Jeff Sessions: Nationwide Injunctions Are a Threat to Our Constitutional Order

Hugh Gentry/Reuters

Using nationwide injunctions to shut down elected officials from carrying out our laws effectively silences the people who voted for them.

Under our Constitution, Congress writes our laws, the executive branch carries out our laws, and the judiciary applies those laws to cases and controversies.

These branches are coequal. The courts are not superior. On matters of policy, the branches that are directly accountable to the people must be given proper respect. That’s why it’s so alarming that judges are increasingly issuing nationwide injunctions — orders that block the entire federal government from enforcing an executive-branch policy or executing a statute. These injunctions block the government from carrying out a law — not just in one district or to one person, but anywhere in America.

Scholars have not found a single example of any judge issuing that type of extreme remedy in the first 175 years of the Republic. In just over one year in office, President Trump has been hit with 22, more than any other president in our history. And they’re happening on issues that voters care about, like DACA, the travel order, sanctuary cities, and the service of transgender people in the military. Shutting down our elected officials from carrying out our laws effectively silences the people who voted for them.

That’s why it’s not what our courts have traditionally done. For example, in one 1897 case, the Supreme Court found a law unconstitutional and even recognized that many others besides the plaintiff might be entitled to relief. But the Court issued an injunction that only prevented application of the law to the plaintiff. During the New Deal controversies, courts concluded that one new tax was unconstitutional more than 1,600 times. They issued more than 1,600 injunctions — each applying only to the plaintiff in the case.

Read the rest from Jeff Sessions HERE.

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