Activist District Court judges issuing Nationwide Injunctions, as they've been doing ever since President Trump took Office, without Class Action certification, as required by Law, represent a profound usurpation of the Rule of Law. Whenever they do so, these judges exceed their lawful authority with no justification rooted in statute, precedent, or our nation's Constitution.¹ This practice, which is called a "Nationwide Injunction" or "Universal Injunction," pretends to allow a single federal judge to halt government policies across our entire nation, affecting millions of citizens who never stepped within a foot of their courtroom.

The evidence is unequivocal. No statute authorizes this type of judicial overreach, and no Supreme Court decision explicitly endorses it. In fact, Article III of the Constitution limits judicial power to "cases or controversies" involving the specific parties pleading before it. Yet these judges persist in their partisan left-wing activism, transforming their benches into platforms for unchecked power. They don't merely resolve disputes between a plaintiff and a defendant as the Law requires. They seize control over the Executive branch's national agenda, and in doing so, their actions threaten the very fabric of American democracy.

After all, the President is the ONLY leader that is elected by the whole of the nation, and given a mandate by the American People to execute the policies that he promised to implement during his campaign. Only Congress and the Supreme Court have powers that are co-equal to those of the President, and only these branches have the power to interfere with the execution of his authority. Therefore, no District Court judge can lawfully issue an injunction that overrides the authority of the President when he is performing the Duties of the Office. That's preposterous.

A recent exchange on the floor of the Senate lays bare the absurdity of this radical, left-wing judicial phenomenon of late. When pressed on the statutory basis for such injunctions, a Department of Justice official admitted to Senator Kennedy that none exists. When asked for a Supreme Court opinion interpreting the Constitution to permit this practice, the response was equally damning. No such case could be named because none exists. Article III confines courts to adjudicating the disputes before them, not rewriting policy for our entire nation. The DOJ official conceded that issuing orders beyond the parties "shouldn't be possible," yet district courts have been doing it routinely during President Trump's two administrations. Their justification? A flimsy theory that courts must enjoin federal policies in order to "protect" non-parties. This is not justice, folks. It's naked judicial tyranny, and it operates without accountability or legitimacy at Law or custom.

Historical data underscores the scandal. Throughout the 20th century, courts issued only about 27 Nationwide Injunctions, a rarity reflecting restraint. Contrast that with President Donald Trump's tenure. In his first term, from 2017 to 2021, District Court judges unleashed 86 such injunctions against his administration's policies, targeting everything from immigration reforms to trade tariffs. In his second term, beginning in 2025, 30 more have already been struck by April 1, averaging one about every four days. This is not a coincidence. It is a calculated assault by the political Left, a political weapon wielded by activist judges in order to paralyze a President elected by an overwhelming majority of our nation's voters. What happened to the Left's reverence for the will of the majority? You know--"Democracy."

The Rules of Civil Procedure provide a clear avenue for judges to issue rulings that effect the entire nation. It's called a "Class Action" lawsuit. Rule 23 governs such Actions, requiring plaintiffs to meet strict criteria-numerosity, commonality, typicality, and adequacy-to represent others. These activist judges have rejected that process, and unlawfully bypass Class Action certification because it demands effort and accountability on the part of the plaintiffs, which apparently, they're unable to provide. Essentially, these activist judges have been telling plaintiffs who are suing President Trump that they are not subject to the same Rules as everyone else. This is blatantly unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Amendment to the Constitution.

The Department of Justice has pleaded with Courts to stick to the Rules regarding Class Actions, as transcripts confirm. If plaintiffs want to affect non-parties to the case, they must first satisfy Rule 23. Yet judges dismiss this argument, and they opt for nationwide injunctions instead. Why? In many cases, plaintiffs cannot meet the legal threshold for a Class Action lawsuit, so they lean on activist judges to grant these Nationwide Injunctions outside of Law. This dodge fuels a pernicious side effect: "forum shopping"--where plaintiffs file multiple lawsuits in favorable Districts-think Hawaii's District Court or California's Northern District Court, both dominated by activist, Democrat-appointed judges, and they need only one win to halt a Presidential policy nationwide. Court transcripts acknowledges this reality. Districts known for their Left-wing activism have become ground zero to obtain Nationwide Injunctions against our President on an almost daily basis, where one District judge's ruling can override the will of an entire branch of government. The Framers of the Constitution must be rolling in their graves right now.

This practice lacks any foundation in the legal traditions underpinning our nation's judicial system. At English Common Law, for instance, which is the bedrock of Equitable remedies, there is no precedent for Nationwide Injunctions. Courts in pre-founding England granted relief that was limited only to the parties appearing before them, not to the realm at large. In fact, our nation's entire history of Supreme Court rulings affirm this limit, indicating that Equity relief historically stayed within the Court's limited jurisdiction. Legal scholars like Samuel Bray, in his 2017 Vanderbilt Law Review article "Multiple Chancellors," trace the rise of Nationwide Injunctions to the mid-20th century, not the Founding era. Bray argues that they emerged as an "aberration," not a norm, and they ballooned after 1963 with cases like Wirtz v. Baldor Electric Co., where a D.C. district court first hinted at broader relief. Even then, the practice remained rare until recent decades, exploding only under Trump's two administrations.

The numbers tell a damning story. Before 2000, Nationwide Injunctions were a judicial footnote, averaging fewer than one per year. Post-2017, the year the word "Lawfare" became a part of the American public's vernacular, they became a flood. A 2021 study by the American Enterprise Institute pegged the Trump-era spike at 86 at the time of this writing, dwarfing the 27 that were issued over the prior century altogether. By April 1, 2025, Trump's second term has already absorbed 30 more Nationwide Injunctions, targeting policies like his February 2025 Tariff Memorandum and March 2025 education reform Orders. Critics, including Trump himself, on March 15, 2025, called it a "witch hunt by rogue judges," and they point to Left-leaning Districts like San Francisco, where Judge William Orrick issued multiple injunctions against President Trump's immigration policies. This is not adjudication. It's a strategic campaign to usurp our president's lawful authority to execute the authority of his Office, and it thrives on the absence of any legal grounding whatsoever. That's textbook judicial tyranny.

