New York Senator Chuck Schumer has urged the federal court’s policymaking body to end a case-allocation system that he says allows parties to select their judges, reducing efforts to implement changes in the federal judiciary are escalated.
In a letter sent Monday to Judge Robin L. Rosenberg, a federal judge in the Southern District of Florida and chair of the regulatory committee for the Judicial Conference, Majority Leader Mr. Schumer joined 18 other senators to pressure the group to make recommendations for any federal-level court that would unilaterally eliminate divisions.
“Based on geography, some claimants can guarantee that their claims will be heard in a specific court, while others are left to chance,” the letter said. “This inconsistency undermines Americans’ confidence in our justice system.”
The letter is the latest attempt by Democratic lawmakers to change so-called single-judge divisions, a system in which all cases filed in a given geographic region are assigned to a single judge. The practice essentially allows plaintiffs to select which judge will hear a case by filing a lawsuit in a particular division, Mr. Schumer said, pointing to the Northern District of Texas as an example.
In the letter, the senators indicated that if the courts themselves do not make changes, Congress could intervene, asking what “other options Congress should consider to reduce judge shopping.”
Claims of forum shopping, in which lawyers try to find a judge sympathetic to their case by filing a complaint with that court, are not new. Lawyers often file in regions of the country where they believe will provide the greatest benefit to their clients. However, single divisions like the one in Texas go one step further because in some parts of the state, only one judge hears all new civil cases.
During the Biden administration, the Texas Attorney General filed more than two dozen lawsuits against federal policies such as immigration, the environment and pandemic restrictions. Many of these lawsuits have been filed with single-judge divisions.
In an interview, Mr Schumer pointed to the recent high-profile battle over the fate of mifepristone, an abortion drug. That case, pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, could severely limit access to the medication and also limit the Food and Drug Administration’s ability to regulate other drugs.
“It’s been a matter of abuse lately,” said Mr. Schumer. “Certain cases have highlighted it – especially the mifepristone case.”
The lawsuit, which alleges the FDA did not follow proper protocols when it approved the drug more than 20 years ago, was brought by the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, which lists five anti-abortion organizations as members. The group was founded in Amarillo, Texas, in August, shortly after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, overturning a constitutional right to abortion after nearly five decades.
Amarillo is home to a one-judge division. Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee who had written critically of Roe v. Wade, is the only federal judge hearing new civil cases there.
