Mazie Hirono Asks Witness: Is Someone ‘Stacking The Decks’ Against The Trump Admin In DC Courts?

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During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week, Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) questioned Kate Shaw, Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, about recent actions from Washington, D.C. courts.

Transcript

00:00Thank you. Senator Hirono. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I kept hearing one of my

00:06colleagues accusing you, Professor Schaaf, of disliking nationwide

00:12injunctions only when it is applied to Democratic presidents. He tries so many

00:17times. That is not what you said. That is certainly not what I heard. What I heard

00:21you say was in those instances where there's a single judge in a district,

00:25that can lead to foreign shopping, judge shopping, which is exactly what

00:29happened in Amarillo, Texas, and you said that is something that Congress could

00:34address. I think that is a fair depiction of what you testified to. Is that correct?

00:40Thank you, Senator. Yeah, that was in my written testimony, and I think that I did

00:42confirm it today. So I had introduced a bill to stop judge shopping act, which

00:49would require suits seeking nationwide relief against the enforcement of

00:53federal law to be filed in the District of D.C. District Court, and I explained at

00:58the time that I introduced the bill, that this court, quote, hears the large

01:03majority of cases involving challenges to federal agency action, and its judges are

01:09experts at deciding these cases impartially, end quote. That is one of the ways that we

01:15can address the issue of orange or judge shopping, which you did address once again

01:20today. Correct? Yes, Senator. Yeah, I wish we could take that bill up. So, you know, this attempt of my

01:30colleagues to continually attack the Democrats as somehow not wanting judges who decide cases

01:36based on objective facts, application of the law, as opposed to having some kind of ideological axe to grind,

01:46is really more something that they have a problem with, apparently, than anything that we

01:51Democrats stand for. Once again, Professor Shaw, there was a suggestion today that case

01:59assignments in D.C. is happening to, in a way that is statistically impossible, and I think this only serves to

02:09point out that maybe the person who made this allegation has, doesn't have enough awareness of

02:17statistics or hasn't read the rules in the way cases are assigned in D.C. Do you have any response to the

02:26allegation that someone is stacking the decks against the Trump administration in this court, in the D.C.

02:35district court? Right, Senator. So I've heard both that critique that Judge Bosberg is getting a

02:40disproportionate share of the cases and also the kind of opposite critique that the motions panels

02:45in the D.C. Circuit have been more favorable to the Trump administration than random chance would produce.

02:51You know, statistically unlikely events do sometimes occur, and I think it very unlikely that there is

02:58anything untoward resulting in the assignments either at the district court or the court of appeals level here in D.C.

03:04I have to thank you for pointing out how many cases. There have been over 200 cases filed to stop this

03:12president from, in my view, abusing his power and engaging in illegal acts. And frankly, and I think

03:19Mr. Blackman also suggested this, as did you, Ms. Shaw, that if we don't like this president to be sued,

03:26then we, in Congress, should enact laws that allows them to do whatever the hell he wants.

03:30So why don't we let him ignore the appropriations of this Congress? Why don't we let him stop certain

03:40grants from being issued? Why don't we let him go after Harvard and any other school that he doesn't

03:47like? Why don't we let him go after law firms that take positions that he doesn't like? Why don't we let

03:53him do that if we don't want him to get sued? I think that's a rhetorical question,

03:59but certainly we could do that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Senator-

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