Venue shopping in federal court lawsuits

Republican (Trump) Federal Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk: 

Being transgendered is a delusion, 'yall!

Christian nationalist response: A Major Win For Religious Freedom: 

Matthew Kacsmaryk Confirmed As U.S. District Judge in Texas

The New Republic writes about the well-known practice of venue or judge shopping for filing federal lawsuits. The practice is bipartisan, but the article focuses on the federal judicial district the Republicans favor to block what Democrats try to do. This is more evidence that claim the rule of law is blind is a myth. Some of the examples the article describe are clear reflections of fundamentalist Christian nationalism dogma influencing secular law. 

The law isn't always blind. It can be clearly political and religious partisan. TNR writes:

There are 94 federal judicial districts in America, but one has become the primary venue of choice for Republicans looking to challenge President Biden’s every move: the Northern District of Texas.

It’s no secret why the party turns to this particular district in search of a favorable ruling. All but two of its 18 judges were appointed by Republican presidents, and a Democratic president hasn’t appointed one in the district since 1999. Almost every major Biden administration initiative runs a similar gauntlet: A coalition of Republican state attorneys general files a legal challenge in the Northern District, a Republican-appointed judge grants a preliminary injunction blocking the policy from going into effect, the majority-Republican-appointed Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upholds the order, and the majority-Republican-appointed Supreme Court usually declines to intervene.

This practice is known as judge-shopping, and two Northern District judges in particular sit atop Republicans’ wish list: Judge Reed O’Connor, the George W. Bush appointee who gutted the Indian Child Welfare Act and tried to overturn the Affordable Care Act, and Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who blocked the Biden administration’s efforts to end the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” program for asylum applicants on the Southern border.

“Some district courts have carefully divided their caseloads to avoid the possibility of judge-shopping—ensuring that no judge hears more than 10–15 percent of the cases filed in any specific division,” Steve Vladeck, a University of Texas law professor, wrote in January. “But others haven’t. Of the seven divisions in the Western District of Texas, four have exactly one judge hearing every single case. And five of the seven divisions in the Northern District of Texas have one judge hearing all or most cases—including the Wichita Falls division, where O’Connor hears more than 85 percent of civil cases.”

Of the 20 lawsuits filed against the Biden administration by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, 13 were filed in district court divisions with only a single judge, all of whom were Trump appointees. Last September, for instance, Paxton filed a legal challenge to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s guidance for gender identity and workplace discrimination in the Amarillo Division of the Northern District. By filing there, he effectively ensured that it would be heard by Kacsmaryk, who staunchly opposed anti-discrimination protections for gay and transgender Americans in his pre-judicial career. Kacsmaryk came under intense criticism during his confirmation process for previously describing homosexuality as “disordered” and signed a letter in 2016 that described being transgender as “a delusion.” (emphasis added)

Simple procedural changes would effectively address the venue shopping problem. Federal court rules could require that each case have no more than a 50 percent chance of being assigned to a specific judge. Congress could pass a law to require that patent law cases, which are heavily venue shopped to one judge in Texas who publicly advertised himself as friendly to patent trolls[1], should only be filed where the parties have substantial local connections. The fixes are easy but they probably won't happen any time soon. That is because (i) the law is too often aware and partisan, not neutral and blind, and (ii) American law and government are broken and cannot competently function any longer.

Two points are worth remembering:

• The law is not always blind --- sometimes it is blatantly political and partisan
• Fundamentalist Christian nationalist dogma is hell-bent on de-secularizing American law, government and society and forcing aggressive, vengeful Christian Sharia law on all Americans and institutions, i.e., Christian nationalism is not warm and fuzzy, it is enraged and itchin' to fix what God says is busted with sinful America and sinful Americans 

Footnote: 

1. A patent troll is a patent owner who makes money by suing people who infringe on his patents, not by making, using or selling what the patent claims. This practice has been criticized as abuse of the patent system, which is intended to protect commercial uses for claimed subject matter. In essence, patent trolls have commercialized the practice of suing people to make money, instead of using the patent to protect the commercial activity it claims. Obviously, if a federal judge advertises themself as friendly to patent trolls, that is the judge the trolls want to file their lawsuit with. 

For context, all patent lawsuits must be filed in federal courts. Patent law is a matter of federal law and states do not play a significant role.