Few legal anomalies distort the federal judiciary’s role more than the power of a single district court judge—often chosen by the sheer contingency of venue—to impose a nationwide injunction. On this point, the Trump Administration is not wrong: the idea that one trial-level judge, often in an ideologically favorable jurisdiction, can halt the enforcement of federal policy across the entire republic raises serious questions about the limits of judicial authority and the proper role of trial courts within a hierarchical system.
But while the problem is real, the Trump Administration’s proposed solution is even more troubling. Its position—advanced by Solicitor General Joshua Sour in Trump v. Cassa Inc.—is that nationwide (or “universal”) injunctions should never be permitted, even in cases involving manifest constitutional violations. Under this theory, a court may only issue relief to the plaintiff before it, regardless of whether the challenged policy is categorically unlawful. But then, those seeking to challenge a law on a nationwide basis would be forced to seek identical injunctions from all 94 federal district courts. And what would happen then—a patchwork of injunctions here but not there, with the same law simultaneously enforceable and unenforceable depending on geography?
This position amounts to a procedural straitjacket that renders constitutional rights practically unenforceable on a national scale—which is exactly how constitutional rights have to be enforced. As Justice Kagan pointedly observed during oral argument, if the Executive Branch institutes an illegal policy—say, by stripping constitutional rights from citizens—the Administration’s theory would allow it to continue enforcing that policy against everyone except the named plaintiffs in individual lawsuits. It is, as Justice Jackson put it, a system that turns constitutional enforcement into a game of “catch me if you can.”
To be sure, the Administration invokes Article III and “traditional equitable principles” to support its stance. It argues that federal courts are constitutionally empowered only to redress the injuries of the parties before them, and that universal injunctions improperly grant relief to nonparties without the formal safeguards of class certification. But this is a category error. The injunction is directed at the defendant—in this case, the federal government—not at third parties. A court does not “grant relief” to nonparties by ordering the government to stop unlawful conduct; it merely prohibits the government from continuing a violation of law, an act well within the bounds of equitable jurisdiction.
The Administration also contends that relief affecting nonparties can be legitimate only if achieved through a class action. But this too fails under scrutiny. A class action, once certified, also results in a single judge issuing nationwide relief—just under a different procedural label. And in practice, as the Court explored at length, class certification often introduces delay, complexity, and barriers to emergency relief. To insist on Rule 23 as the sole legitimate vehicle for broad injunctive relief is to elevate procedural orthodoxy over substantive justice. Indeed, the Administration’s suggestion that multiple conflicting judgments across dozens of districts is preferable to a single, coherent injunction is not a solution—it’s a blueprint for chaos.
A more balanced, principled alternative would be to vest original injunctive jurisdiction in cases of national scope within the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The D.C. Circuit, widely recognized as the second most powerful court in the country due to its oversight of federal agencies, possesses both the judicial gravitas and institutional structure to adjudicate these matters with the seriousness they require. With eleven authorized judges, the D.C. Circuit offers a deliberative panel or en banc mechanism that far exceeds the unilateral discretion of a single district court judge. And its rulings are directly appealable to the Supreme Court, preserving judicial hierarchy and ensuring expeditious review of questions of national import.
This approach strikes a balance between the dangers of judicial overreach and the perils of executive lawlessness. It maintains fidelity to Article III while preserving the judiciary’s essential role as a check on unlawful government action. More importantly, it restores coherence and legitimacy to the issuance of injunctive relief—neither reducing it to a judicial veto wielded by a lone district judge, nor rendering it impotent in the face of systemic constitutional violations.
In a rational system, such a reform would be obvious. But as the record shows, rational solutions rarely emerge from the procedural trenches of federal litigation, much less from the institutional self-interest of either political branch.
