trump be carved on Mt. Rushmore, but there is one. Introduced by Congresswoman Anna Luna. Truly a luna-tic idea.
These laws stripping courts of their Constitutional Article III powers to cater to Trump's whims have a good chance of passing.
All the protesting and petitions in the world won't make a difference if the courts aren't there to enforce the laws.
Don't let your representatives miss this one.
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