I have an update on judge shopping. Three weeks ago the Judicial Conference of the United States cracked down on the practice, but then they caved:
Following blowback from Senate Republicans and some conservative judges, judicial policymakers later clarified that the policy was discretionary, leaving it to each district court to decide how to implement it.
Discretionary. Hmmm. The Northern District of Texas is the most infamous destination for judge shoppers, so what are they going to do?
A federal court in Texas that has become a favored destination for conservatives suing to block President Joe Biden's agenda has decided not to follow a policy adopted by the judiciary's top policymaking body that aims to curtail the practice of "judge shopping."
Chief U.S. District Judge David Godbey of the Northern District of Texas announced the decision in a Friday letter.... In his letter, Godbey, an appointee of Republican former President George W. Bush, said the judges in his district met on Wednesday. "The consensus was not to make any change to our case assignment process at this time," he said.
So there you have it. In less than three weeks, Republicans were able to effectively destroy a years-long effort to solve a widely recognized problem. It's sort of remarkable. Even among conservatives there's no real justification for judge shopping and they don't even bother to offer one. They just want the outcome they want and that's that.
there aren't that many judges down there; flood the zone to keep them busy with bullshit lawsuits
sort of a legal DDoS attack
This holds promise.
I love this idea
I'm sure Texan federal judges are not afraid to throw people in jail for filing frivolous lawsuits. Part of the fun in being a lawless tribal region is making your enemies feel the full extent of the law, after all.
well then give them ridiculous bubba bait that they can't resist handling but would be chucked in a nanosecond by appeals or scotus
as j. harbin notes below, it seems like roberts is getting pissed at having to clog the calendar with stuff like the mifepristone case and trump's endless whinging; load them up with that sort of nonsense for long enough and the courts would probably force some restrictions
Take that, John Roberts. You thought you could rein in Republican crazy. Think again. You'll be hearing b.s. cases till the end of your days.
Or your retirement. Sooner would be better than later.
Exactly, this was a way to reduce the workload and not to have more intervention than necessary, I’m surprised Roberts is not pushing back.
And there's no cable news freakout about activist judges, no fretting in the pages of prestige journalism over whether anyone has gone too far or needs to compromise, no Facebook posts from local party chapters howling about this, hell, most people don't even know this is a problem that exists and political pundits are happy with that.
But next time AOC appears on TV for... anything... well, that'll just be too much. Why won't Dems be reasonable and compromise!
Hell, it doesn't even have to be AOC. Some random city councilperson or Democratic voter can say something random caught on tape, and it's immediately treated as if the president himself said it. For example, I never heard a single person in Congress or the White House say "Defund the Police" but somehow that became how the Democratic position was framed for the 2022 elections.
Ah, yes American Exceptionalism, Justice, rule of law, fairness (we even have a doctrine), efficiency of politics. We've again proven that it is much easier to lazily tear down edifices to restraint and equity than it is to erect them. You know, because profit.
And Amy Garrett's decision- based on her contention that a young woman would have an unfair advantage, being more likely to believed than a male student, was just reaffirmed when an an appeal was dismissed.
https://www.newsweek.com/supreme-court-refuses-take-amy-coney-barrett-case-1885574
Ugh. That decision was gross.
The whole judge-shopping thing really needs to be addressed by legislation. However, that will have to wait until there is a Congress that is not paralyzed.
Trump has taken over the house, paralyzed the senate, and corrupted a good share of the judiciary (including a good share of the Supreme Court). We can’t give him another chance to finish the job. He would like nothing better than to be sworn in by chief justice Alito as president for life.
I hope that "a Congress that is not paralyzed" will come along about January.
Amazing to see what can happen when an entire country is committed to not solving any actual problems. America!
Without bad faith….
Republicans would have no arguments….
Exactly. *sigh*
judge shopping + gerrymandering should both be stuck in the GTFO category .. Simple way to improve the Democracy and get us back on track
John Roberts is in charge so I believe the credit for this fiasco goes to him.