House could vote to add dozens of fed­er­al judge­ships despite Demo­c­ra­t­ic defec­tions

The Sen­ate-passed JUDGES Act, which would dis­trib­ute new judge­ships in phas­es across three pres­i­den­tial admin­is­tra­tions, ini­tial­ly enjoyed broad back­ing in both cham­bers amid con­cerns among sev­er­al key states for more fed­er­al dis­trict court posi­tions. How­ev­er, bipar­ti­san sup­port for the leg­is­la­tion has waned as some Democ­rats, includ­ing Pres­i­dent Joe Biden’s admin­is­tra­tion, have voiced con­cerns about hand­ing Pres­i­dent-elect Don­ald Trump addi­tion­al judi­cial appoint­ments.

A White House offi­cial famil­iar with the mat­ter told the Wash­ing­ton Exam­in­er the Biden admin­is­tra­tion has con­cerns about the leg­is­la­tion, but declined to elab­o­rate fur­ther, a poten­tial­ly trou­bling sign for the bill even if it pass­es the House.

Mean­while, lead­ing Democ­rats are grow­ing wary of see­ing the bill through to the White House. Rep. Jer­rold Nadler (D‑NY), a rank­ing mem­ber of the House Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tee, said Wednes­day he now oppos­es the bill after he ini­tial­ly co-spon­sored an ear­li­er ver­sion of the leg­is­la­tion. Last month, Rep. Hank John­son (D‑LA) also said he would now vote against it.

“The idea before the elec­tion was: We didn’t know who would win,” Nadler told Bloomberg, ask­ing why Democ­rats would want to hand over more judi­cial vacan­cies “to Trump?”

Uni­ver­si­ty of Rich­mond law pro­fes­sor Carl Tobias told the Wash­ing­ton Exam­in­er if Nadler and John­son “feel strong­ly” about vot­ing against it, “they may well sug­gest to [Biden] that he veto it. That’s cer­tain­ly a pos­si­bil­i­ty.”

In the midst of uncer­tain­ty over whether the House would con­sid­er the bill for a floor vote before the end of the 118th Con­gress, the bill on Thurs­day was sched­uled for con­sid­er­a­tion. The Com­mit­tee on Rules will con­vene at 4 p.m. Mon­day to con­sid­er the mea­sure.

If the JUDGES Act passed the House and was signed into law by Biden, it would auto­mat­i­cal­ly give Trump 11 more judge­ship slots to fill in 2025 and 11 in 2027, not includ­ing the dozens of poten­tial vacan­cies Trump will already have a chance to fill when he returns to the Oval Office.

There are cur­rent­ly more than 600 dis­trict court judge­ships across the coun­try, and a pas­sage of this bill would mark the largest expan­sion of the fed­er­al judi­cia­ry since 1990.

House Judi­cia­ry Chair­man Jim Jor­dan (R‑OH) has expressed hope that the bill would pass, as Repub­li­cans need only min­i­mal Demo­c­ra­t­ic sup­port to advance the leg­is­la­tion.

Notably, the bill would ben­e­fit Demo­c­rat-led states, the largest ben­e­fi­cia­ry being Cal­i­for­nia, which would receive 21 new slots for future admin­is­tra­tions to fill. In Repub­li­can-led states like Texas, the state stands to gain 13 dis­trict court judges over time.

Rep. Zoe Lof­gren (D‑CA) expressed reser­va­tions about the bill, say­ing the tim­ing “feels sus­pect” giv­en that dis­cus­sions around the bill have spanned years. But oth­er Democ­rats like Rep. Doris Mat­sui (CA) remained cog­nizant of the orig­i­nal bipar­ti­san sup­port for the leg­is­la­tion, say­ing it is “crit­i­cal” for the Gold­en State to gain more judges, accord­ing to Bloomberg.

Tobias said he could fore­see the bill’s pas­sage in the House if enough Repub­li­cans and a few Democ­rats grav­i­tate behind the mea­sure, but not­ed some mem­bers of the House Free­dom Cau­cus could raise con­cerns about the mea­sure.

Although the Judi­cial Con­fer­ence, the pol­i­cy­mak­ing body of the judi­cia­ry, has sup­port­ed the mea­sure, the Free­dom Caucus’s pol­i­cy chair­man, Rep. Chip Roy (R‑TX), took aim at the super­vi­so­ry body of the fed­er­al court sys­tem in Octo­ber over what he called an “ide­o­log­i­cal pow­er grab.”

The Judi­cial Con­fer­ence took heat from Repub­li­cans includ­ing Roy ear­li­er this year when it announced guid­ance for fed­er­al courts to pro­hib­it sin­gle-judge divi­sions from hear­ing cer­tain cas­es in an effort to com­bat judge shop­ping, which refers to lit­i­gants who tar­get cer­tain divi­sions with the goal of get­ting a poten­tial­ly more favor­able judge assigned to weigh a case of inter­est to the par­ties who filed suit.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

The JUDGES Act would cre­ate 63 per­ma­nent and three tem­po­rary dis­trict court judge­ships, with seats allo­cat­ed to states led by both Demo­c­ra­t­ic and Repub­li­can sen­a­tors.

The bill also includes safe­guards, such as the con­tin­u­a­tion of the Senate’s “blue-slip” process, allow­ing home-state sen­a­tors to veto nom­i­nees.