The Latest Breaking News from Judicial Conference

This court will not "make any change to our case assignment process at this time."

"Surreptitious Steps" to draw a Carter appointee in a deep red state demonstrate why the Judicial Conference's policy would not work.

It will be harder for conservative litigants in blue states and liberal litigants in red states to obtain statewide relief. It will be harder for conservative litigants in red states to obtain nationwide relief. Liberal litigants will have virtually unchanged odds to obtain nationwide relief.

I pass along this comment I received from a well-known attorney in Texas who clerked on both the federal District Court level and at the Fifth Circuit. I suspect this attorney's views are widely shared: The memo to the judiciary has now become available, but that does not address the…

I obtained a copy of the report approved by the Judicial Conference. First, why on earth could this memo not have been issued contemporaneously with the press release? This may be one of the most-botched governmental rollouts since HealthCare.gov. The Executive Committee should carefully re-assess their procedures here. Second, the…

A general power to issue orders to judicial employees does not trump a specific power for district courts to make their own rules about case assignments.

"It is Congress that decides how cases should be assigned in the inferior courts and Congress has already spoken on this issue in an enacted statute."

We should wait until we know what (if anything) is happening.

The way to depoliticize the courts is to depoliticize the courts.

I was delighted to see the Judicial Conference of the United States is acting to promote random case assignment in certain declaratory judgment and injunction cases. You can read the press release here. It will be important to see the details, but as outlined, this policy change will ameliorate the…

The Chief Justice and his associates target only one type of forum shopping in response to political criticism through a secret policy that will not be released for months.