Sponsors (2)
The bill increases fairness, impartiality, and transparency in federal case assignments through mandatory randomization, reporting, and sanctions, while imposing meaningful administrative costs, procedural trade-offs, and risks that rigid reassignment rules and harsh enforcement could disrupt court operations and judicial discretion.
Most federal civil litigants and defendants will face fairer, less manipulable adjudication because civil cases and judge assignments will be randomized, reducing forum-shopping and judge-shopping.
Members of the public, litigants, and practitioners gain greater transparency and public confidence because courts must post assignment rules and publish memos and annual statistics explaining assignments and reassignments.
Lawyers, judges, and court staff benefit from stronger deterrents against assignment manipulation because the bill creates enforceable sanctions (discipline, review, dismissal) and clearer consequences for misconduct.
Federal courts, clerks, and administrative staff will face substantial implementation costs and ongoing administrative burdens (system design, annual reporting, staffing) to run random-assignment and reassignment systems.
Strict sanctions and aggressive enforcement may chill legitimate administrative discretion, provoke adversarial disputes, and lead to more litigation over alleged assignment manipulation.
Limits on reassignment and mandated randomization of assignments (including senior judges) could impede efficient case management and prevent effective use of specialized or experienced judges for certain matters.
Based on analysis of 7 sections of legislative text.
Mandates published random assignment rules for federal civil cases and three‑judge courts, narrows reassignment reasons, requires public reporting, and creates sanctions for manipulation.
Official title: Amend title 28, United States Code, concerning case assignment procedures for district and circuit courts to ensure randomized case assignments.
Introduced July 28, 2026 by Eric Stephen Schmitt · Last progress July 28, 2026
Requires federal district courts and courts of appeals to adopt and publish rules that randomly assign civil cases and three-judge court panels, prohibits parties, attorneys, judges (including chief judges) and court staff from directing assignments, and limits permissible reassignments to narrowly defined circumstances. Courts must document and publish when random assignment cannot occur or when reassignments happen, produce annual statistics on assignments, and impose professional or employment discipline for attempts to manipulate assignments. Implements timelines and enforcement: courts must adopt the required rules within 120 days of enactment, senior judges' reduced-caseload preferences are preserved to the greatest extent possible, and a severability clause preserves remaining provisions if part of the law is invalidated.