Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is looking at legislative options to ensure federal court cases are randomly assigned after a top U.S. district court judge in Texas rejected Mr. Schumer’s calls to change his court’s case assignment methods.
Mr. Schumer has urged courts to adopt a randomized case assignment process to curtail a practice commonly known as “judge shopping,” wherein litigants try to bring lawsuits before specific judges and courts they believe are more likely to rule in their favor.
Mr. Schumer’s press statement came in response to a decision by Chief Judge David Godbey, of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, to reject calls for his district to adopt a randomized process for assigning cases, in order to avoid judge shopping.
Schumer Fueds With Texas Federal Court
Mr. Schumer’s push for judicial reforms to end judge shopping has focused heavily on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. The New York Democrat has raised concern that this particular federal court district has become a favored venue for conservative and politically right-leaning litigants.Part of Mr. Schumer’s concern about the Northern District of Texas focuses on the number of local divisions within the court district that are overseen by a single judge.
In a May 2023 response, Judge Godbey acknowledged the lawmaker’s concerns about the public perception of judge shopping, but defended his district’s decision not to use an entirely randomized process for assigning judges, citing concerns about “the number and type of civil and criminal cases filed in a division,” “the convenience of the jurors, witnesses, parties, and attorneys,” “the desire of communities to have local judges,” and “the burden of travel on court personnel.”
Mr. Schumer further warned in July that, absent reforms, “Activist judges will continue to impose their will on the country and offer flawed and chaotic rulings on abortion access, LGBTQ+ protections, legal immigration, and climate legislation.”
McConnell Backs Texas Court District
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has backed the Northern District of Texas federal court in its dispute over case assignment policies.However, the top Republican senator argued that while Republicans have favored legislative efforts to curtail the practice of nationwide injunctions altogether, the policies favored by Democrats appear intent on curtailing such nationwide injunctions coming from courts likely to rule in favor of conservative litigants.
“Rather than working with Republicans to eliminate a practice that gores the oxen of both parties, it turns out our colleagues preferred to preserve it just for themselves,” Mr. McConnell said. “Now that nationwide injunctions are being used against the Biden Administration, liberal allies in the academy and the media have started to target ‘single judge divisions,’ where they think conservative plaintiffs are likely to get favorable rulings from sympathetic judges.”
Mr. McConnell said the Judicial Conference’s policy recommendations on randomizing case assignments “will have no practical effect in the venues favored by liberal activists” but has Democrats “salivating” at the possibility of “shutting down access to justice in the venues favored by conservatives.”
The Kentucky Republican said the Judicial Conference made an “unforced error” with its response to calls for reforms from Democrats.
“I hope they will reconsider,” Mr. McConnell said. “And I hope district courts throughout the country will instead weigh what is best for their jurisdictions, not half-baked ‘guidance’ that just does Washington Democrats’ bidding.”
Any legislative efforts Mr. Schumer takes to ensure federal court cases are randomly assigned could be met with opposition in the narrowly divided Congress. Democrats currently hold a majority in the U.S. Senate, while Republicans control the U.S. House of Representatives.
