As we feared, President Biden has vetoed the JUDGES Act, a bipartisan bill that would have created new federal judgeships for the first time in more than three decades.
The bill would have added new judges over ten years, assuring both that the American public had sufficient judges in its federal system to handle the growing daily workload, and that no single President or Congress would have control over all the appointments. (The benefits of the bill are fleshed out more fully here.) Biden’s veto is shortsighted and spiteful, hurting a sister branch of government with no concomitant benefit to him or anyone else.
The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts expressed its own disappointment in a statement from Judge Robert Conrad:
“The President’s veto of the JUDGES Act is extremely disappointing. Providing additional judgeships is essential to improving access to the courts and necessary for the efficient and effective administration of justice, as the Judiciary stated in a recent letter to the President addressing issues raised by the Administration in objection to the bill. The judgeship legislation presented to the President reflects decades of work by the federal Judiciary and is very similar to legislation introduced in the last Congress. It is not a bill that was hastily put together. Rather it is the product of careful and detailed analysis which considers primarily the weighted caseload per active judge in each judicial district, while also factoring in the contribution of senior judges, magistrate judges and visiting judges.”
Happy holidays to all my readers. Wishing you peace, love, and happier news for the judiciary in the year ahead.
The Interdependent Third Branch 