“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.
Obviously, courts need appropriated funds to do anything because Congress appropriates money to enable the courts to function. To require a security or bond to be given in civil proceedings seeking to stop alleged abuses by the federal government would effectively immunize such conduct from judicial review, because those seeking such court orders generally don’t have the resources to post a bond.
Hence, with a stroke, the provision removes the judiciary’s capacity to hold officials in contempt.
As U.C. Berkeley School of Law Dean and Distinguished Professor of Law Erwin Chemerinsky 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.”
With this single provision, in other words, Trump will have crowned himself king. No Congress and no court could stop him. Even if a future Congress were to try to stop him, it could not do so without the power of the courts to enforce their hearings, investigations, subpoenas, and laws.
What can you do? To begin with, call your members of Congress and tell them not to pass Trump’s One Big Ugly Bill.
While you’re at, demand that they preserve the federal courts’ power to enforce their rulings by holding an administration in contempt. (The Capitol Hill switchboard number is 202-224-3121.)
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