By Maria Ortiz
Mar 14, 2024, 11:49 PM EDT
Conservative judges and top Republican lawmakers are rejecting a recently announced policy for the court system that would require randomly assigning judges in civil cases that have state or national implications.
Senate Republicans on Thursday took aim at the new federal courts policy that tries to stop the “buying of judges”a practice that gained national attention in a major abortion drug case, involving the drug mifepristone.
The United States Judicial Conference, which regulates the federal judiciary, announced a policy Tuesday that requires randomly assign judges in civil cases that have state or national implications, in an effort to address widespread concerns about “judge shopping” in single-judge divisions, according to The Washington Post.
The new court policy requires that cases with national implications have random judge assignmentseven in smaller divisions where all cases filed locally go before a single judge.
The measure is aimed at preventing litigants strategically choose where to present cases in the hope that They are assigned a certain judge
In those single-judge divisions, critics say private or state attorneys essentially They can choose which judge will hear their case and so they choose where They will file lawsuits that can affect the entire country.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), along with Republican Sens. John Cornyn (Texas) and Thom Tillis (North Carolina), urged the justices to continue their current case assignment practice in letters sent to about a dozen chief justices of throughout the country, pointing out: “The policy of the Judicial Conference is not legislation.”
What does the “purchase of judges” consist of?
The issue of “judge shopping” gained national attention after anti-abortion activists filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the federal ban on the abortion drug mifepristone in a division with only one judge: Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, known for his long-held anti-abortion beliefs.
Federal Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of Texas ordered that the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of the abortion pill mifepristone be rescinded.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reduced its ruling and the case is now pending before the Supreme Court.
In Texas, the attorney general’s office and conservative groups have also turned to single-judge divisions as places to question President Biden’s policies on immigration and the environment, among other issues.
The policy that would limit the so-called “purchase of judges” was adopted by the Judicial Conference of the United States, the governing body of the federal courts. It is composed of 26 justices, 15 of whom were appointed by Republican presidents, and is chaired by Chief Justice John Roberts.
Judicial Conference officials have not yet made their new policy public.
The Biden administration and organizations like the American Bar Association have expressed concerns about the selection of judges in the past, and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. also highlighted the issue in his Final Report of the year 2021 on the federal judiciary.
Democratic leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, They have applauded the policy change, and Schumer said it would “go a long way toward restoring public confidence in court rulings.”
With information from The Washington Post and The Associated Press
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