The provision would bar courts from enforcing contempt citations for violations of injunctions or temporary restraining orders unless a bond has been paid.

A provision “hidden” in the sweeping budget bill that passed the U.S. House on Thursday seeks to limit the ability of courts—including the U.S. Supreme Court—from enforcing their orders.

“No court of the United States may use appropriated funds to enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order if no security was given when the injunction or order was issued,” the provision in the bill, which is more than 1,000 pages long, says.

The provision “would make most existing injunctions—in antitrust cases, police reform cases, school desegregation cases, and others—unenforceable,” Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the University of California Berkeley School of Law, told Newsweek. “It serves no purpose but to weaken the power of the federal courts.”

  • Archangel@lemm.ee
    1311·
    21 hours ago

    You can’t legislate Constitutional overrides. Legislation either conforms to the Constitution, or it is declared invalid and gets sent back to Congress for reworking. It doesn’t matter if it passes both Houses and gets signed by the President. If the Judiciary rules that it violates the Constitution, it gets thrown out. That’s how this works.

    • Don_alForno@feddit.org
      4·
      5 hours ago

      A King, a priest, a rich man and a sellsword are in a room. Those three man tell the sellsword to kill the other two. Who lives and who dies?

    • Dragomus@lemmy.world
      38·
      18 hours ago

      Yeah well the thing is:
      If no one enforces the judiciary’s edicts, but they all say aye to whatever trump’s new decree of the day is then Judicial is just standing there foot in mouth …

    • krashmo@lemmy.world
      62·
      21 hours ago

      You might think so but there are many recent examples of things playing out counter to a plain reading of law so I’m not quite as confident.

    • JeremyHuntQW12@lemmy.world
      3·
      14 hours ago

      Thats the whole point.

      Its sent to the courts and SCOTUS will overrule prior decisions like segregation and Jim Crow law.

    • throwawayacc0430@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      161·
      20 hours ago

      Technically, the consitution never explicitly gave the Supreme Court the power to overturn laws, its just a precedent set by Marbury vs Madison, and congress and the president at the time just went along with it. I could totally see the military use this logic and go “Hmm… seems legit” and proceed to ignore court orders.

      • Don_alForno@feddit.org
        3·
        5 hours ago

        Erm … So you actually don’t have a body whose job it is to make sure the government adheres to the constitution? It’s just a happy little accident?

        What the actual fuck …

        • Soggy@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          3 hours ago

          Well you see, we make them swear on a Bible and they wouldn’t defy God of course.

    • Nougat@fedia.io
      4·
      20 hours ago

      Someone with standing has to file a case in court, then get a ruling in their favor.

      Until then, this would stand.

    • Lexi Sneptaur@pawb.socialEnglish
      32·
      20 hours ago

      Makes you think about the headline. “Could disarm US Supreme Court” is at that point hyperbolic and misleading.