How do the number and types of federal lawsuits against the Obama administration compare to other administrations (e.g., Bush, Trump)?
Executive summary
The Obama administration faced a significant but not unprecedented volume of federal litigation, including dozens of nationwide injunctions and a rising wave of multistate suits that began during his term; by contrast, the Trump administrations generated a markedly larger and faster-moving caseload of litigation—particularly multistate and executive-order challenges—while the George W. Bush years saw fewer nationwide injunctions and lower multicounty AG coordination (comparisons based on tracked injunctions, multistate filings, and contemporary trackers) [1] [2] [3].
1. Nationwide injunctions: a visible metric with varying counts
Counts of nationwide injunctions—courts blocking a policy across the country—showed a rise from Bush to Obama and a sharp spike during Trump according to congressional research and law-review tallies: DOJ counts through early 2020 found about 12 nationwide injunctions during George W. Bush, roughly 19 during Barack Obama, and many more against the first Trump administration (reported as 55 in one DOJ tally and higher in other tallies); later scholarship recalibrated those numbers but confirms the pattern of far more injunctions in the Trump era than in prior presidencies [1].
2. Multistate lawsuits: states as litigants and escalation under Trump and Biden
State attorneys general organized multistate coalitions in greater numbers beginning in Obama’s second term and accelerating sharply under Trump and Biden; analyses report that the number of multistate lawsuits filed against Trump outpaced those filed against Obama and George W. Bush combined, and that the trend of coordinated state litigation became a defining feature of modern presidential litigation strategy [2] [4] [3] [5].
3. Types of cases: executive power, immigration, regulation, and press conflicts
The subject matter of suits varied by administration: Obama-era litigation often focused on regulatory rulemaking and immigration policies like DACA, while the Trump administrations attracted a large share of suits challenging executive orders, immigration directives, and agency rollbacks; contemporary trackers for Trump’s later terms document high volumes challenging executive orders and agency actions, and press–administration clashes have surfaced in First Amendment litigation as well [3] [6] [7].
4. Outcomes and institutional trends: mixed results and evolving judicial responses
Outcome datasets show mixed records for administrations: specialized trackers of agency rule litigation documented wins and losses for the Trump administration across regulatory challenges between 2017 and 2021, while litigation early in later Trump terms produced a flurry of injunctions and varied appellate outcomes; these compilations suggest that a higher volume of cases does not map directly to uniform judicial defeat or victory but does increase the number of high-profile stays and appellate skirmishes [8] [9].
5. Why litigation rose: tactics, politics, and judicial posture
Several factors underlie the rising litigation trend: increased use of executive action and agency rulemaking when Congress is gridlocked created more targets for lawsuits; the growing willingness of state attorneys general to file coordinated multistate suits—often along partisan lines—magnified filings; and a federal judiciary more willing to entertain broad injunctions or to review novel legal claims has amplified visibility and counts of litigation, a pattern documented across reporting and state-AG databases [2] [10] [3].
6. Competing narratives and hidden agendas in the reporting
Reporting often frames high lawsuit counts as a proxy for illegality or exotic presidential overreach, but sources reveal competing agendas: administrations portray suits as politically motivated interference, state AG coalitions present themselves as defenders of state sovereignty, and trackers or think tanks with policy missions highlight particular case types and outcomes to support reform arguments—readers should note that different datasets use different counting rules (e.g., what qualifies as a “nationwide injunction” or a “multistate suit”), so raw comparisons reflect both legal activity and methodological choices by reporters and scholars [1] [10] [8].
Conclusion: apples, oranges, and a clear trajectory
Comparative evidence shows a clear trajectory: litigation against federal governments increased from Bush to Obama and then surged under Trump, with the nature of suits shifting toward multistate coalitions and executive-order challenges; the data indicate not a single cause but a convergence of partisan litigation strategies, aggressive executive action, and evolving judicial remedies that together produced larger and more varied case loads in recent presidencies [1] [2] [4].