Republican lawmakers are setting their sights on the judiciary following court rulings that have halted Trump's agenda.

Summary:

Facing pressure from his right flank to take on judges who have ruled against President Donald Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Tuesday floated the possibility of Congress eliminating some federal courts.

It’s the latest attack from Republicans on the federal judiciary, as courts have blocked a series of actions taken by the Trump administration. In addition to funding threats, Trump and his conservative allies have called for the impeachment of certain federal judges who have ruled against him, most notably U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who attempted to halt Trump from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan migrants.

“We do have the authority over the federal courts, as you know. We can eliminate an entire district court. We have power of funding over the courts and all these other things,” Johnson told reporters on Tuesday. “But desperate times call for desperate measures, and Congress is going to act.”

Johnson, a former constitutional attorney, later clarified that he was making a point about Congress’ “broad authority” over the “creation, maintenance and the governance” of the courts. Article III of the Constitution established the Supreme Court but gave Congress the power to “ordain and establish” lower federal courts.

Congress has eliminated courts in the past. In 1913, for example, Congress abolished the Commerce Court and its judges were redistributed to the federal appeals court, according to Congress.gov. And in 1982, Congress passed legislation abolishing the Article III Court of Claims and U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals, and established the Article I Court of Federal Claims and the Article III U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

  • arotrios@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
    19·
    17 hours ago

    Some political context from The Dictator’s Toolkit:

    Independent judges are a nightmare for would-be dictators. They have the immense power to overturn the abusive actions of creeping authoritarian regimes by acquitting dissidents of bogus charges, holding regime officials accountable, or upholding free and fair elections.

    Because of judges’ essential checking power, authoritarian regimes across the globe regularly attack them. At times, they do this very overtly, like, for instance, arbitrarily sacking thousands and arresting hundreds of judges, as in the case of Turkey after the failed 2016 coup attempt. Yet, more often than not, creeping authoritarian regimes use measures disguised as legitimate or reasonable that intimidate and harass judges or otherwise obstruct their work.

    These disguised judicial attacks are particularly popular among “hybrid authoritarian” regimes. These are regimes that democracy and freedom indexes like V-Dem, the Economist, and Freedom House recognize have some elements of authoritarianism but are not fully authoritarian yet — largely because the elections that got them into or maintained in office were “competitive” enough that classifying them as authoritarian was inadequate. Thus, these hybrid authoritarian regimes, such as Hungary, Bolivia, Kenya, or India, benefit from the disguise of this “democratic” legitimacy.