At a press conference Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson outlined strategies for combating federal judges, most of them appointed by Democrat presidents, who have overruled or enjoined many of President Donald Trump’s executive orders.
Johnson, R-La., indicated a hesitancy to impeach federal judges, but expressed openness to laws limiting judges’ authority, as well as requiring judges to testify before Congress.
Johnson’s hesitancy to support a number of impeachment of articles comes at a time when he’s busy negotiating with Senate Republicans over the budget reconciliation process.
Impeaching a federal judge would require a simple majority in the House of Representatives to pass, but then a two-thirds supermajority in the Senate in order to remove an impeached judge from office—a long-shot scenario given Republicans’ narrow majorities in both houses of Congress.
“We’re working with the Judiciary Committee, which is the appropriate area of jurisdiction for that,” said Johnson when asked whether he would advance the articles of impeachment.
He added, “I’ve talked to [House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio] this morning about it, and they’ll be having a hearing early next week, I believe, to highlight these abuses.”
Johnson also expressed his support for legislation that could limit judges’ future ability to enjoin a president’s orders.
“One of the bills that I really like that’s already been through committee was authored by Rep. Darrell Issa, and that would limit the scope of federal injunctions, the ability of one individual judge to abuse the system in this way,” he said.
“And it would be, in my view, a dramatic improvement on that,” he said of the bill by Issa, R-Calif.
As Johnson left the podium, The Daily Signal asked whether judges would testify before the committee. He replied, “We’ll see. We’ll see.”
