Texas Judge’s Removal Escalates Divide in Foster Care Overhaul

“I don’t know how you all sleep nights,” Judge Janis Jack said to lawyers from Gibson Dunn last December. "[Counsel], do you want to add your two cents here? Oh, I’m sorry, not two cents, the 1,000-some-odd dollars’ worth.”

The comment, combined with several others cited in an opinion from the Fifth Circuit, raised concerns that Jack, a Clinton appointee to the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas, lost her ability to be objective. A three-judge panel made the extraordinary decision to remove Jack from the case involving Texas’ management of its foster care system, which she’s ...