Nationwide injunctions against the executive, per year in office
How often federal district courts blocked an administration's policies nationwide, a measurable proxy for court–executive conflict, not a count of constitutional violations. The Supreme Court sharply curtailed the tool in June 2025 (Trump v. CASA), limiting such orders to the parties who actually sued and freezing the last bar mid-game.
Raw counts, by source
Administration
DOJ (Feb 2020)
Harvard L. Rev. (2024)
CRS (2025)
Bush (8 yrs)
12
6
n/a
Obama (8 yrs)
19
12
n/a
Trump I (4 yrs)
55†
64
86
Biden (4 yrs)
n/a
14 (first 3 yrs)
28
Trump II (Jan 20–Jun 27 2025, pre-CASA)
n/a
n/a
34
Trump II (year one post-CASA)
n/a
n/a
16
The critical reading
Courts, including many Republican appointees, found executive actions unlawful at rates without modern precedent, alongside historically low win rates in ordinary administrative-law cases. On this view, the bars track real executive overreach.
The defense reading
Most injunctions came from judges appointed by the opposing party, in districts chosen by challengers. On this view, the bars partly track judge-shopping and the partisan escalation of a novel judicial weapon that barely existed before 2001.