Arch-conservative federal district court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, with much vitriol aimed at the Supreme Court, begrudgingly transferred a major attack on mifepristone’s legality out of his court Tuesday night — claiming to arbitrarily choose instead a district court composed almost entirely of Trump appointees.
“The Court need not strain to determine the best forum,” he hand waved, as he selected the Eastern District of Missouri.
A closer look at the court’s composition reveals his motives: Of the nine active, full-time district judges, seven of them are Trump appointees (alongside one George W. Bush appointee and one Obama appointee).
Kacsmaryk, an anti-abortion crusader, was not happy to let the case go, even into the arms of likely ideological allies. His ruling is replete with potshots at the Supreme Court, which, in June of 2024, found 9-0 that the anti-abortion doctor group that brought the case lacked standing.
“Decades of Supreme Court precedent led every jurist who assessed this case to conclude that the Original Plaintiffs had a jurisdictionally valid case,” he wrote. “The Supreme Court reinterpreted those precedents and thereby ratified the Government’s contradictory arguments to hold otherwise.”
He later referred to the Court’s opinion as one decided “rightly or wrongly.”
He also had ire to spare for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), who he wrote could have kept the case at his court in the Northern District of Texas if he’d intervened.
“Had the Texas attorney general joined the intervenor plaintiffs’ motion to intervene back in November 2023, then this prong would be easily satisfied,” he wrote. “But for whatever reason, Texas neglected to do so,” he added, referring to “the attorney general’s oversight.”
Since the Supreme Court found that the anti-abortion doctors lacked standing, a coalition of red states has picked up the mantle. Recently — and too belatedly to save the jurisdiction, in Kacsmaryk’s view — Texas and Louisiana attempted to join the case too.
Still, Kacsmaryk tried to throw his anti-abortion allies another bone, in addition to a venue where they’re likely to draw a sympathetic judge. He wrote that he’s transferring the case, rather than dismissing it, the better to save the red states time and energy on refiling — and the better to get the meat of the case, the accessibility of a critical abortion drug, onto the chopping block faster.
Read the ruling here:
