A Senate official rejected on Sunday a measure in Republicans’ sweeping domestic policy bill that could limit lawsuits seeking to block President Trump’s executive actions.
The measure would target the preliminary injunctions and temporary restraining orders issued by federal judges on Mr. Trump’s directives. Those rulings have halted or delayed orders on a host of policies, including efforts to carry out mass firings of federal workers and to withhold funds from states that do not comply with demands on immigration enforcement.
The G.O.P. proposal would require parties suing over federal policies to post a bond covering the government’s potential costs and damages from an injunction if the judge’s order were found later to have been wrongly granted.
“Individual district judges — who don’t even have authority over any of the other 92 district courts — are single-handedly vetoing policies the American people elected President Trump to implement,” Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said in announcing the proposal in March.
Republicans are pushing their bill to carry out President Trump’s agenda through Congress using special rules that shield legislation from a filibuster, depriving Democrats of the ability to block it. But to qualify for that protection, the legislation must only include proposals that directly change federal spending and not add to long-term deficits.
The Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, makes such judgments. She ruled that the measure did not meet the requirements, according to Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader.
“Senate Republicans tried to write Donald Trump’s contempt for the courts into law — gutting judicial enforcement, defying the Constitution, and bulldozing the very rule of law that forms our democracy,” Mr. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said in a statement. “It was nothing short of an assault on the system of checks and balances that has anchored this nation since its founding.”
Senate Republicans sought to target the preliminary injunctions and temporary restraining orders that often block Trump administration policies. Republicans in the House passed a measure in their version of their party’s major policy bill to impose limits on federal judges’ power to hold people in contempt.
The actions came as federal judges have opened inquiries about whether to hold the Trump administration in contempt for violating their orders in cases related to its aggressive deportation efforts.
The decision on Sunday is part of a broader review Ms. MacDonough is conducting of the Republican-written legislation, which includes large tax cuts and cuts to social programs such as Medicaid and food stamps.
She ruled that Republicans could include in their bill a divisive measure that would block states from regulating artificial intelligence for a decade. Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, opposes that provision and has said he intends to introduce an amendment to try to kill the measure.
Ms. MacDonough also rejected a G.O.P. plan to push some of the costs of nutrition assistance, formerly known as SNAP, onto the states, a ruling that has sent Republicans back to the drawing board to find another strategy for covering tens of billions of dollars of the bill’s cost.
She was expected to work into the week evaluating the measure and instructing Republicans to strip out any provision she deems out of order, including whether they can use a budget trick that would make extending the 2017 tax cuts appear to be free.
If Republicans fail to remove the measures she deems out of order, Democrats could challenge the bill on the floor, forcing Republicans to muster 60 votes to advance it. That would effectively kill the legislation since Democrats are solidly opposed.
Catie Edmondson covers Congress for The Times.
Michael Gold covers Congress for The Times, with a focus on immigration policy and congressional oversight.
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