America Has A Robed Politician Problem

Injunctions are hard-fought and not often won — unless, it seems, you’re trying to handcuff the Trump administration from fulfilling its constitutional duty under Article II.

Sen. Chuck Grassley’s bill — the Judicial Relief Clarification Act — aims to quell the flames. He writes that these injunctions “have become a favorite tool for those seeking to obstruct Mr. Trump’s agenda,” and the numbers prove it: over two-thirds of all universal injunctions in the last 25 years targeted Trump’s first term.

The left, unable to secure their agenda at the ballot box, has turned to national injunctions as a weapon to engineer outcomes they couldn’t achieve democratically.

They cloak their actions in the language of “checks and balances,” but this ignores a fundamental truth: our system only works if the separation of powers is respected.

When unelected judges usurp the executive’s authority, they don’t balance power — they subvert it. The left can’t claim to respect democracy while simultaneously undermining it through judicial fiat, while jeopardizing national security.

After a crushing defeat at the ballot box giving the Trump administration a clear mandate for bold change, it’s baffling that the left targets some of his most popular policies with injunctions — deporting illegal aliens, including gang members, or slashing waste, fraud, and abuse, like what appears to be legalized money laundering via government-funded NGOs lacking proper oversight.

Sen. John Kennedy, during a recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, cut through the noise: there is no statutory basis or Supreme Court precedent for nationwide injunctions. None. This isn’t a gray area — it’s a judicial invention with no grounding in law. Worse, it flies in the face of our court system’s structure where the Supreme Court settles the law of the land.

Yet, here we are, with low-level district judges — whose rulings don’t even bind their own circuits—issuing edicts that halt national policy. This isn’t justice; it’s a power grab that threatens the republic.

Consider what’s required to win injunctive relief. First, you need standing — proof you’re directly harmed. Then, you must show a likelihood of prevailing on the merits, without the benefit of a fully developed court record.

But that isn’t your only legal hurdle. The standard for a preliminary injunction is steep: irreparable harm, a balance of equities favoring the plaintiff, and a clear public interest.

These are high bars by design — courts aren’t meant to casually upend executive action. Yet, against Trump, these hurdles seem to vanish.

“The Trump Justice Department filed an emergency petition with the Supreme Court. Chief Justice Roberts ordered a briefing, and the Court will rule in the coming days. The stakes cannot get higher,” Mike Davis President of Article III penned. “If Roberts refuses to get his judicial house in order by reining in these judicial saboteurs, Congress will do it for him.”

The data backs this up: Grassley highlights that “in the past two months alone, judges have issued at least 15 universal injunctions against the administration —surpassing the 14 President Biden faced throughout his four-year term.”

This shouldn’t require a law like Grassley’s Judicial Relief Clarification Act to fix. Chief Justice John Roberts could rein in these runaway lower courts, which are blatantly legislating from the bench without a shred of electoral accountability.

But Roberts seems so obsessed with shielding the judiciary’s image that he’s forgetting to do his job. “Article III of the Constitution tasks the judicial branch with resolving ‘cases’ and ‘controversies,’ not making policy,” Grassley reminds us. He’s right — judges aren’t elected to govern.

America’s founders didn’t bleed for a nation where unelected judges could veto the people’s will with a single pen stroke. Grassley’s Judicial Relief Clarification Act is a stand against that dystopia, a demand that courts stop masquerading as legislatures.

The left may cling to their robed proxies, but the voters have spoken — and their mandate isn’t negotiable. Let’s end this judicial tyranny now, or watch the republic fade into a footnote of history.

Frank Ricci was the lead plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court case Ricci v Destefano. He retired as a Battalion Chief in New Haven CT. He has testified before Congress and is the author of the book, Command Presence.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.