Maryland’s Federal Court Becomes Magnet for Trump Challenges (1)

The federal trial court in Maryland with nearly all Democratic appointees is emerging as a popular destination for legal challenges to Trump administration actions.

At least seven lawsuits against President Donald Trump’s initiatives have been filed in the US District Court for the District of Maryland in the past few weeks. That includes litigation over efforts to end birthright citizenship and to strip protections from federal workers.

As of Wednesday evening, only the federal court in Washington, D.C., has recorded more Trump-related lawsuits. The Boston-based District of Massachusetts, another frequent venue, has received six such challenges.

The Maryland court’s composition appears to have made it a magnet for opposing Trump policies, as litigants look for venues they see as friendlier among circuits that have shifted right since his first term. The district, which has locations in Baltimore, Greenbelt, and Salisbury, resides within the Fourth Circuit.

Nine of the district’s 10 active judges were appointed by Joe Biden and Barack Obama, and four of the five semi-retired senior judges still hearing cases were named by other Democrats.

Those numbers are “striking,” said Max Stearns, a constitutional law professor at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law.

“That does kind of put a bulls-eye on Maryland,” he said.

Early Interest

Maryland’s court joins benches in the nation’s capital and within the Boston-based First Circuit and San Francisco-based Ninth Circuit, that have become early destinations for the dozens of challenges to Trump policies.

When filing a suit at the Maryland federal court, “it’s a pretty good chance of drawing a judge from a Democratic appointee, and a Biden appointee, since he placed so many on the court,” said Guha Krishnamurthi, a law professor at the University of Maryland.

Biden appointee Deborah Boardman was assigned two of the lawsuits: over Trump’s birthright citizenship order and the handling of private data by Elon Musk’s government efficiency unit. Other suits concerning gender-affirming care for minors, diversity initiatives, reclassifying federal workers, and immigration raids were assigned to Biden and Obama appointees.

Four suits went to judges in Greenbelt, a Washington suburb, while three landed in Baltimore.

Maryland’s popularity among litigants may also relate to the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which is the next stop for litigation. The Richmond, Va.-based circuit is one of the six appeals courts with a liberal majority, excluding the Federal Circuit. It has eight Democratic and seven Republican appointees, though Roger Gregory was originally nominated by Bill Clinton before being renominated and confirmed under George W. Bush.

And some of the judges chosen by Republican presidents, like Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, a Reagan appointee, and Judge Paul V. Niemeyer, a George H. W. Bush appointee, are “old-school Republicans,” Krishnamurthi said.

“I don’t think of the Fourth as being a real ideological court, but it’s definitely more receptive to the kinds of challenges that are being filed,” said Jeremy Fogel, a former California federal judge who now leads the Berkeley Judicial Institute.

The Maryland bench has the most significant liberal majority of any trial court within the Fourth Circuit, which also covers Virginia, West Virginia, and North and South Carolina.

Its proximity to Washington and the federal government may also contribute to its appeal, said Paul Grimm, a former Maryland federal judge and now director of Duke Law School’s Bolch Judicial Institute. The availability of nationwide injunctions, or lower court orders that can halt a federal policy nationwide, also drives continued interest in forum-shopping more broadly, he added.

“You’ve got all of the ingredients for a perfect storm that explains why it is that you’ll continue to see these clusters of lawsuits in certain particular courts,” Grimm said.

Circuit Shifts

The initial preference toward Maryland is part of a broader shift away for progressive litigants from the once-more liberal Ninth Circuit and New York-based Second Circuit.

Those two appeals courts were frequent venues for major immigration challenges during Trump’s first term, but they’ve become more conservative since, due in part to his success in flipping seats once held by Democratic appointees. Now, the Maryland court alone is handling nearly as many cases as all federal trial courts within the Ninth Circuit combined.

Progressives’ chances of getting a sympathetic panel in the Ninth Circuit is “still better than 50/50, but it’s not what it used to be,” Fogel said.

The practice by lawyers of filing suits in courts, or within circuits, perceived to be more receptive to their requests isn’t new or uncommon.

Conservative organizations consistently filed challenges to Biden policies in trial courts within the New Orleans-based Fifth Circuit, and often in Texas federal courts with case assignment procedures that allow litigants to select their preferred judge.

“I think we’re going to see more litigation in the First and Fourth Circuits, and I don’t think there’s really anything unusual about it,” Fogel said.

Still, any initial advantage gained by strategic filing may ultimately be short-lived. A number of these high-profile challenges, such as on birthright citizenship, are ultimately expected to reach the Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority.

“The math in the Fourth Circuit’s balanced but favorable,” Stearns said. “The problem, of course, is the math in the court above the Fourth Circuit is really not favorable.”