A single judge, located anywhere in the U.S., has the power under current laws and practices to prevent the implementation of a federal regulation, law or other policy nationwide.

That’s called a nationwide injunction, and it binds us all — even those of us (i.e., the vast majority of Americans) who are not parties to the litigation in question.

That is too much power for a single judge to have.

Thanks to single-judge divisions, like those in Texas, or districts whose judges were all appointed by presidents of the same party, like in Western Washington and New Jersey, litigants hoping to stop government policies can file lawsuits in places where they’re all but guaranteed landing before a sympathetic judge.

And as of today, that judge is imbued with the power to stop the law or policy in question in all 50 states.

We’re not here to say who does it more often or more cynically or more successfully. (Both liberal and conservative groups do it, and liberal and conservative state AGs do it.) We’re here to find solutions to the obvious problem of having a single judge dictate policy for all 330 million of us.

We plan to track the nationwide injunctions of 2025 on this page.

Further reading:
— CRS report on nationwide injunctions (12/2/21): link
— SG Prelogar filing in Garland v. Texas Top Cop Shop, et al., which includes a discussion on nationwide injunctions starting on p. 36 (12/31/24): link