House GOP looks to rein in judicial power amid calls for impeachment

While House Republicans are unlikely to cobble together the votes to answer President Trump’s call to impeach federal judges who block his administration's actions, they are poised to take action on a bill that could prove to have even more consequential and lasting effects on the federal judiciary.

GOP leaders will hold a floor vote next week on the No Rogue Rulings Act led by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), which would limit the power of district judges to impose nationwide injunctions — like the one from Judge James Boasberg that barred the Trump administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan migrants.

Trump called for Boasberg’s impeachment last week over that decision, while tech billionaire Elon Musk previously called for a “wave of judicial impeachments” against judges who blocked actions by the Department of Government Efficiency to dismantle parts of the federal government.

Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) promptly introduced a resolution to impeach Boasberg, and a number of Republicans began preparing other impeachment articles against other judges.

Judicial impeachment efforts, however, are widely seen on Capitol Hill as futile endeavors. Skepticism from some Republicans about the prudence of impeachment means it would be a heavy lift to get the votes in the slim House majority to impeach. Even if articles of impeachment squeaked through the House, it would take support from at least 14 Senate Democrats to convict, and it is improbable that a single one would vote to do so.

Republican leaders are not ruling out impeachment, with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) telling reporters on Monday that “everything is on the table.” 

“Impeachment is an extraordinary measure. We're looking at all the alternatives that we have to address this problem. Activist judges are a serious threat to our system,” Johnson said.

But he and House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) are pointing to other legislative tools to address the fury at the federal judiciary, including hearings in the Judiciary Committee to “highlight the abuses.”

“This is not the way the system is supposed to work. So we're going to have hearings to highlight the abuses. I suspect that we may wind up questioning some of these judges themselves, to have them defend their actions,” Johnson said.

Republicans also had a legislative answer to impeachment calls teed up by the time Trump started calling for the judge’s removal: The No Rogue Rulings Act was marked up and advanced out of the House Judiciary Committee earlier this month.

“The malfunction of a critical part of our judiciary should be a concern to us all, and that’s why this bill is on a glide path to the floor,” Issa, the bill’s lead sponsor, said in a statement. “It’s a Constitutional solution to a national problem and an idea whose time has come.”

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) confirmed on the social platform X that the bill would come to the House floor next week.

Issa’s brief, 2-page bill would limit the power of the 677 District Court judges to issue injunctions that restrict those beyond the parties directly involved in a case, effectively blocking nationwide injunctions. The bill states: “No United States district court shall issue any order providing for injunctive relief, except in the case of such an order that is applicable only to limit the actions of a party to the case before such district court with respect to the party seeking injunctive relief from such district court.”

It's not unusual for plaintiffs in a case — from across the political spectrum — to attempt to file lawsuits in jurisdictions seen as friendly to their cause in an attempt for that ruling to apply elsewhere as well.

Nationwide injunctions have become more common in recent decades. A 2024 Harvard Law Review publication on the rise of injunctions — which qualified it likely underestimated the total number of injunctions issued — found that six injunctions were levied under former President Bush, 12 under former President Obama, 64 in Trump’s first term and 14 during former President Biden’s first three years in office.

More than a dozen nationwide injunctions have been issued in the first months of Trump’s second term.

Republicans and the Trump administration have argued that the nationwide injunctions are politically targeted against the president.

Democrats, though, say that the injunctions are a response to “lawless” actions by the Trump administration.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, said in a video after the markup in which the bill advanced that Republicans are “now trying to dismantle the power of the courts,” calling GOP gripes about the number of injunctions against Trump “amusing.”

“It proves just the opposite, that he’s engaged in terribly lawless and irresponsible violations of people's rights — whether that’s trying to nullify the citizenship of millions of people by deleting the birthright citizenship clause or dismantling federally created, congressionally created agencies and departments,” Raskin said. 

“We shouldn’t completely rewrite the federal rules of civil procedure and appellant procedure in order to suit Donald Trump because he doesn’t like the fact that he’s losing every day in court,” Raskin added.

Mychael Schnell contributed.