WHO IS MATTHEW KACSMARYK?

Kacsmaryk was nominated to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas by president Trump in 2017 to fill the seat vacated by Mary Lou Robinson. The Senate later confirmed his appointment in June 2019 by a 52-46 vote.

That same month, a coalition of 75 LGBTQ and allied groups wrote a letter to Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Diane Feinstein (D-CA) calling for them to oppose the confirmation because of his Kacsmaryk’s ANTI-LGBTQ views. They wrote, “Kacsmaryk has challenged LGBT people’s right to form families at all, and argued that the families that they have formed are less legitimate than other families.”

“He has denied in some cases that LGBT people really exist. His record reveals that he will be incapable of treating LGBT litigants fairly—no matter what body of law is at issue in the cases over which he may preside—because he does not acknowledge LGBT people as having a right to exist.”

Kacsmaryk earned his bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, from Abilene Christian University in 1999 and his juris doctor from the University of Texas School of Law in 2003.

From 2003 to 2008, he worked as an associate at the Dallas office of the law firm Baker Botts before working as a federal prosecutor for the Northern District of Texas until 2013.

Kacsmaryk was a deputy general counsel for the First Liberty Institute, a law firm that specializes in religious liberty cases, from 2014 to 2019. He is also a member of the Federalist Society, an influential nationwide organization of conservative lawyers.

In 2021, he ruled President Biden could not halt a Trump administration policy requiring asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while their cases were considered. This June, however, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Biden could. — e.p.