Sen. Cruz: “We’re Witnessing the Rise of Judicial Lawfare”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights, delivered opening remarks at a Senate Judiciary hearing examining how procedural tools can enable judicial overreach that threaten the separation of powers and hinder lawful executive enforcement.

Click here or the image above to watch Sen. Cruz’s opening remarks. 

Please see below excerpts and highlights from Sen. Cruz’s opening remarks:

“This hearing is a joint undertaking by the Subcommittee on the Constitution and the Subcommittee on Federal Courts because our country is facing a constitutional crisis, a full-blown judicial assault on the separation of powers that strikes at the very foundation of the Republic.

“What we're witnessing is the rise of judicial lawfare from the bench. One unelected district judge sitting in a courtroom in San Francisco, Boston, or Baltimore can now issue a nationwide injunction that ties the hands of the President of the United States for all 330 million Americans. That's not law, that's judicial tyranny.

“Since President Trump returned to office in January, there have been over forty universal injunctions issued against the federal government. Let's put this into context. In the first 150 years of the Republic, zero nationwide injunctions were issued. That's for 150 years. 

“In the entirety of the 20th century, twenty-seven nationwide injunctions were issued. That's over 100 years. Under Presidents Bush, Obama and Biden combined, thirty-two nationwide injunctions. 

“Under President Trump's first term – four years – sixty-four nationwide injunctions, and now in just four months, we're already over forty. In four months, the Trump administration has seen more nationwide injunctions than the entirety of the 20th century, and more nationwide injunctions than Presidents George W Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden combined. 

“This is not normal. This is not justice. This is an orchestrated campaign of judicial obstruction.

“Joe Biden, when he was president, nominated radicals to the bench. The Biden judicial nominees were far more extreme and radical than they were under Obama. They sought out radicals who would implement policy-making from the bench, and they are precisely doing that. 

“That is not democracy, and that is not our Constitution. This hearing is to highlight the effects of this judicial tyranny of single judges deciding they know better when it comes to policy than do the voters of America. We need to defend democracy.”