It’s the only state in the whole country that has four federal court districts.
Something is happening in Texas. Since 2021, there have been 31 separate lawsuits, in federal district courthouses all over the state, in which Texas has sued the federal government. Let’s look at just one, in Amarillo, about immigration. The judge in this case - there was no jury - ruled that the Biden administration had to continue a Trump policy called “Remain in Mexico” that keeps asylum seekers out of the country. The Biden administration eventually got that decision reversed, but it took almost a whole year. And as they waited for the Supreme Court to do that, they also had to obey the decision and keep asylum seekers out of the country. All because of this one judge’s ruling.
And in fact, the Texas Attorney General’s office, which filed the case, had sought this judge out specifically. And over the next two years, they would bring him cases against the federal government again, and again, and again. And he’s not alone. Texas has gone back to this judge again and again too. You’re not supposed to be able to pick which judge hears your case. But in Texas, you can. It’s called “judge shopping.” It’s only possible in a place like Texas. And it’s helped make Texas into a powerful weapon for changing how things work everywhere in the country.
Each state in the US has at least one federal district court. Texas has four. They’re the bottom level of the federal court system. Federal courts mostly hear cases involving national laws. And federal judges are appointed by the president. There are over 600 district judges across all of these courts. So several judges in each court. And usually the judge who hears your case is chosen randomly.
Randomness is a critical principle because the idea is that the judicial system is supposed to be, on the whole, a neutral arbiter of legal disputes. But the US is big. There are a lot of big states. And even when a state has multiple federal court districts, some of those districts are still really big. Like this one, the Northern District of Texas. If you’re in Lubbock, and your case gets randomly assigned to a judge in Dallas, that’s a five-hour drive to get to court.
So partly to solve for that, many districts are further subdivided into multiple divisions, and each usually has its own courthouse. But different districts have different rules for which case goes to which division. For example, over in the Central District of California, there are three divisions, with clear rules meant to make sure that cases stay local. But in the Northern District of Texas, those rules aren’t so strict. It’s much easier to file a case in whatever division you choose. Same with the other Texas districts.
Here’s where that becomes a problem. The Southern District of Texas has 28 judges for seven divisions. But for most of the last two years, two of those divisions have had just one active judge each. Here in the Victoria Division, that’s been judge Drew Tipton. And in the Galveston Division, it’s Judge Jeffrey Brown. And this happens all over the state. In the Northern District, this judge, Matthew Kacsmaryk, is the only judge in the Amarillo division. And Judge Reed O’Connor is the only one for the Wichita Falls Division. And that means that if you choose to file your lawsuit in one of those places, you know who the judge will be.
So you get a situation where, over two years, the Texas attorney general files eight separate lawsuits against the Biden administration in Victoria, because they knew Judge Tipton would hear them. Cases about the border wall, the minimum wage, gun laws… Judge Tipton had sided with the state of Texas, had embraced a pretty broad view of why Texas could sue in the first place, and had issued nationwide injunctions barring the Biden administration from carrying out its policies. So, yeah, I mean, I don’t think there was much of a mystery about why they would choose Judge Tipton.
The second thing that makes Texas unique is where it sits in this chart. It’s the only state in the whole country that has four federal court districts. If the losing side of a district judge’s decision appeals, it goes up to one of the 12 Appeals Courts, also called the circuit courts. A decision appealed from there goes up to the Supreme Court. All Texas district courts report up to the Fifth Circuit Court, which, with a majority of judges appointed by Republican presidents, is the most conservative of all the circuit courts and likely to agree with even the most conservative rulings.
We saw this in April 2023, when a private group filed a lawsuit in Amarillo seeking to ban abortion pills that had been legal for 20 years. Judge Kacsmaryk sided with the private group, and the Fifth Circuit Court largely agreed. The case made it to the Supreme Court, which paused the decision.
However, the Supreme Court often sits on cases for months before hearing them, allowing the lower court judge’s decision to dictate federal law during that time. An example of this was in 2022, when Judge Tipton ruled that Biden couldn’t reprioritize which undocumented immigrants to deport first. Almost a year later, we’re still waiting for the Supreme Court to rule on that, and Tipton’s ruling is still in effect.
To fix this, the district courts could decide to do things differently, such as the Southern District of Texas did in February when it changed Victoria’s single-judge status to two active judges. Additionally, Congress could pass a law regulating the way cases are distributed, and the Supreme Court could write new rules for the lower courts. Until then, anyone who wants a good shot at getting a case before the Supreme Court knows that in Texas district courts, they can pick their judge.