[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 57 (Monday, March 31, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1925-S1926]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
By Mr. GRASSLEY (for himself, Mr. Barrasso, Mrs. Blackburn, Mrs.
Britt, Mr. Budd, Mr. Cornyn, Mr. Cramer, Mr. Cruz, Mr. Daines,
Mr. Graham, Mr. Hagerty, Mr. Justice, Mr. Kennedy, Ms. Lummis,
Mr. Marshall, Mrs. Moody, Mr. Moreno, Mr. Schmitt, Mr. Tillis,
Mr. Tuberville, Mr. Cassidy, and Mr. Lee):
S. 1206. A bill to amend title 28, United States Code, to prohibit
the issuance of national injunctions, and for other purposes; to the
Committee on the Judiciary.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, today, 20 of my colleagues and I will
introduce legislation to stop the abuse of universal injunctions that
we are seeing all across the country--all of this to stop the Trump
agenda.
Universal injunctions violate the words of the Constitution that we
agreed that the courts can only hear ``case or controversy.'' And that
is a requirement of article III of the Constitution because they apply
court orders to people not even parties to the lawsuits--so the
necessity for doing away with universal injunctions violating the
``case-or-controversy'' requirements.
Universal injunctions were almost unheard of for the first 175 years
of our history and only became common in the last decade. In addition
to being unconstitutional, they are also anti-democratic. Universal
injunctions have become a favorite tool of those seeking to obstruct
President Trump's agenda.
Individual district judges who don't even have authority over any of
the other 92 district courts are singlehandedly vetoing policies the
American people elected President Trump to implement.
Now, universal injunctions have been used against both Democrat and
Republican administrations since they have sprung up so numerously in
the last few years.
But in the past 2 months alone, judges have issued more universal
injunctions against the Trump administration than President Biden faced
throughout his entire 4-year term.
By exercising power this way, the courts are doing great damage to
the judicial process that they should be working to protect, and the
Supreme
[[Page S1926]]
Court could stop this whole process, but the Supreme Court has not
taken such action.
So it is Congress's job to legislate. So what would you expect? I am
introducing legislation to solve this problem.
My bill prevents judges from providing nonparty relief, make
temporary restraining orders immediately appealable, and reset the
separation of powers. In short, I am trying to fix a bipartisan problem
that has been plaguing both Democratic and Republican administrations
alike.
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