How “judge-mandering” is eroding trust in America’s judiciary

When Matthew Kacsmaryk issued a ruling in April 2023 suspending the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, an abortion pill, Democrats were furious. How could a lone judge in small-town Texas deprive millions of American women of a drug that has been deemed by doctors to be safer than Tylenol?Mr Kacsmaryk embodies a pressing problem in America’s judiciary: partisan lawyers pinpointing an ideologically sympathetic judge to hear their case, who then blocks a policy for the entire country. Forum-shopping is as old as the law itself and was used enthusiastically by Democrats when Donald Trump was president, for example to block funding for his border wall. The practice of “judge-mandering” (a cousin of ) takes this to an extreme. It is a potent tool of Republicans President Joe Biden’s agenda.