{"id":2401268,"date":"2025-02-11T07:21:02","date_gmt":"2025-02-11T12:21:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/dems-turn-to-activist-judges-to-defy-trump\/"},"modified":"2025-02-11T07:26:54","modified_gmt":"2025-02-11T12:26:54","slug":"dems-turn-to-activist-judges-to-defy-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/dems-turn-to-activist-judges-to-defy-trump\/","title":{"rendered":"Dems Turn To Activist Judges To Defy Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fdems-turn-to-activist-judges-to-defy-trump%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2401268&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The article discusses the current tactics used by Democrats to oppose President Trump&#8217;s \u200dagenda\u2063 following his electoral success. It argues that Democrats are employing a strategy reminiscent of those used during\u2063 Trump&#8217;s first term \u200bby leveraging the \u2062federal judiciary to obstruct his executive orders.Numerous lawsuits have been filed against the Trump administration, especially in districts with judges perceived as anti-Trump,\u200c resulting in several temporary injunctions that halt key initiatives\u2063 of the president.These include attempts to reform \u2064birthright citizenship,\u200b scale back USAID, and regulate the management of \u200bfederal inmates according to biological sex rather than gender identity.<\/p>\n<p>The author \u200bdescribes this judicial response\u2063 as a form of &#8220;lawfare&#8221; or \u2062a judicial coup, suggesting that it undermines Trump&#8217;s agenda and enables the judiciary to effectively govern negatively. The article critiques the authority of federal judges,who the author argues should\u2064 not have the power to block presidential decisions,as their\u200b status is for inferior courts\u2063 under the Constitution. It suggests that the Supreme court must eventually clarify \u2063this issue,particularly regarding the legitimacy of\u200b nationwide injunctions issued by lower federal courts,which may set a precedent for future\u2063 governance and judicial authority.<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, the piece advocates for\u200d a resolution to this judicial overreach, emphasizing that the american \u200dpeople \u200bvoted for Trump&#8217;s platform, and asserting that \u200cfederal judges \u2064should\u200c not\u2062 override \u200cthe electoral will of the populace. The author concludes that resolving these legal questions may force Democrats to seek electoral\u200d victories rather\u200d than rely on judicial interventions.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>What&rsquo;s happening right now is that Democrats, having been thrown out of power by American voters in a landslide victory for Trump, have decided they&rsquo;re going to deploy a widely-used tactic from Trump&rsquo;s first term to thwart the president&rsquo;s agenda: use the federal judiciary. Under the false pretext that the federal judiciary is a &ldquo;coequal branch of government&rdquo; with the executive, they&rsquo;re aiming to shut down Trump&rsquo;s reform efforts with a fusillade of preliminary injunctions.<\/p>\n<p>In recent days dozens of lawsuits have been filed against the Trump administration by Democrat attorneys general and various left-wing groups. These groups have carefully selected their venues, ensuring the lawsuits come before rabidly anti-Trump activist judges. So far, the tactic seems to be working. As of this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/florida-is-open-new-york-is-closed-and-ny-has-more-covid-deaths\/\" title=\"Florida Is Open, New York Is Closed, And NY Has More COVID Deaths\">past weekend<\/a>, eight different rulings from the federal bench have temporarily halted the president&rsquo;s executive orders.<\/p>\n<p>Federal judges in Democrat-majority districts have issued preliminary injunctions blocking Trump&rsquo;s executive actions to end birthright citizenship, reform and downsize the United States Agency for International Development, and offer buyouts to federal bureaucrats. A federal judge this past weekend blocked Elon Musk&rsquo;s Department of Government Efficiency and all other political appointees in the Trump administration &mdash; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/daily-memo\/3316033\/lawfare-gang-strikes-again\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">including the Treasury secretary and his deputies<\/a> &mdash; from accessing payment data at the Treasury Department.<\/p>\n<p>One judge even <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/national-security\/2025\/02\/05\/judge-blocks-trans-inmates-trump\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">issued<\/a> a restraining order halting a Trump order that would have ensured federal inmates are housed according to biological sex, not transgender identity, and also would have prevented tax dollars from being used to pay for &ldquo;gender transitions&rdquo; for federal inmates. (Another judge, appointed by Obama, took the extraordinary step of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/politics\/donald-trump\/judge-finds-trump-administration-violated-court-order-halting-funding-rcna191528\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ordering<\/a> the administration to pay back every cent of federal funding that&rsquo;s been paused or canceled &mdash; and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/amuse\/status\/1889010007942861267\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">threatened anyone who violates his order with criminal contempt<\/a>.)&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>What all this lawfare amounts to is a kind of judicial coup against the sitting president. By doling out injunctions like they&rsquo;re USAID grants for LGBTQ awareness programs in Mali, Democrats have been able to hamstring key aspects of Trump&rsquo;s agenda &mdash; at least for the moment. It&rsquo;s a simple enough tactic. All Democrats have to do is shop for a venue to find the most activist, rabidly anti-Trump federal judges in the country, file their lawsuits, and wait for the injunctions to come raining down.<\/p>\n<p>By doing this, Democrats and their allies in the judiciary turn the Constitution on its head, and effectively govern negatively through injunction, making major reform of the federal bureaucracy impossible. In nearly every case so far, the federal judiciary is siding with the permanent bureaucracy in Washington, preventing the Trump administration from doing anything to reform it despite Trump having campaigned on precisely that promise.