An all-Republican Fifth Circuit panel has removed federal district judge Janis Graham Jack from a case raising due process concerns over the Texas foster care system. According to the Fifth Circuit, the trial judge displayed a “highly antagonistic demeanor” when she levied sanctions against Texas for not investigating child abuse in the foster care system.
To be clear: the judge was removed because she wanted the state of Texas to stop child abuse. But the Fifth Circuit will not suffer courts trying to hijack government programs… at least not unless the Democrats are running those programs.
However, as a general rule of law federal judges are not allowed to become permanent de facto superintendents of major state agencies. Nor, under the federalist structure created by the Constitution, is it appropriate for federal court intervention to thwart the state’s self-management, where the state is taking strides to eliminate the abuses that led to the original decree. Nor are federal judges even suited, by training or temperament, to manage institutions, personnel, or the provision of vital state services, even if counselled by monitors.
(citations omitted)
The Fifth Circuit said that? Just an utter lack of shame.
The Fifth Circuit condones a forum shopping regime allowing trial judges to micromanage all manner of government policies, from the FDA’s approval of mifepristone to whether or not fees and interest on student loans can be waived. The author of this opinion, Edith Jones, wrote an earlier opinion ranting about COVID lockdowns, citing junk science. But those are policies liked by Democratic administrations. The panel would not have such qualms when it’s not about protecting Republican leaders like the Texas governor.
Giving the panel an unearned benefit of the doubt, the opinion nods to a distinction between federal and state agencies as though micromanaging the federal government is more appropriate than a state agency. Which is a distinction, though one with very little difference. The Fourteenth Amendment, for instance, would very much disagree with this reasoning. But this is also why Republicans get mad when nominees are asked if they plan to overturn Brown v. Board — there’s nothing in the above reasoning that would justify the historic efforts of federal courts in striking down segregation.
And they really don’t want folks to realize that.
In a statement given to Bloomberg and reprinted by ABA Journal, Paul Yetter, an attorney for foster care children, said this was “a sad day for Texas children.”
Maybe if the kids tried complaining that the child abuse they suffered was a vaccination or watching someone else’s student loans get relieved they could find someone on the Fifth Circuit to bend over backward to care about them.
(Opinion on next page…)
Fifth Circuit Removes Texas Judge Critical of Foster Care System [Bloomberg Law News]
Judge with ‘highly antagonistic demeanor’ must be removed from foster care case, 5th Circuit says [ABA Journal]