Bipartisanship remains elusive as Senate prepares to tackle national injunctions

WASHINGTON (CN) — As members of Congress return to Washington this week, the Senate is preparing to take up a bill that would drastically shrink the scope of national injunctions issued by federal judges.

But the legislation — a Republican retort to a spate of recent rulings stymieing President Donald Trump’s executive agenda — will need votes from both parties to get across the finish line. And so far, Democrats have expressed little interest in breaking ranks.

The House earlier this month passed California Representative Darrell Issa’s No Rogue Rulings Act, a bill that if made law would restrict federal judges from issuing nationally binding injunctions. Issa’s measure would effectively do away with the mechanism by mandating that such injunctions only apply to the parties in a particular case.

Senate Republicans, including Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley and Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, have sponsored similar legislation.

Though it isn’t the first time that lawmakers have toyed with eliminating national injunctions, this most recent effort comes as federal judges have used injunctive relief to temporarily halt some of the Trump administration’s most ambitious executive actions.

In recent months, courts have blocked the White House from unilaterally ending birthright citizenship, freezing foreign aid and deporting migrants, among other things.

Republicans, who have denigrated the judges in these cases as “activists in robes,” easily passed Issa’s bill clamping down on national injunctions in the House earlier this month.

But the bill faces an uphill path in the Senate, which requires a 60-vote threshold to begin debate on most legislation. That procedural foible means that Republicans will need Democratic votes to approve the measure.

Flipping some Democrats isn’t totally out of the question. Some Democratic lawmakers have broken with their colleagues to back GOP bills and Trump administration nominees in recent months, including Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman.

Speaking with Courthouse News on Tuesday, though, Fetterman would not say if he’d vote for a bill reining in national injunctions but was clear that he thought that the White House needed to comply with the courts.

“The White House has to follow all of these judicial rulings, from the Supreme Court all the way down,” he said. “I don’t support defying that — that’s what defines a constitutional crisis.”

And Nevada Senator Jacky Rosen, who narrowly won reelection in 2024, similarly sidestepped questions about whether she could support a version of Issa’s bill. She told Courthouse News that she had to take a “deeper look” at the measure and that she would wait to see whether Senate lawmakers offer any amendments.

“What I really believe on it’s face is that we have three separate, co-equal branches of government,” said Rosen. “I’m not for obstructing the courts in any way.”

Asked whether she believed that restricting the scope of national injunctions would constitute an effort to obstruct the courts, she demurred, saying that she was not an attorney but she thought that Congress should let the judicial system “work independently.”

As of Tuesday afternoon, Senate Republican leadership had yet to announce whether the chamber will vote on the House-passed national injunctions bill. And Senate Majority Leader John Thune has not offered a full-throated endorsement of such legislation.

“We’ll consider that,” he told reporters during a news conference earlier this month when asked about a bill clamping down on nationally binding injunctions. The top Senate Republican added that the issue of judges blocking Trump administration actions “needs to be addressed.”

Trump has said that he would sign such a bill if it made its way to the White House.

Meanwhile, the No Rogue Rulings Act’s House sponsor has indicated that he believes his measure could secure bipartisan support in the Senate. Issa told Courthouse News this month that he was working with Senate lawmakers to bring forward a version of his bill.

Though the national injunctions legislation passed the House with flying colors, it earned one notable GOP defection from Ohio Representative Mike Turner, who said Republicans would “regret” restricting the mechanism under a Democratic president.

“The judicial system works,” he said at the time.

Issa said his colleague’s comments were “misguided in every possible way.”

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