When then-Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry last year sued to stop an EPA civil rights investigation, he could be almost certain who would decide the outcome.
The reason: Landry brought the lawsuit in a division of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana where just two Senate-confirmed judges hear civil cases. And one of them — Judge James Cain Jr. — is allotted 90 percent of the workload, according to an order posted on the court clerk’s website.
That division of labor helps explain why Cain, a hitherto little-known jurist appointed by former President Donald Trump, has emerged as a pivotal arbiter of the Biden administration’s environmental and energy rules. As unease over purported “judge-shopping” mounts, his sway also illustrates the leeway that individual federal courts enjoy in crafting their case assignment procedures.
“The only thing one can say with confidence is that there is great variation,” said Russell Wheeler, a former deputy director of the Federal Judicial Center who is now affiliated with the Brookings Institution think tank.
