Judge Kacsmaryk is a conservative favorite in Texas
A Texas judge hearing a case that could throw into jeopardy access to the nation’s most common method of abortion is a former attorney for a Christian legal group who critics say is being sought out by conservative litigants because they believe he will be sympathetic to their causes.
U. S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk was appointed by President Donald Trump and confirmed in 2019 over fierce opposition by Democrats over his history opposing LGBTQ rights.
Kacsmaryk heard arguments in the case Wednesday, days after he took the unusual step of telling attorneys during a status conference not to publicize the hearing because the case has prompted death threats and protests and he believed “less advertisement of this hearing is better.” Kacsmaryk said he would rule “as soon as possible.”
A former federal prosecutor and lawyer for the conservative First Liberty Institute, the judge has ruled against the Biden administration on other issues, including immigration. He was among more than 230 judges installed to the federal bench under Trump as part of amovement by the Republican president and Senate conservatives to shift the American judiciary to the right.
Interest groups have long attempted to file lawsuits before judges they see as friendly to their points of view. But the number of conservative lawsuits filed in Kacsmaryk’s Amarillo courthouse — where he is assigned all new cases as the sole district judge— has spawned accusations that right-wing plaintiffs are seeking himout because they know he’s likely to side with them.
“Why are all these cases being brought in Amarillo if the litigants who are bringing them are so confident in the strength of their claims? It’s not because Amarillo is convenient to get to,” said University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck. “I think it ought to alarm the judges themselves that litigants are so transparently and shamelessly funneling cases to their courtroom.”
If Kacsmaryk rules against the drug, the Food and Drug Administration — which has approved usingmifepristone— is expected to appeal the ruling quickly. Clinics have said they could carry on with using one other drug alone to terminate pregnancies if necessary, but that approach is slightly less effective.
During his confirmation hearings, Kacsmaryk told lawmakers it would be “inappropriate” for a judge to allow their religious beliefs to impact a matter of law. He pledged to “faithfully apply all Supreme Court precedent.”
“As a judicial nominee, I don’t serve as as a legislator. I don’t serve as an advocate for counsel. I follow the law as it is written, not as I would have written it,” Kacsmaryk said at the time.
Before the abortion pill case, Kacsmaryk was at the center of a legal fight over Trump’s “Remain inmexico” policy, which required tens of thousands of migrants seeking asylum to wait in Mexico for hearings in U. S. immigration court.
In 2021, he ordered that the policy be reinstated in response to a lawsuit filed by the states of Texas and Missouri. The U.S. Supreme Court overruled him and said the Biden administration could end the policy, which it did last August. But in December Kacsmaryk ruled that the administration failed to follow federal rulemaking guidelines when terminating the practice, an issue that the Supreme Court didn’t address.
He also has ruled that allowing minors to obtain free birth control without parental consent at federally funded clinics violated parental rights and Texas law.
In other cases, he has ruled that the Biden administration wrongly interpreted part of the Affordable Care Act as prohibiting health care providers from discriminating against people because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. And he sided with Texas in ruling against Biden administration guidance that said employers can’t block workers from using a bathroomconsistent with their gender identity.