Simmering tensions between traditionalist Republican judges and MAGA judges are starting to boil over.
A federal court is picking an unusual fight with one of the federal judiciary’s governing bodies — one with implications for literally all aspects of US policy.
In March, the Judicial Conference of the United States, one of the federal courts’ internal governing bodies, announced a new policy intended to combat “judge-shopping.” Some federal courts effectively allow plaintiffs to choose their own judges, which has allowed many litigants with dubious or even ridiculous claims to obtain court orders blocking pretty much any federal policy that they find objectionable.
One court that allowed such judge-shopping, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, announced on Friday that it will defy the Judicial Conference and refuse to implement the new policy. This defiance, if allowed to stand, would render the Judicial Conference’s new policy virtually useless, as the Northern District of Texas is the locus of the nation’s worst problem with judge-shopping.
Among other things, the fact that many right-wing plaintiffs can select Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk to hear their lawsuits has turned this obscure Trump appointee to this Texas federal court into one of the most powerful public officials in the country.
Kacsmaryk is a former lawyer at a Christian right law firm with a long record of hostility toward LGBTQ rights, abortion, and even many forms of heterosexual sexuality. He is the judge who attempted to ban the abortion medication mifepristone. And, in his brief period on the bench, he’s handed down a long line of orders implementing right-wing policies on birth control, immigration, and LGBTQ discrimination. He even backed a ban on theater performances he finds objectionable.
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Among other things, the fact that many right-wing plaintiffs can select Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk to hear their lawsuits has turned this obscure Trump appointee to this Texas federal court into one of the most powerful public officials in the country.
It remains to be seen how the broader judiciary — and the Supreme Court in particular — will react to the Northern District of Texas’s insistence that anyone who wants to sabotage a Biden administration policy should be allowed to select Matthew Kacsmaryk as their judge.
And, no matter how the broader judiciary reacts in the short term, lawyers like Kacsmaryk could easily find themselves in charge of the entire court system if former President Donald Trump has the opportunity to appoint more of him to the federal bench.
As the Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey and Michael Scherer described Trump’s approach to the 2022 midterms, “he made it a near-singular mission to defeat GOP lawmakers who voted for his impeachment and who publicly disputed his claims of election fraud.”
And, in Snyder v. Phelps (2011), the Court sided with members of a notorious church who protested a fallen marine’s funeral with signs featuring anti-gay slurs and the message “Thank God for Dead Soldiers.”
Similarly, when the Court heard oral arguments last February to decide whether to permanently block these laws, Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Barrett all seemed to cling to the pre-Trump Republican position that the government should not regulate speech.
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