The Volokh Conspiracy

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New York Times Recycles Same Old Story About Northern District of Texas

Yet the article inexplicably makes no mention of judge shopping in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

|The Volokh Conspiracy |


Stop me if you've heard this one before: conservative litigants file cases in District Courts in Texas to secure favorable forums. I've lost count of how many of these stories I've read over the years. For reasons that are unclear, the New York Times decided to publish the exact same story, again. Mind you, over the past year, the frequency of cases filed in Texas federal courts has slowed to a trickle. I've told my students clerking now not to expect nearly as many huge disputes as in years past.

There truly is nothing new here. Other than a handful of cases filed during Trump 2.0, the story is completely a rehash of what has been written before.  I do not understand why the Times felt compelled to invest resources in this story, which again, had nothing new.

Left unsaid, of course, is how liberal groups are judge shopping in the District of Rhode Island and the District of Massachusetts. But you might protest that cases in those districts are randomly assigned! But there is still 100% chance of drawing a favorable liberal judge. When the the number of progressives in the numerator is the same as the number of progressives in the denominator, Boston may as well be Wichita Falls. I'd love to see an expose about how many times Judges Talwani, Murphy, and others, have been stayed and reversed by the Supreme Court.

Anyway, nothing new to see here. And remember, sending a pizza to a judge is a threat to the rule of law but parking a guillotine in front of the Supreme Court is free expression.