WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans voted this week on bipartisan legislation to gradually expand the number of federal judges across the country by 66. However, Democrats are having doubts now that newly elected President Donald Trump has won a second term.
The White House said Tuesday that if President Joe Biden were given the bill, he would veto it. A Congress deeply divided along party lines is unlikely to overturn a veto, which will likely undermine the bill’s chances this year.
It’s an abrupt reversal for legislation that the Senate passed unanimously in August. But the GOP-led House waited until after the election to implement the measure, which would spread the creation of the new district judges over about a decade to give three presidential administrations a chance to appoint the new judges.
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Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said the bill was negotiated with the understanding that three unknown future presidents would have the opportunity to expand and shape the judiciary. No party would knowingly gain an advantage. He said he begged GOP leadership to pass the measure before the presidential election. But they didn’t.
“It was a fair fight and they wanted no part of it,” Nadler said.
Rep. Jim Jordan, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, explained the timing this way: “We just didn’t get to the legislation.”
The change of heart on the bill from some Democrats and the new urgency from Republicans in the House of Representatives to consider it underscores the contentious politics surrounding the federal judicial vacancies.
Today, virtually every judicial nominee requires roll call votes in the Senate, and most votes for the Supreme Court and appellate courts are now decided largely along party lines. Lawmakers are generally reluctant to give opposing presidents new opportunities to shape the judiciary.
Nadler said the bill would give Trump 25 judicial nominations, in addition to the more than 100 seats expected to open up over the next four years.
“Donald Trump has made it clear that he intends to expand the power of the presidency, and giving him 25 new judges gives him another tool at his disposal to do that,” Nadler said.
Nadler said he is prepared to take up similar legislation in the coming years and give additional judicial appointments to “unknown presidents yet to come,” but until then, he urged colleagues to vote against the bill.
Yet few dispute its merits. Congress last authorized a new district judge more than two decades ago, as the number of cases filed continues to grow and litigants often wait years for a resolution.
“I was a trial attorney in federal court, and I can tell you this is desperately needed,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said of the bill.
Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., first introduced the bill to create new judgeships in 2020. Last year, the policy-making body for the federal justice system, the Judicial Conference of the United States, recommended the creation of several new districts. and Court of Appeal courts to meet increased workloads in certain courts.
“Judges work tirelessly every day to meet the growing demand and resolve cases as quickly as possible, but with the volume we have and the shortage of judges we have, this makes it a very difficult proposition,” said Judge Timothy Corrigan of the Middle District. of Florida, according to a recent blog post on the website of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts.
The blog post states that the high volume of cases is causing delays that will erode public confidence in the judicial process, but the bill would address many of the federal judiciary’s needs for more judges.
Jordan said that as of June 30, there were nearly 750,000 pending cases in federal district courts across the country, with each judge handling an average of 554 files. Asked whether House Republicans would have brought up the bill if Vice President Kamala Harris had won the election, Jordan said the bill is “the right thing to do” and that nearly half of the first class of judges will come from states where both senators are Democrats, giving them the opportunity to provide input on those nominations before Trump makes them.
But in its veto threat, the White House Office of Management and Budget said the bill would create new judge positions in states where senators have tried to keep existing judicial vacancies open.
“These efforts to keep vacancies open suggest that concerns about legal economics and case volume are not the true motivating force behind the bill’s passage,” the White House said.
Shortly before the White House issued the veto threat, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he would be curious to know Biden’s rationale for such an action.
“It is almost inconceivable that a lame-duck president could consider vetoing such a clearly prudential move for any reason other than selfish spite,” McConnell said.
