Kennedy urges SCOTUS to end shady practice used by judges as a ‘weapon against Trump’

Sen. John Kennedy (R–La.) has urged the Supreme Court to end a legal practice that gives district court judges widespread power.

When district judges side with a plaintiff’s challenge against federal policy, the ruling would traditionally have been confined to that one plaintiff’s case.

Since the 1960s, however, judges have “invented the new tool” of universal injunctions in conjunction with the government to inflict their “will” against “anyone, anywhere” across the country, according to Kennedy.

SCOTUS is set to hear arguments over universal injunctions on May 15th.

The practice has been increasingly adopted by district judges, and is unsurprisingly being abused under the Trump administration, according to Kennedy.

“At first, these universal injunctions were uncommon. Courts issued only 27 universal injunctions up until the 21st century. But in recent decades, they have become a fact of life,” Kennedy wrote in an op-ed for Fox News. “President Joe Biden faced 14 universal injunctions in his four-year term, and President Donald Trump has surpassed that number in less than four months.”

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Kennedy maintained that the universal injunctions are nowhere to be found in the U.S. Constitution and weren’t even recognized in England, which was the basis for much of America’s jurisprudence.

“To make matters worse, judges often issue these universal injunctions after preliminary hearings with limited debate by the parties,” Kennedy continued. “There’s no jury. There’s no trial. There’s no real testing of the evidence at all. It also means courts have little time to consider gnarly legal issues. That’s why judges are able to shut down federal policies nationwide within days or even hours.”

Sen. Kennedy has been sounding the alarm over universal injunctions on Capitol Hill, and it is being used as a “weapon against Trump.” Of course, this practice can be used against any president and should be stopped, according to Kennedy and his supporters.

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