Proposed Act Centralizes Federal Law Challenges in D.C., Requires 70% Supermajority to Invalidate Acts of Congress

The Restoring Judicial Separation of Powers Act is not about your local traffic court; it’s a massive overhaul of how major federal laws and regulations get challenged in the U.S. court system. The bill’s main move is simple: it takes the most important, high-stakes legal battles against the federal government—the ones that affect everyone nationwide—and funnels them almost exclusively into the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. This includes creating a powerful new, specialized 13-judge panel within the D.C. Circuit and setting up a major hurdle for anyone trying to overturn a federal law.

The D.C. Circuit Gets the Keys to the Kingdom

Imagine you’re a small business owner in Texas, and a new federal regulation is about to crush your operation. You want to sue and stop the rule nationwide. Under current law, you’d file suit in your local district court. This bill changes that completely. Section 201 mandates that if you file a lawsuit anywhere in the country seeking a nationwide injunction—an order stopping a federal law or rule from being enforced everywhere—that case must be transferred to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. This means that if you’re challenging a federal rule, you are now required to litigate in Washington, D.C., a significant procedural shift that concentrates power and resources in one specific court, potentially creating a huge logistical barrier for local litigants.

The Super Panel and the 70% Rule

Section 104 is where this bill gets truly interesting, and potentially problematic, for anyone concerned about checks and balances. It creates a special 13-judge panel within the D.C. Circuit, made up of judges randomly selected from all 12 federal circuits, to hear cases where the U.S. government or a federal agency is a party, especially those involving constitutional interpretation. This panel serves for one year and handles the biggest questions about federal law. But here’s the kicker: if this panel decides to strike down an Act of Congress as unconstitutional, it needs a 70% supermajority of the judges to agree. That means 10 out of 13 judges must concur. This is an extremely high bar—a single judge can effectively veto a ruling of unconstitutionality. For everyday people, this means challenging federal legislation becomes dramatically harder, functionally shielding many laws from judicial review, even if they infringe on rights.

Transparency and the Shadow Docket

Not all changes are about centralizing power. Section 202 addresses concerns often raised about the “shadow docket”—the quick, emergency rulings issued by appellate courts without full explanation. This section requires that if the Supreme Court, the D.C. Circuit, or the new 13-judge panel reverses a lower court’s decision, they must issue a written explanation supporting the reversal, and that explanation must be posted publicly online. For anyone following high-profile cases, this is a clear win for transparency, ensuring that when major legal decisions are made quickly, the public and the parties involved at least get a clear, written rationale.

Who Feels the Change and When

Title I, which establishes the new 13-judge panel and redirects many appeals to the D.C. Circuit (Sections 101, 103, 104), won’t kick in immediately. Those changes take effect in October of the year after the Act is signed into law. However, the crucial changes regarding nationwide injunctions and the new transparency requirements for reversals (Title II) take effect immediately upon enactment. The upshot is that while the new judicial structure takes time to set up, the rules for challenging federal power—specifically, having to move your case to D.C.—start right away. This bill fundamentally shifts the geography and the procedural difficulty of challenging federal authority, making D.C. the undisputed epicenter of such litigation and making it much harder for the judiciary to invalidate legislation.