Divergent responses to judge-shopping claims paint a disturbing picture

For the right, it's a "heads I win, tails you lose" life. Also: A recent filing in the Alabama investigation raises questions about a big claim in the panel's "inquiry" and report.

CHRIS GEIDNER
JUN 10, 2024

Over the past few years, there have been a torrent of stories and concern raised about how conservative lawyers go to jurisdictions where they are guaranteed conservative judges to bring cases seeking more and more extreme right rulings.

This sets up a process that I’ve detailed previously — allowing the 6-3 conservative U.S. Supreme Court to appear more reasonable than it is by rejecting a handful of the most extreme ideas, often coming out of the federal courts in Texas and going through the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, while nonetheless moving the law ever rightward by accepting some of the lower courts’ proposals.

Those stories paint an ever more disturbing picture when we step back and see the full canvas: As that debate was ongoing, federal judges in Alabama — other Republican appointees, operating mostly in secret — were subjecting dozens of civil rights lawyers to a two-year, and ongoing, “judge shopping” investigation into the motives behind their actions in three lawsuits challenging an anti-transgender law.

For those on the right — litigants, lawyers, or judges — it’s a "heads I win, tails you lose" life right now.

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