Legal experts are sounding the alarm about a provision that Republican Senators quietly put in the 2026 budget that President Donald Trump refers to as his "big, beautiful bill."
Raw Story reported earlier Friday that the law put in place by the House would have allowed the president to circumvent the courts. It blocked judges from being able to hold anyone in government in contempt of court if they refuse to comply with court orders.
While that was stripped out, another measure was put in that one lawyer called "arguably worse."
"The Senate bill aims to effectively end all civil rights lawsuits against the federal government except by entities rich enough to potentially pay million/billions in fees. I am not making this up," said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, lawyer and senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, in a Bluesky post.
"To be fair, the bill only bans *preliminary injunctions* against the federal government unless plaintiffs can potentially pay tens of millions or more in bonds," he added. "It would effectively mean that all unlawful policies would have to remain on the books for months as courts moved to summary judgment."
Columbia Law School Professor Jamal Greene called it a "frontal assault on the rule of law, buried in civil procedure."
"If this becomes law (and that's a big if given the Byrd Bath), I cannot wait for red States to explain under the next Democratic administration how this doesn't apply to them or allows bonds of $1," wrote law partner Sean Marotta on Bluesky.
See the provision right here.
