When legal activists want to challenge the federal government’s reach, they frequently head to Texas. By filing cases in the state’s smaller divisions, they can be guaranteed a Republican-appointed district judge and an appeals court widely regarded as the most conservative federal court in the country. The state is often the launchpad from which aggressively unorthodox arguments reach the Supreme Court.

But in one recent case, a Trump-appointed judge in Fort Worth has sided with a party he rarely favors — the federal government — to challenge an effort to use Texas as the arena for a fight with nationwide ramifications.

The case centers on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which in March issued a new rule capping most credit card late fees at $8 a month. Days later, trade groups representing big banks sued to block the regulation, which the bureau estimates would save households — and cost lenders — around $10 billion a year.

To sue in a specific court, parties need to establish venue by showing a geographic connection between the issue and the chosen court. To tie their credit card fee lawsuit to Texas, the national trade groups arguing on behalf of banks — the American Bankers Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Consumer Bankers Association — teamed up with three state and local business associations.

That’s where Judge Mark Pittman, one of only two active federal judges in the Northern District of Texas’s Fort Worth division, balked.

He believes the case belongs in Washington, where the consumer bureau and the three national associations are based. The nation’s capital is “the epicenter for these types of rules and challenges thereto,” he wrote in a ruling, adding: “Venue is not a continental breakfast; you cannot pick and choose on a plaintiffs’ whim.”