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Politicians…

The Remarkable Rags-to-Riches Story of Stacey Abrams

“…Financial records show that when she first entered statewide politics in 2018, she reported a net worth of less than $109,000. By 2022, the last year she had to publicly file a financial report, it had grown to more than $3.2 million. Abrams is probably even better off than that, thanks to her latest venture: Rewiring America, which uses federal funds to provide low-income people with free electric appliances…”

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District court judges (mostly liberal) across the country attempt to inject their preferred procedures and policies into cases and exceed their jurisdictions: “mandamus is appropriate ‘to confine an inferior court to a lawful exercise of its prescribed jurisdiction.’”

“A Recipe for District Judge Supremacy”

“…Today, a divided panel of the Fifth Circuit granted a writ of mandamus in a death penalty case. In this case, the district court improperly exercised jurisdiction over a clearly moot case, and then refused to dismiss the case. Mandamus seems plainly warranted.

Judge Ho wrote a concurrence that speaks directly to controversies of the day:

Our dissenting colleague asks: What’s the rush? Even assuming that the district court erred, the dissent contends that there’s no need for immediate relief—just let things play out through “[t]he typical appellate process.” Post, at _ (Haynes, J., dissenting).

But that’s cold comfort to the millions of voters who took the time to participate in the democratic process, only to see their legitimate efforts unlawfully undone by a single district judge.

If a district judge abuses the legal process in a hurried effort to thwart the lawful political choices of the electorate, appellate courts are well within their right to intervene and grant emergency relief.

The Supreme Court did just that last week in Trump v. J.G.G., _ U.S. _ (2025). There (as here), a district court presumed to seize control over a case of profound public interest that it had no lawful business deciding, because it belonged in another court. So the Supreme Court intervened and took the case away from the district court. See id. at _ (“Challenges to removal under the [Alien Enemies Act] . . . must be brought in habeas. . . . [J]urisdiction [in habeas cases] lies in only one district: the district of confinement. The detainees are confined in Texas, so venue is improper in the District of Columbia.”) (cleaned up).

Like our dissenting colleague here, the dissenting Justices in J.G.G. urged delay. The dissent agreed with the majority that the only thing at stake was deciding which district court had the authority to decide the case. See id. at _ (Sotomayor, J., dissenting) (noting that the dispute merely concerned “which procedural vehicle is best situated for the Plaintiffs’ injunctive and declaratory claims”). But the dissent maintained that there was no need for appellate courts to “rush” in and “decide the issue now”—just wait for an appeal in the “ordinary course.” Id. at _ (Sotomayor, J., dissenting).

The Supreme Court rejected the dissent’s plea for delay. The majority understood that waiting for an appeal in the “ordinary course” would inadequately protect the government from the indignity of litigating in the wrong proceeding—not to mention unduly delay the expressed will of the people. As the Court put it, “[w]e see no benefit in such wasteful delay.” Id. at _.

I most certainly concur. When a district judge acts hastily, yet appellate courts are told not to “rush in,” that’s not a plea for judicial sobriety—it’s a recipe for district judge supremacy…”

Doug Santo