Courts apply the (already written and codified) Law to see if an Executive Order, or other “edict” from POTUS, squares with those Laws (as well as the Constitution).
This is nothing more than “viture-signaling” by Grassley; if it makes it out of committee, I’ll be very surprised.
That's not really what the law is trying to address. The issue this law is trying to solve--or at least looks like it's trying to solve--is the usage of universal or nationwide injunctions, which are being used more and more frequently, and liable to abuse. (disclaimer: I've known from experience that sometimes people write laws that look innocuous enough, but their specific wording is set up to allow for things more extreme than they look like at first glance. It is possible this is such a law. This is therefore assuming the law is doing what it looks like it's trying to do--stop nationwide injunctions--and is only doing that)
Let's explain some things. So, if I saw that if a law is put into effect, it violates my constitutional rights, I can sue over it. And then if a judge agrees, they issue an injunction saying the government can't execute that law. A preliminary injunction is when a judge says the government can't execute that law while the court case is playing out (meaning if the case comes out in favor of the government, it the injunction will then be lifted), and a permanent injunction is if they do so after the final judgment.
Normally, an injunction applies only to the parties in the lawsuit. If I sue and get an injunction, that injunction means the government can't act against me with the law, but doesn't apply to non parties. This is how injunctions were handled throughout most of American history. But starting in the 1960's, something called
nationwide injunctions became more popular, which is when judges gave the injunction against everyone, even those who aren't party to the lawsuit. This practice has been done more and more, and has been especially common in the last decade.
It sounds on the face of itself reasonable: Hey, if this person wins, shouldn't everyone in the same circumstances win? The problem is that this grants individual judges a whole lot of power if they grant it nationwide, and further encourages the already annoying process of forum shopping--that is, making sure to file lawsuits in areas where you're likely to get a sympathetic judge. Without a nationwide injunction the potential damage such a judge can do is more limited, but with such an injunction you can suddenly affect everyone in the country based on the whim of just one (quite possibly very biased) judge.
There have been some arguments that universal injunctions are not even something judges are supposed to give, legally speaking, but such hasn't really been ruled on in court. But whether judges can do so constitutionally, the goal of this law is to say that judges can only grant relief to the actual parties in a lawsuit, and not grant a universal injunction.
Complaints about the usage of universal injunctions is not a Republican thing. Here's The Daily Kos--a liberal source!--complaining about it:
Editor’s note: This is the first of several pieces I’ll be posting drawing a link between the GOP Senate’s obstruction of President Obama’s judicial nominees and how that is empowering conservative judges in lower courts to block Obama’s policies...
www.dailykos.com
Of course, this was from back in 2016, when
Obama was president and it was conservatives using this trick to thwart Obama policies... one wonders if they complained about the practice when the shoe was on the other foot, and it was liberals doing this to thwart Trump policies.
So Grassley has some real ground to stand on in complaining about universal injunctions, considering it's exactly what Democrats have complained about in the past. That said, one can't help but notice that it's
now he brings this up as a bill, when nationwide injunctions as more useful to Democrats (as it's a weapon against Trump), rather than during Biden's presidency when such injunctions were of more use to Republicans.
www.judiciary.senate.gov
