The Republican Congress must secure the border legislatively, stop lower-court judges from handcuffing presidents, and deliver on tax relief, says Kansas U.S. Rep. Derek Schmidt.
“I want to see us do some of the things we have to do to make border security permanent,” Schmidt said in an interview with The Lion’s Chris Stigall this week.
“I want to never be able to go back to where Joe Biden has taken us over the last four years. We now know what that is, because Trump has implemented it. We need to lock those things in so they cannot be undone. That’s No. 1.
“And No. 2, I would like to see the middle class tax cuts extended. I think allowing the largest tax increase in American history to occur on Jan. 1st of next year, which is what happens if we do not act, I think it would be a disaster for the economy, for consumer confidence, for small businesses, farmers, just ordinary working Americans all over Kansas who I represent. And so we must get that job done.”
Schmidt also says it’s essential to prohibit judges from tying the hands of presidents with nationwide injunctions that essentially give them more power than a commander in chief.
“People say sometimes the system we have now actually makes it in the strange circumstance where a single district court judge wields more power than the president of the United States on a routine basis. And I think that last phrase is the key: These are supposed to be extraordinary remedies, these nationwide junctions, used rarely, and they have become the norm. And that’s a problem.”
Now a freshman congressman from Kansas’ 2nd District, Schmidt has a unique perspective as the state’s former attorney general: He used to actually seek those injunctions to stop illegal actions of the Obama and Biden presidencies.
But he did so as the top law officer of the state – not as a private citizen or as a representative of a private organization.
‘Every aggrieved person’ judge shopping
“I think as a matter of public policy, these injunctions should not be widely used,” he told Stigall. “There’s an exceptional time when it might be necessary. And in fact, the bill that we passed out of the House actually creates a special role for state attorneys general, who can continue to bring suits on behalf of the public, on behalf of their states and seek nationwide relief.
“But that’s the exception, and there are special checks and balances because of elections and the political process that holds attorneys general accountable the way private litigants can’t be.
“But we shouldn’t have every special interest group and every aggrieved person able to shop for district court judges in any courtroom in the country until they find one who is willing to shut down an entire policy of the president of the United States or any other federal actor nationwide.
“There are procedures for that. We call them class actions. Go through all those procedures, but just shopping for the right judge, it’s the wrong outcome.”
Schmidt notes that the House was actually working on legislation to block rogue judges before the most egregious cases even surfaced.
“We had actually started working on legislation on that before some of the more high-profile cases that have rolled out here in the last four, six, eight, weeks. … So, our action wasn’t motivated by a single decision. It was motivated by systemic issues.”
As for the several judges who’ve been arrested for harboring or helping illegal aliens escape from federal immigration authorities, Schmidt says evading the law can’t be allowed to happen.
“We talk about that all the time in different contexts – a little unusual to be talking about in the context of a judge, but if the shoe fits, right?” he says.
“At the end of the day, the facts of those individual cases will be sorted out in the judicial system. We know the facts as they’ve been publicly reported, but it is the process, the judicial process, that will determine what actually happened as a matter of law, and I support that process working its way out. But if things are as they are alleged, then justice needs to be done.”
Impeach the judges?
Should rogue judges be impeached? Schmidt doesn’t quite go there, but says the left’s hypocrisy has been treated to a good dose of sunlight.
“Our friends on the left, the same people who today are out there expressing shock and outrage at sharp criticisms of district court judges, are the same people that just a few years ago stood up in front of the Supreme Court of the United States and said, as Schumer said at that point, that ‘Roberts, you’re going to reap the whirlwind’ – and then threatened Supreme Court justices, ultimately inspiring some of these lone wolves to go out and do things in front of justices’ homes that should never have been done. And then they wanted to pack the court to change it.
“So,there’s no sort of intellectual purity here in the [Democrats’] argument. It is the politics of the moment, and they’ve sort of seized on it. And I suppose that’s unfortunately to be expected.
