Editor’s Note: a guest post by Dale Huls, a Texas-based conservative activist. He served as a Texas Republican Party precinct chair and election judge. He is also a former candidate for the Texas House of Representatives who was endorsed by Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Since Donald Trump rode back into the White House, he’s been locked in a tussle with the judiciary. Federal courts have been quick to slap down his policies—tariffs, deportations, you name it—often spurred by left-leaning lawyers and activists who aren’t shy about throwing punches.

So, it’s pretty bold when those same critics accuse Trump of manipulating the system.

The latest uproar? A Department of Justice lawsuit to end in-state college tuition for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients. Filed in Wichita Falls, Texas, the case has led to accusations that the DOJ is engaging in “judge shopping” to secure a favorable ruling.

That charge just doesn’t hold up.

Filing in Texas makes sense. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas has already ruled DACA unlawful, and from Lubbock to Brownsville, Texans know the strain of lax border policies—overburdened schools and stretched budgets. Wichita Falls is no random choice; it’s in a state that lives these challenges daily.

Judge shopping—picking a court for a sympathetic judge—isn’t new, and the left’s been at it for years.

Months ago, Trump called out Harvard for suing his administration in a court they thought would favor them. The Biden administration played the same game, filing cases in blue-leaning districts with little pushback. Take their DOJ’s suit against Visa for alleged debit card monopolies. With 40 percent of transactions outside Visa’s network, the monopoly claim’s shaky. Yet, they filed in New York’s Southern District despite neither the DOJ nor Visa being headquartered there, banking on past favorable rulings.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also faced this. He challenged a Biden rule pushing ESG investment policies that risked retirees’ savings, filing in Texas. Biden’s team tried to move it to Washington, D.C., where courts lean their way. AG Paxton and a Texas judge shut down the Biden Administration ​“judge shopping” efforts.

The pattern’s clear as a Texas sunrise: Trump isn’t pulling cases into Texas; the left’s trying to pull them out. Texas courts uphold states’ rights and the U.S. Constitution, values at odds with the left’s agenda.

Biden didn’t just shop judges; he tilted the board. A 2023 Mark Lemley analysis showed 84 percent of his judges went to blue states, 10 percent to swing states, and just 6 percent to red ones—a clear play to favor his allies’ lawsuits.

Judge shopping’s a bipartisan issue, but the outrage seems to hit only when conservatives are involved. Biden’s team even accused Texas of it—pure hypocrisy. In 2025, Biden vetoed the JUDGES Act, a bipartisan plan to expand the judiciary and ease judges’ loads. Reform wasn’t his goal.

Biden didn’t care about judicial reform but thankfully there’s a new sheriff in Washington. Trump should rein in judge shopping as well as expanding the judiciary to make sure our constitutional guardians can do their jobs. The left’s complaints ring hollow in Texas, where we prize fairness and straight talk. Let’s focus on justice, not political noise.

Oh, and ignore the left’s selective outrage. But then Trump was already doing that.