Morning docket

Marina Marmolejo for the Southern District of Texas is one of the judicial nominees U.S. Senate leaders plan to consider within the next several seeks, “stepping up the rate that senators have been considering judges in recent months,” reports The BLT, a Texas Lawyer affiliate.
 
Some homeowners have filed suit over the Bastrop wildfire. “A utility knew about wildfire dangers amid Texas’ severe drought but failed to remove dead trees and branches near power lines that sparked the most destructive wildfire in state history, an attorney said Tuesday after filing a lawsuit for some families who lost their homes,” according to an Associated Press story in The Washington Post.
 
“Pflugerville could become the latest Central Texas school district to lend its name to a lawsuit that will challenge the state's school finance system,” reports the Austin American-Statesman. “The Hutto, Taylor and Elgin school districts have already joined with more than 100 other districts in a legal fight against a funding system that they say is unfair and unconstitutional.” Parties expect to file suit next month, the story says.
 
The BLT reports, “The Supreme Court today agreed to take up a California case that could determine whether private lawyers hired as outside counsel by local governments are immune from civil rights lawsuits challenging their actions.”
-- Angela Morris