<\/p>\n<p>The problem is, as my colleague Sean Davis&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/seanmdav\/status\/1889025266644873621\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">noted recently on X<\/a>, federal judges have no actual authority to do this. They can&rsquo;t decide on their own who the president can talk to or what data he can access. They can&rsquo;t bind the president at all. According to the U.S. Constitution they&rsquo;re &ldquo;inferior&rdquo; courts and therefore don&rsquo;t have any authority over the executive branch. Yes, the three branches of the federal government are coequal, but the only part of the federal judiciary that&rsquo;s equal to the presidency is the Supreme Court, not all the <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\">federal district courts scattered<\/a> across the country.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;John Roberts and SCOTUS have two options here: they can bring these inferior malcontents to heel, or they can get used to the President simply ignoring these inferior courts or Congress eliminating them entirely,&rdquo; wrote Davis. &ldquo;Congress created these inferior courts so the Supreme Court wouldn&rsquo;t have to deal with every federal case by itself. But if these rogue inferior judges are going to routinely issue lawless decisions that the Supreme Court has to deal with anyway, Congress would be well within its rights to just eliminate them.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The issue might come to a head before Congress gets around to eliminating the federal courts, though. If the Supreme Court steps in on just one of these cases where a federal judge has blocked a lawful executive order from Trump, it might not go well for Democrats. In the 2018 Supreme Court case&nbsp;<em>Trump v. Hawaii<\/em>, which reversed a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/justice-alito-moves-up-deadline-for-supreme-court-briefing-in-pennsylvania-lawsuit-to-flip-the-election\/\" title=\"Justice Alito Moves Up Deadline For ... Briefing in Pennsylvania Lawsuit to Flip the Election\">lower court&#038;rsquo<\/a>;s decision to uphold a nationwide injunction on Trump&rsquo;s travel ban, Justice Clarence Thomas&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2018\/06\/29\/travel-ban-ruling-justice-thomas-takes-aim-insane-use-nationwide-injunctions\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">called into question<\/a>&nbsp;the idea that a federal judge in Hawaii (or anywhere else) can simply issue an injunction against a presidential executive order and apply it to the entire country.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;District courts, including the one here, have begun imposing universal injunctions without considering their authority to grant such sweeping relief,&rdquo; wrote Thomas. &ldquo;These injunctions are beginning to take a toll on the federal court system &mdash; preventing legal questions from percolating through the federal courts, encouraging forum shopping, and making every case a national emergency for the courts and for the Executive Branch.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>He went on to say he is &ldquo;skeptical that district courts have the authority to enter universal injunctions,&rdquo; that such injunctions didn&rsquo;t emerge until a century and a half after the Founding, and that they &ldquo;appear to be inconsistent with longstanding limits on equitable relief and the power of Article III courts. If their popularity continues, this Court must address their legality.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Only a few weeks into Trump&rsquo;s second term, the popularity of injunctions is back with a vengeance, which means the Supreme Court might well step in to decide whether any federal district judge, anywhere in the country, can bind the actions of the White House by issuing nationwide injunctions.<\/p>\n<p>It&rsquo;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-gun-policies-concern-second-amendment-advocates\/\" title=\"Biden gun policies concern Second Amendment advocates\">long past time<\/a> to settle this. The American people overwhelmingly elected Trump precisely because they wanted to see his agenda for America enacted. Lower court federal judges, whom no one voted for, have no right to assert their will over and against the will of the American people. The sooner the Supreme Court takes this up and settles the obvious question, the sooner Democrat lawfare against Trump&rsquo;s agenda will come to an end. Instead of relying on activist judges, Democrats might then have to figure out how to compete at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/lawsuit-alleges-nancy-maces-congressional-district-is-an-unlawful-partisan-gerrymander-washington-examiner\/\" title=\"Lawsuit alleges Nancy Mace\u2019s congressional district is an unlawful partisan gerrymander - Washington Examiner\">ballot box &#038;mdash<\/a>; something they are obviously loath to do.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. He is the author of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Pagan-America-Decline-Christianity-Dark\/dp\/1684514444\/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Pagan+America&amp;qid=1695306441&amp;sr=8-1\"><i>Pagan America: the Decline of Christianity and the Dark Age to Come<\/i><\/a>. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Democrats, ousted by voters in Trump&#8217;s victory, are using the judiciary to block his agenda<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":518,"featured_media":2401269,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Trump.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[50179,3933,50180,5894,3634],"class_list":["post-2401268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-activist-judges","tag-dems","tag-legal-strategies","tag-politics","tag-trump"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Trump.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2401268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/518"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2401268"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2401268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2401272,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2401268\/revisions\/2401272"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2401269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2401268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2401268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2401268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}