“But look, I think we need to look at whether there are things that are systemic – not things that are unique to one individual judge, or unique to the moment or unique to who’s president, but that are systemic in our judicial system – that ought to be debated and perhaps changed.
“Give us a better system that results in better outcomes, and most importantly, [which] the American people have a greater degree of confidence produces what most see as justice.
“And that ought to be our objective. And that’s why, as we talked about a few moments ago, we had started working on this reform with respect to nationwide injunctions before the current cases got going. We think that is a systemic improvement that will give us a better, stronger, more independent and more just judiciary. And that’s the right outcome.”
Trump revolution rides on tax bill?
Some conservatives are saying the Trump revolution depends almost entirely on his so-called big beautiful tax bill, which among other things would extend the cuts from the president’s first term and end the tax on tips, overtime and Social Security.
Will it pass – especially as dysfunctional as the Republican caucus has been in years past?
Though new to his seat and the enigmatic vagaries of Capitol Hill, Schmidt is hopeful this time is different – even with precariously small majorities in each chamber.
“I think that’s right,” he told Stigall. “I mean, obviously I’m new to Congress, so my seat, my vantage point’s a little different now. So, I recognize that there are multiple variables in play, as they might say, but it does seem to me different. It feels good right now.
“You have Republicans working together, House, Senate, White House, with a shared objective of ‘get this bill done,’ and we know generally what must be in it, and there is general agreement on that.
“Now, the devil’s in the details, and that’s what we have to work out now. That’s why everybody is back from this Easter recess, we are here and working on Monday, and we will ‘head-down, let’s go, let’s get this thing done.’
“Look, everybody knows the truth. We have a very thin margin in both the House and the Senate, actually thinner proportionately in the House than it is in the Senate. That’s tough, but it also means everybody understands we must all hang together if we are going to deliver anything.
“And I think all of us believe we must deliver what the president ran on and what the people voted for. So I’m very optimistic about our prospects of getting this done. We’ll have some bumps along the way, because it’s a big diverse country. It’s a big diverse party. We don’t all agree on everything. We’re going to get this done for the people.”
Taxes on tips, overtime, Social Security
Will we really see no taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security?
“I’m very optimistic,” Schmidt says. “The numbers are tough. Make no mistake about it, the numbers are difficult. Basically, you know, we’ve decided now in this budget resolution how big the bucket is, and our job now is to put water in it until it overflows.
“We have more water than we have bucket, and so that’s going to be tough. But look, the president ran on those things. They are a priority for him, and I think that has a lot of sway with these majorities in Congress. So I’m optimistic something happens on that.”
Trump’s first 100 days has changed everything, Schmidt contends.
“You look at the changes that this president has brought in 100 short days: everything from ferreting out waste and abuse – the DOGE effort – but also more than that, the leadership he’s put in place in the agencies, and assigned them to burrow down, ask hard questions and question everything – ask why are we doing this? Why are we spending Americans’ taxpayer money on that? Isn’t there a better way to do this other thing?
“And that is happening. It’s underway. It’s long overdue. And folks sense it as you’re out and about in the countryside, in the communities, they know that somebody’s actually got their backs on this stuff for a change.
Big beautiful border bill
“If you look at the border, probably the single biggest accomplishment so far in the Trump presidency. I mean, you and I talked before in years past about what a disaster the southern border was under the Biden administration. The border today is secure. It’s that simple.
“Now, it won’t stay that way if we don’t go in and fix some of the underlying fundamentals. But the fact that the president was able to fix the border – illegal crossings are very close to zero right now, compared with hundreds of thousands over short periods under the Biden administration.
“The fact he could fix that just goes to show that, as the president said in his State of the Union address, that all these people said we needed a new law; it turns out all we needed was a new president – presidents enforcing the law.
“We now have to come in behind and shore some of that up. And I always say, make it like a ratchet, so that the next time we have a president, hopefully many years down the road, who has a different philosophy, the law precludes them from doing what Joe Biden did to our country and surrendering access on the southern border.”
