Biden Vetoes Bill That Would Add 63 New Federal Judges Over Next Decade
President Joe Biden vetoed a bipartisan bill that would add 63 new federal judges over the next decade, explaining that the bill “fails to resolve key questions” about the allocation of judges and senior status judges.
In his statement on the Dec. 23 veto, Biden criticized the House of Representatives for rushing to “hastily add judgeships with just a few weeks left in the 118th Congress.”
The Senate unanimously passed the Judicial Understaffing Delays Getting Emergencies Solved (JUDGES) Act of 2024 in August, and the House passed it in mid-December.
Original post, Dec. 12
The U.S. House passed a bill on Thursday to add more federal judgeships to alleviate overburdened district court judges, but the White House said President Joe Biden will veto it.
In August, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed the Judicial Understaffing Delays Getting Emergencies Solved (JUDGES) Act of 2024, which is extremely rare since the chamber has a divisive partisan split with 51 Democrats and 49 Republicans.
The purpose of the bill is to alleviate overburdened federal district court judges by creating 63 new permanent district court judgeships and three new temporary district court judgeships over the next decade. Around 10 judges would be added every two years, staggering them between different presidents.
Multiple district court judges expressed their support for this bill and said how much it’s needed.
“I have been on the bench in a border court for 22 years and have seen our dockets swell dramatically during that time,” said Chief Judge Randy Crane of the Southern District of Texas. “Our current caseload is crushing. I believe the addition of judgeships to our court will dramatically decrease the backlog of cases and better enable judges to manage their caseloads in the future.”
Judge Timothy Corrigan, of the Middle District of Florida, explained that with the large volume of cases and a shortage of judges, “the saying ‘justice delayed is justice denied’ rings true here.”
The JUDGES Act would add a judge to both Crane’s and Corrigan’s courts in 2025.
This legislation was passed in the Senate months before the 2024 election. After President-elect Donald Trump won, Biden’s administration announced that he opposed the legislation.
“The bill would create new judgeships in states where Senators have sought to hold open existing judicial vacancies,” the White House said in a statement. “Those efforts to hold open vacancies suggest that concerns about judicial economy and caseload are not the true motivating force behind passage of this bill now.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said after the bill passed the House this “should not be a political issue — it should be about prioritizing the needs of the American people and ensuring the courts are able to deliver fair, impartial, and timely justice.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, accused Republicans of using this for political gain.
“Despite unanimous passage in the Senate months before the election, House Republicans decided to play politics and wait only until President-elect Trump was reelected before bringing this bill for a House vote,” Ivey said in a post on X.
Fix the Court, a nonpartisan organization advocating for open and accountable federal courts, applauded the House for advancing the JUDGES Act and urged Biden to change his mind on it.
“Given the bill’s bipartisan origins, its broad support among Democratic judicial appointees and its importance to Delaware, whose federal court would get two new judgeships — a 50 percent increase — I expect President Biden to reconsider his veto threat,” the organization said in a statement. “I doubt he’d want increased backlogs and reduced courtroom access to be part of this judicial legacy.”