Judges Dismayed at Veto Threat of Bill to Help Strained Courts (1)

Federal judges called President Joe Biden’s threat to veto legislation to expand the judiciary “devastating” and “distressing,” as they face years more without relief in districts where caseloads have outgrown the bench’s resources.

A White House statement on Tuesday pledging to veto the Senate-passed legislation (S.4199) if it cleared the House dealt what may be a fatal blow to what had been bipartisan efforts to add more trial court seats in phases over the next decade.

The issue has become divisive and uncertain since Donald Trump won the Nov. 5 election and would have first crack at new appointments.

“Devastating, is the only word I can give you. We’ve never been this close,” said Chief Judge Marcia Morales Howard of the US District Court for the Middle District of Florida about the prospect of failure.

Congress hasn’t broadly expanded the judiciary since 1990, and hasn’t added a single additional permanent judgeship in over two decades, even as the population and caseloads have grown.

Howard and other chief judges interviewed after the Biden threat warned that a failure to authorize more judgeships would worsen litigation delays and hinder access to the federal courts in districts without enough judges.

They also expressed personal disappointment if the measure should die after months of personal advocacy for some.

“The longer your case is pending, the more it costs you, the more it costs everybody,” said Howard, whose court would receive more judges under the deal. “And it’s not just the financial impact. It’s the emotional toll.”

Chief Judge Troy Nunley of the US District Court for the Eastern District of California, said he’s “tremendously disappointed” and that the outcome is “distressing for us here in the Eastern District because of our staggering caseloads.”

Nunley’s six-judge court, with courthouses in Sacramento and Fresno, has one of the highest number of people covered per active judge in the country at 1.4 million, as of 2023. He predicted judges will increasingly elect not to continue hearing cases in retirement.

“There is a concern that our crushing caseloads for active judges may lead to burnout and might just make senior status undesirable,” Nunley said of the semi-retirement option for federal judges. “The dam is going to start to break.”

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 also urged the House to pass the legislation, and for Biden to sign it, in a joint statement Wednesday.

“Failure to enact the JUDGES Act will condemn our judicial system to more years of unnecessary delays and will deprive parties in the most impacted districts from obtaining appropriate justice and timely relief under the rule of law,” they wrote.

Political Challenges

The legislation would’ve authorized 63 permanent and three temporary federal district judgeships, to be distributed in tranches over the next decade across 14 states.

If enacted, the incoming Trump administration would get the first 22 permanent judicial appointments, while the following two administrations would receive the rest.

House Republican leaders said they plan to pass the bill on the floor this week, setting up a showdown with the White House in the final days of Biden’s presidency.

The Judicial Conference, the judiciary’s policymaking body, endorsed the measure, as did more than 300 federal trial and circuit court judges, as needed to relieve pressure on overburdened courts. There are over 600 US trial court seats.

Several judges, including Howard and Nunley met with lawmakers and congressional staff in support of the bill.

Democrats initially supported passing the legislation before Election Day, when the president to get the first tranche of judicial appointments was unknown.

The Senate passed the bill unanimously in August. But Democrats yanked their support after Donald Trump won the election, accusing their Republican colleagues of political gamesmanship for waiting to move on the measure until then.

In its Statement of Administration Policy, the Biden administration said the legislation is “unnecessary to the efficient and effective administration of justice.” The statement from the White House budget office also said Congress failed to take into account the contributions of semi-retired senior judges and magistrate judges.

Chief Judge Randy Crane of the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas, who also visited the Capitol to support the bill, said that statement is “incorrect,” and that he “very much considered” those other judges in his request for more judgeships.

“I have helped work on that bill for over a year. It is well written and apolitical,” Crane said.

Howard and Nunley also both said that magistrate judges and senior judges were considered in the calculation.

Some federal judges still haven’t given up that Biden might change his mind. He leaves office Jan. 20, but the new Congress with Republican majorities in both chambers takes over Jan. 3.

“I have to hold out that hope,” Howard said. “Because if this legislation can’t pass, I don’t know how we would ever get a judgeship.”

Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly of the US District Court for the District of Delaware, Biden’s home state, said that the state has been in “dire need” of federal judges for four decades.

“We were optimistic that we were finally going to get the two judges that we badly need,” Connolly said.

It’s also an issue Biden knows well: The former Judiciary Committee chair was the lead Senate sponsor of the 1990 legislation creating new judgeships.