"Hidden inside their Big Ugly Bill is a provision intended to block the courts from using contempt to enforce its orders. It reads:
"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 … "
Translated: no federal court may enforce a contempt citation.The measure would make most existing injunctions in antitrust cases, police reform cases, school desegregation cases and others unenforceable.
Its only purpose is to weaken the power of the federal courts.
As Erwin Chemerinsky, UC Berkeley School of Law dean and distinguished professor of law, notes, this provision would eliminate any restraint on Trump.
"Without the contempt power, judicial orders are meaningless and can be ignored. There is no way to understand this except as a way to keep the Trump administration from being restrained when it violates the Constitution or otherwise breaks the law …
"This would be a stunning restriction on the power of the federal courts. The Supreme Court has long recognized that the contempt power is integral to the authority of the federal courts. Without the ability to enforce judicial orders, they are rendered mere advisory opinions which parties are free to disregard."
In other words, with this single measure, Trump will have crowned himself king.
If it is enacted, no Congress and no court could stop him. Even if a future Congress were to try, it could not do so without the power of the courts to enforce their hearings, investigations, subpoenas and laws."
Robert Reich
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