John Roberts Just Dropped the Hammer on Rogue, Lawless Trump Judges

For more than a decade, conservative plaintiffs have been gaming the judiciary by filing lawsuits before a hard-right judge who’s guaranteed to rule in their favor. Dahlia Lithwick: It’s always hard for me to think that anything the Judicial Conference does is a big piece of news, but they did announce a new policy that sets out to curb judge-shopping. It’s the Conference trying to say: “Hey, you can’t just go to the casino that is Amarillo, Texas, and get Matthew Kacsmaryk every time you file a case.” This certainly doesn’t make a difference going backward, but can you tell us about the new policy and whether it will in fact curb litigants shopping for a judge who’s certain to hand them a nationwide injunction? That’s been a new development, really in the last 10 years and maybe the last two or three administrations, where that has become a thing.” I always love when a judge runs out of words and just says “a thing.” But I think it’s important to understand that this policy doesn’t actually stop a single-judge division from issuing a nationwide injunction. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell himself, from the floor of the Senate, delivered a screed against this policy, calling it an “unforced error” and also encouraging district courts to defy the Judicial Conference’s authority and ignore the new policy.