Judge Sooknanan Rules LWV/EPIC/LULAC v. DHS Voter-Data Suit Is Not Related to Trujillo; Case Randomly Reassigned to Judge Chutkan

The day after the League of Women Voters, EPIC and LULAC filed their voter-data suit against DHS in the D.D.C., the plaintiffs had marked it related to Trujillo v. DHS, which sat with Judge Sparkle Sooknanan. She ruled by minute order that the cases are not related under the local related-case rule and directed random reassignment. The docket shows random reassignment to Judge Tanya Chutkan.

The court’s stated reason is that the new case challenges a DHS policy of collecting, maintaining and using voter records, while Trujillo challenges federal action directed at California. As of the RECAP read on the day of the Trujillo ruling, the docket carried no preliminary-injunction motion in the new case and no government filing; RECAP’s copy may lag the court’s own.