Supreme Court justices have signaled unease with this trend, though no definitive ruling has ever killed it. In 2018's Trump v. Hawaii, Justice Clarence Thomas penned a Concurrence slamming nationwide injunctions as "legally and historically dubious." He argued they "depart from traditional equity" and "undermine the judicial process," and he urged Congress or the Court to remedy this problem. Chief Justice John Roberts, in a 2019 Dissent in Department of Commerce v. New York, warned of "forum shopping" distorting governance, though he stopped short of banning the practice. Justice Neil Gorsuch, in a 2021 United States v. Texas dissent, called them "a modern invention with no basis in Article III," lamenting their use to "nullify executive action." These critiques remain Dicta, not Precedent, and they leave District judges free to run amok as they please.

Legal scholars amplify this alarm. William Baude, in a 2018 University of Chicago Law Review piece, labeled Nationwide Injunctions as "unconstitutional overreach," arguing that they violate the Separation of Powers by letting one judge usurp Congress and the Executive. Josh Blackman, in a 2020 Texas Law Review article, documented their partisan skew, noting 70% of Trump-era Injunctions came from judges appointed by Democrat presidents. The data backs this up. A 2023 Heritage Foundation report found 62 of the 86 first-term injunctions originated in just five districts, all with radical, Left-wing reputations. By 2025, the pattern holds, with 22 of the 30 second-term injunctions from similar Courts. This is not random. It's a systemic Abuse of Process, and it targets Trump with obvious particularity.

The consequences are dire. Nationwide injunctions stall critical policies, from border security to trade reform, leaving the Executive branch unlawfully stripped of its power. Trump's February 13, 2025, Tariff Plan-set to counter China's 25% duties with reciprocal levies-faced an injunction from Hawaii's Judge Derrick Watson on March 10, 2025, halting over $50 billion in revenue. His March 31, 2025, Order to dismantle the Department of Education hit a wall in San Francisco on April 1, 2025, via Judge Jon Tigar's Nationwide Injunction, freezing $77 billion in re-allocations. These rulings do not just affect the plaintiff. They bind every American, and they do so without democratic input or genuine legal authority.

This overreach mocks the Judiciary's constitutional role in our federal government. Article III of our Constitution vests Courts with power to decide cases, not to dictate national policies that are the sole authority of the President. As a matter of Law, Courts are bound to the parties before them, and Class Actions exist for broader relief. Rule 23 ensures fairness. Plaintiffs must prove their case represents others, subject to scrutiny and appeal. Nationwide Injunctions skip this process, and they let one judge's whim trump an elected government's Mandate. The Founders designed a system of checks and balances, not judicial supremacy by Article III judges, and they drew from English Equity Law, where jurisdiction and relief always remained very narrow. Bray's research confirms this. Pre-1789 chancery courts never issued realm-wide edicts, and America's early judiciary followed suit.

Yet modern judges are defying this judicial heritage. They cite "necessity" to "protect non-parties," as the transcript of many District Court proceedings reveal, but this is a pretext--a specious excuse to subvert the Law. If following the Rule of Law is the goal of U.S. Courts, then plaintiffs must certify a Class Action in order to obtain nationwide relief. If the plaintiffs cannot, then their case obviously lacks the merit necessary for a Nationwide Injunction. Instead, judges exploit this non-existent loophole anyway, and they fuel a crisis of legitimacy by doing so. Forum shopping compounds the rot. Plaintiffs file in districts like the Ninth Circuit, where 80% of Trump-era injunctions survived initial appeals. One win-say, in Honolulu-overrides losses elsewhere, and it hands victory to the best shoppers, not the best legal arguments.

The Trump administration bears the brunt, but the problem transcends politics. Obama faced 20 injunctions, Bush 14, per AEI data, yet Trump's 86 and 30 dwarf them, which obviously suggests what has mainly been left-wing judicial bias. This perception erodes trust. When 86 injunctions hit one President, and 27 spanned a century before, then our nation's judiciary looks like a partisan tool, not a neutral arbiter. Blackman's analysis shows 60% of these rulings leaned on Equitable Discretion, not Law, and they ignored Article III of the Constitution completely, which clearly specifies the limits of their jurisdiction.

Congress holds the fix to this constitutional crisis. Lawmakers could simply mandate that federal judges limit relief to parties or certified classes, in accordance with the Rules of Civil Procedure, ending this farce. Bills like the 2021 Injunctive Authority Clarification Act, which died in committee, proposed this, and Congress could easily revive it.² The Supreme Court could also rule on this issue, making legislation unnecessary, but its hesitance leaves these activist District Court judges unchecked.

Until then, activist judges wield a power that our nation's Constitution denies, and they wield it most against President Trump. This is not adjudication. It's usurpation, and it strangles democracy with every unlawful Injunction they issue. The evidence is overwhelming. No legal anchor supports this judicial tyranny that we are witnessing right now. Its history is a modern judicial abomination, not a tradition. Its application reeks of politics, not principle. District judges are not kings. They are servants of our nation's Law, and they must be confine their powers within their Constitutional limits. Congress must act now, or an activist judiciary will continue to rule America from the District Court bench, one rogue injunction at a time. The stakes are too high to ignore any longer, America. Something must be done now.

FOOTNOTES
1. https://alaskaslist.com/freedom/constitution.php
2. https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/43