At least three pieces of legislation dealing with the judiciary are lingering on Capitol Hill as Republicans struggle with how to rein in federal judges issuing national blocks on key aspects of President Trump’s agenda.
In February, 15 nationwide injunctions were issued against the Trump administration. The next month saw 13.
“Those injunctions thwart the Executive Branch’s crucial policies on matters ranging from border security, to international relations, to national security, to military readiness,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer, who has asked the Supreme Court to address the issue, wrote in a court filing this week.
“In two months, a small subset of the federal district courts has doubled the number of such injunctions granted in the first three years of the last Administration,” he wrote. “This situation is intolerable.”
The Supreme Court has not yet taken up the invitation to address the topic of nationwide injunctions.
Ilya Shapiro, senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the conservative Manhattan Institute, says that has prompted lawmakers on Capitol Hill to seek solutions.
“All of this reflects the failure of the Supreme Court to provide guidance to the lower courts,” Mr. Shapiro told The Washington Times. “It’s not surprising now Congress says we have to do something about it.”
Republican Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Charles E. Grassley of Iowa along with Rep. Darrell Issa, California Republican, have taken on that opportunity.
Mr. Hawley’s bill, the Nationwide Injunction Abuse Prevention Act of 2025, would prohibit U.S. district courts from issuing nationwide injunctions and require that a federal judge’s order only applies to the plaintiff and defendant in a case or to the district in which the judge presides, not the entire country.
Mr. Grassley has introduced the Judicial Relief Clarification Act, which would allow judges to issue relief only for the parties at hand in a specific case. It also would allow parties to immediately appeal temporary restraining orders.
Mr. Issa’s bill in the House, the No Rogue Rulings Act, is similar to Mr. Hawley’s in the Senate, which would prohibit federal judges from issuing nationwide injunctions. Their orders could apply only to the parties involved in the case. The bill is expected to get action on the House floor this week.
Any Senate legislation would require 60 votes to be approved — meaning at least seven Democrats would have to join the Senate’s 53 Republicans, an unlikely scenario.
Curt Levey, president of the conservative Committee for Justice, said the issue should be bipartisan because nationwide injunctions can be issued — and have been — against Democrat and Republican presidents.
“However, the reality is that Democrats are very unlikely to support the bills curtailing nationwide injunctions or otherwise restricting lower court judges because they know that these injunctions have been used against President Trump — in his first and second terms — far more frequently than against recent Democrat administrations,” Mr. Levey said.
“I think it’s unlikely that any of these bills will become law given the inevitable Democrat filibuster in the Senate,” he added.
Jake Faleschini, justice program director at the progressive Alliance for Justice, said the thing from Republicans who care about nationwide injunctions is suspect since they were used against former President Joseph R. Biden, too.
“It’s interesting that Republican lawmakers suddenly care about nationwide injunctions after they spent the past four years cheering them on when they blocked President Biden from executing his authority. The courts are currently the only federal institution holding Trump accountable for his unlawful actions and now is not the time to undermine their authority,” Mr. Faleschini said.
