House GOPers Help Dems Tank Bill Defunding ‘Activist’ Judges

Forty-six House Republicans joined their Democrat colleagues on Wednesday in defeating a bill amendment that would have stripped funding from two activist judges and the D.C. federal courts.

Proposed by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, as an amendment to an appropriations package considered by the House for the 2026 fiscal year, the measure sought to cut the budgets of the D.C. District Court and Court of Appeals by 20 percent. Roy cited the D.C. courts’ overreaching activism in stifling President Trump’s policy agenda as the reason for the amendment during a floor speech ahead of the vote.

“One of the issues that we’ve been addressing is the extent to which the president, who was elected to fulfill a mandate, has been carrying out policies that he believes fulfills the mandate the American people gave [him and] that … my colleagues on this side of the aisle believe should be fulfilled,” Roy said. “And yet, there have been judges who have been putting their personal preferences and their activist tendencies in front of the will of the people and in front of the policies that the president is putting forward in such a way that raises questions about whether they’re carrying out their jobs responsibly and in accordance with normal judicial ethics and procedures.”

The final vote on the amendment was 163-257, with one member voting “present” and 16 not voting. Here’s the roll call showing how every member voted.

Roy’s proposed amendment also aimed to ensure that “[n]one of the funds made available” by the spending bill “may be obligated or expended for the salary and expenses for the staff” of D.C. District Judge James Boasberg and Maryland District Judge Deborah Boardman.

As The Federalist previously reported, Boasberg played an instrumental role in authorizing sealed subpoenas and nondisclosure orders targeting Republican senators as part of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s “Arctic Frost” investigation. The probe “ultimately became” Smith’s elector lawfare against Donald Trump.

Boasberg has also issued overreaching edicts in immigration-related litigation involving the Trump administration throughout the past year.

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Meanwhile, Boardman is most widely known for granting a lenient sentence to the man who attempted to assassinate Supreme Justice Brett Kavanaugh following the 2022 leak of the court’s draft Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade. While prosecutors recommended “no fewer than 30 years to life imprisonment,” Boardman sentenced the wannabe killer to just eight years behind bars — a decision stemming from her apparent sympathies for the man’s “transgender” status and concern that he would be placed in a prison incongruent with his gender-bending fantasies.

Roy singled out Boasberg and Boardman during his remarks ahead of Wednesday’s vote. The congressman argued that both Democrat appointees have been “particularly egregious in their contempt of the president and putting their personal views in front of their duty as judges to carry out the jobs that they hold.”

Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, and Roy have filed articles of impeachment against Boasberg and Boardman, respectively, for their conduct on the bench. Despite calls from Senate Republicans like Texas’ Ted Cruz to initiate impeachment proceedings against the judges, House Speaker Mike Johnson has thus far declined to do so.