House Passes Bill to Add Trial Judges Despite Veto Threat (1)

The House cleared legislation to expand the federal judiciary for the first time in decades, sending to President Joe Biden’s desk a bill he has already pledged to veto.

The House voted 236-173 on Thursday for the Senate-passed JUDGES Act (S. 4199), which would add dozens of district court judgeships over time to alleviate pressure off overburdened benches. It would mark the first major expansion of the courts since 1990, and the first time Congress authorized an additional permanent judgeship in over two decades.

Still, it faces a key hurdle to becoming law: the White House budget office released a statement earlier this week opposing the legislation and threatening to veto it if it passed.

The final tally fell below the required two-thirds majority to override a veto, signaling there may not be sufficient support in the chamber.

The bill, once bipartisan, lost the support of House Democrats after Donald Trump won the election in November. Democrats accused Republicans of abandoning a bipartisan deal to pass the bill before the election when the president receiving the first batch of judicial appointments would be unknown. A spokesperson for the House Democratic whip confirmed the office urged Democrats to vote against the legislation.

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), the Democratic sponsor of the measure, said on the floor ahead of the vote that he no longer supports it, citing concerns Trump would appoint “extreme right-wing ideologues” to the bench.

“You don’t get to pick the horse, after that horse has already won the race. But that’s exactly what my Republican colleagues are seeking to do today,” Johnson said.

More than two dozen Democrats crossed over to support the bill. Those supporters included members of the California delegation, whose courts would have received additional judges, and members of the Blue Dog Coalition of moderate Democrats.

The expected veto may deliver a fatal blow to years-long efforts in Congress to address shortages on the bench, which have failed each time amid political gridlock over judicial appointments.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the lead sponsor of the bill, called it “a highly bipartisan and bicameral bill that is, by God, overdue,” and made an appeal to his Democratic colleagues to vote for it. The Senate “could very easily” be under Democratic control in two years, and the blue-slip process allowing home state senators to veto district nominees prevents extreme conservatives from being confirmed in states like California, he said.

“I wish we would have passed this sooner,” he said. “But we’re not there. We’re in a position where I’m going to ask many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to vote to put country over the obvious politics of it.”

He also urged Biden to reconsider his veto.

Judicial shortages

The legislation would add 63 permanent and three temporary district judgeships, in phases over the next decade, to trial courts in 14 states. More than half would be on federal courts in states that have two Democratic senators.

Trump would get to fill the first 22 permanent seats, and three temporary ones. The remaining seats would be authorized in tranches through 2035, or across the next two presidential administrations after his. The Senate passed the measure unanimously in August.

The Judicial Conference, the judiciary’s policymaking body, has endorsed the bill as needed to address critical shortages and avoid litigation delays.

The six active judges on the Sacramento-based US District Court for the Eastern District of California, for example, have seen the court’s caseload balloon, while the size of its bench has remained the same. The court had, as of 2023, nearly 1.4 million residents for each active judgeship—one of the highest ratios of any federal trial court.

Federal trial courts near the Southwest border, which have seen high levels of immigration-related cases, and in Delaware, a hub for patent and business litigation, have also been identified by the judiciary as needing reinforcements on the bench.

Federal judges have continued to publicly push for the legislation, even after the White House signaled Biden’s plans to veto it.

Judge J. Michelle Childs of the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, president of the Federal Judges Association, and Federal Bar Association President Glen R. McMurry said in a joint statement Wednesday that failure to enact the bill “will condemn our judicial system to more years of unnecessary delays.”