Blocking activist judges
Lawmakers are finally taking action against the out-of-control activist judges who have stalled the administration’s momentum. This week, the House will vote on the No Rogue Rulings Act, which would strip individual federal judges of the power they have been using to obstruct presidential actions that offend their sensibilities.
Four Supreme Court justices recognize the abuse has gotten out of hand. They would have intervened right away to stop the Democratic appointee in the District of Columbia who directed the commander in chief to spend $2 billion in foreign countries without regard for whether or not that cash was being put to legitimate use.
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said he was “stunned” that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Amy Coney Barrett preferred to wait for the case to come to them through regular order, effectively paralyzing the administration during its first 100 days.
Appellate inertia perpetuates a gross constitutional imbalance. The Supreme Court can do nothing without five justices signing their name to an opinion, but a judge in an inferior court of limited jurisdiction can make sweeping policy changes alone.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller understands these lower-court judges are electioneering partisans desperate to thwart President Trump’s agenda. “If just 1 communist out of 677 unelected judges disagrees, the action is frozen. Nationwide. That is not democracy. That is tyranny,” he wrote on X.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a constitutional lawyer by trade, echoed the concern at a press briefing last week where he outlined the tools at his disposal: “We can eliminate an entire district court. We have power of funding over the courts. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Congress is going to act. So, stay tuned for that.”
Mr. Johnson wouldn’t rule out summoning lower court judges to testify before the House Judiciary Committee. “We’ll see,” he said when asked about doing so.
The No Rogue Rulings Act, introduced by Rep. Darrell Issa, is a measured response. It allows district court judges to consider complaints from individuals aggrieved by a particular presidential action, but it authorizes the court to offer relief only to those specific people. A lone judge would no longer be able to use their cause as an excuse to impose his will on the country.
A panel of three randomly selected judges from multiple jurisdictions would hear cases brought by several states. This would deny leftists the ability to rush to courthouses in Manhattan or the District, knowing the left-tilting judges would grant their every wish. It would also prevent conservatives from doing the same in a Texas courtroom the next time a Democrat occupies the Oval Office.
The judiciary has stoked Republican fury, prompting Mr. Trump to call for impeaching the black-robed ideologues. This drew a rebuke from Chief Justice Roberts, who said, “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.”
As a matter of history, his honor is mistaken. In 1804, Justice Samuel Chase was impeached at the urging of Thomas Jefferson’s allies for “delivering opinions … tending to prostitute the high judicial character with which he was invested, to the low purpose of an electioneering partizan.” James H. Peck, a district court judge accused of “usurping a power which the laws of the land did not give him,” was impeached in 1826.
The swift adoption of Mr. Issa’s bill would reduce the need for extreme measures, or the chief justice could just do his job.
— The Washington Times