Health Law Ruling Illustrates Ways In Which The Federal District Courts Have Become Politically Weaponized
It's become common practice for Republicans and Democrats alike to try to strategically handpick judges they see as ideologically friendly to their cases.
The New York Times:
In Weaponized Courts, Judge Who Halted Affordable Care Act Is A Conservative Favorite
The state’s Republican attorney general appears to strategically file key lawsuits in Judge O’Connor’s jurisdiction, the Northern District of Texas, so that he will hear them. And on Friday, the judge handed Republicans another victory by striking down the Affordable Care Act, the signature health law of the Obama era. Judge O’Connor, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush, has been at the center of some of the most contentious and partisan cases involving federal power and states’ rights, and has sided with conservative leaders in previous challenges to the health law and against efforts to expand transgender rights. (Fernandez, 12/15)
The Associated Press:
Judge In Health Care Case Had Blocked Other Obama Policies
U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor, who ruled the Affordable Care Act "invalid" Friday, is no stranger to the conservative resistance to Obama administration policies. O'Connor, 53, is a former state and federal prosecutor who was nominated to the federal bench in 2007 by President George W. Bush. He has been active in the Federalist Society, which describes itself as "a group of conservatives and libertarians interested in the current state of the legal order." (12/14)
