“Justice delayed is justice denied.”

Legislation is pending in the Senate and House to help reduce backlogs in the nation’s district and circuit courts by authorizing additional judgeships.

A bipartisan bill was approved on a bipartisan 15-3 vote at a October 13, 2011 Senate Judiciary Committee Executive Business Meeting.  On May 17, Senator Feinstein introduced the Emergency Judicial Relief Act of 2011, which would create four new judgeships in the Eastern District of California; two in the District of Arizona; two in the Western District of Texas; one in the Southern District of Texas; and one in the District of Minnesota. The bill is co-sponsored by Senators Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), John McCain (R-Ariz.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), and Al Franken (D-Minn.)

Another bill (S. 1032), sponsored by New Mexico Senators Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall, would create four new permanent judgeships in Arizona, twenty in California, nine in Texas, and one in New Mexico. Additionally, the bill provides for five total temporary judgeships in those four states.  Rep. Ruben Hinojosa (D-Tex. ) and cosponsors introduced H.R. 2365, the Southwest Border Judgeship Expansion Act, a companion bill to S. 1032.

The Federal Judgeship Act of 2009 (S. 1653 and H.R. 3662) would have created new federal judgeships based upon non-partisan recommendations by the Judicial Conference of the United States, the federal courts’ policy making body.

On September 30, 2009, a Senate Judiciary subcommittee held a hearing that included testimony by Judge George Singal, Chair of the Judicial Conference Committee on Judicial Resources, and by Judge Lawrence O’Neill.

In 2008, prominent Republican Senators cosponsored a very similar bill, and the Judiciary Committee’s approval included the votes of two-thirds of the Committee’s Republicans.

 In 1990, when President George H.W. Bush signed the last comprehensive judges bill, he thanked then-Senate Judiciary Chairman Biden for giving him 85 new judgeships to fill.

See Statements by Members of Congress, published Commentary, and the positions of the Federal Bar Association, American Bar Association, and other organizations about these important bills.