This week, House Republicans are positioning for a vote on a bipartisan bill aimed at incrementally increasing federal judgeships around the nation by 66. Yet, Democrats appear to be rethinking their position now that President-elect Donald Trump has secured a second term. The White House expressed on Tuesday that rival President Joe Biden would reject the bill if it were placed in front of him. With Congress nearly split along party lines, a veto would unlikely be overturned, suggesting a dim future for this bill in the current year.
This sudden shift in stance comes as a shock since the proposal was unanimously approved by the Senate in August. However, Republicans, who dominate the House, delayed action until post-election. The proposal seeks a phased introduction of new district judgeships over an estimated ten-year period, with the intention of allowing three presidential administrations to appoint the new judges.
Rep. Jerry Nadler, a Democrat from New York, articulated that the bill was negotiated keeping in mind that three future presidents would have an opportunity to mold the judiciary system. He implicitly reassured everyone that no particular party would knowingly be given an upper hand.
Republican chairman of House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jim Jordan, justified the delay with disarming simplicity: ‘We just didn’t get to the legislation.’ The switch in attitude displayed by certain Democrats, coupled with the new urgency expressed by House Republicans to consider this bill, brings into sharp focus the contentious nature of politics circling federal judicial vacancies.
It’s not surprising that lawmakers often show reluctance to pave the way for opposing party presidents to shape the judiciary. Nadler hinted that the bill would provide Trump an advantage with 25 judicial nominations on top of the estimated 100-plus openings that are projected to arise over the next four years.
Nadler continued, ‘Trump has already made clear his intentions to strengthen the executive arm. Providing him the power to appoint 25 new judges merely equips him with an extra tool to accomplish this.’ Despite these voiced concerns, he said he would be open to considering similar legislation in the future that gives more judicial appointments to ‘as-yet-unknown future presidents.’ Until then, he is advising his colleagues to vote against the current bill.
Congress authorized its last new district judgeship over two decades ago. Meanwhile, the stream of cases brought before the judges continues to surge unabated, often leaving litigants waiting years for a resolution. In contrast, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, a former federal court litigator from Louisiana, sang rich praises for the bill, arguing that it filled a dire need.
The proposal to usher new judgeships into existence was first floated by Sen. Todd Young, a Republican from Indiana, back in 2020. Last year saw the Judicial Conference of the United States, the body responsible for policy-making within the federal court system, recommending several additional district and court of appeals judgeships to manage the rising workload in certain courts.
Judge Timothy Corrigan from the Middle District of Florida opined, ‘While judges strive their best every day, the increasing demands combined with our judge shortage make it quite a challenge.’ The backlog of cases, he stressed, could threaten public faith in the judicial process, but the bill could cater to the federal judiciary’s need for more judges.
Echoing similar sentiments, Rep. Jordan reported that, at the close of June, nearly 750,000 cases were pending in the nation’s federal district courts. Each judge is grappling, on average, with 554 files. When pressed if Republicans would have advocated for the bill if the election had favored Vice President Kamala Harris, Jordan diffused the question, saying that the bill was ‘the right thing to do.’
He then proceeded to tease that the initial batch of judges would hail from regions where both senators are Democrats, thus coaxing them into the nomination discussions, before Trump made his appointments. However, the White House Office of Management and Budget issued a veto threat, expressing that the bill would unveil new judgeships in states where senators are striving to maintain judicial vacancies.
The White House argued that such actions of preserving vacancies reveal that genuine concerns around judicial economy and caseload are perhaps not the real motivations driving the bill’s passage. Republic Senator and leader Mitch McConnell from Kentucky was quick to respond, expressing interest in Biden’s reasoning behind such a move.
McConnell displayed disbelief at Biden’s seeming intention to veto a clearly prudential step, dubbing it virtually inconceivable. He implied that any veto would be the result of a sour attitude from Biden, making him appear a lame-duck president unwilling to take practical steps forward. Instead, his actions give an impression of a man motivated by petty resentment against progress that the bill represents rather than giving precedence to republican democracy.