The chief judge of the Northern District of Texas announced that his region would not adhere to a new approach handed down by the judiciary branch’s policymaking committee to minimize the impact of “judge shopping,” where plaintiffs file lawsuits in small jurisdictions so they get a specific judge, Reuters reports.
Chief U.S. District Judge David Godbey of the Northern District of Texas said his judges voted to ignore the guidelines requiring cases that could lead to injunctions of state or federal law to be assigned to a random judge from the district, not directly to the judge in the division where it was filed. “The consensus was not to make any change to our case assignment process at this time,” Godbey wrote in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the conservatives who control the Northern District of Texas want to maintain their stranglehold on litigation regarding culture war topics near and dear to conservatives. It’s how we got to Dobbs and having medications like mifepristone at risk of being pulled from the market.