Schumer warns Congress could intervene if Texas judge shopping isn’t reformed

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Congress may intervene if a federal district court in Texas does not implement reforms to prevent judge shopping.

In a Thursday letter to David Godbey, chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Schumer took aim at how plaintiffs can leverage the district’s single-judge divisions to effectively choose the judge who will hear their case.

The Northern District of Texas has become a frequent home to challenges against Biden administration policies, which are often brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R). 

“Currently, a federal statute allows each district court to decide for itself how to assign cases,” Schumer wrote. “This gives courts the flexibility to address individual circumstances in their districts and among their judges. But if that flexibility continues to allow litigants to hand-pick their preferred judges and effectively guarantee their preferred outcomes, Congress will consider more prescriptive requirements.”

Plaintiffs who file a lawsuit in one of the district’s single-judge divisions — implemented to accommodate the district’s large geographic region — can practically guarantee their case will be heard by a specific judge. 

Forum shopping has long been a part of litigation strategy, and Texas isn’t the only state with single-judge divisions. But opponents argue that the way Texas has managed its single-judge divisions allows plaintiffs to strategize with striking precision. 

“Unsurprisingly, litigants have taken advantage of these orders to hand-pick individual district judges seen as particularly sympathetic to their claims,” Schumer wrote. “The State of Texas itself is the most egregious example. It has sued the Biden Administration at least 29 times in Texas federal district courts, but it has not filed even one of those cases in Austin, where the Texas Attorney General’s office is located.”

The Biden administration in three cases has accused conservative lawyers of judge shopping and filed motions to transfer the disputes to another courthouse.

But those efforts have largely fallen flat so far. U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk last month, for example, denied the Justice Department’s motion to transfer 26 Republican states’ lawsuit challenging a Labor Department rule on environmental, social and governance investing. 

In denying the government’s effort, Kacsmaryk said single-judge divisions were “long the norm” in the nation’s history and that the eight factors he was required to consider weighed against the administration.

Kacsmaryk, who is guaranteed to be assigned any civil cases filed in the federal courthouse in Amarillo, Texas, has regularly overseen politically charged cases during the Biden administration.

Over the past two years, Kacsmaryk has blocked federal approval of mifepristone, part of a two-drug regimen used in medication abortions, sided against the Biden administration to reinstate the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy, curtailed federal protections for LGBTQ workers, and ruled against a vaccine mandate.

“Texas has always sued in divisions where case-assignment procedures ensure that a particular preferred judge or one of a handful of preferred judges will hear the case,” Schumer wrote. “That includes the Northern District’s Amarillo Division, where Texas has filed seven of its cases against the federal government. Many other litigants have done the same, including the Alliance Defending Freedom in its case challenging the FDA’s approval of mifepristone.”