House passes bill to add new judges amid Biden veto threat

Source: Roll Call

Posted December 12, 2024 at 1:24pm


The House passed a bill Thursday that would create dozens of new federal district court judgeships for the first time in decades, although the Biden administration has threatened to veto it. Supporters of the legislation, which passed the House 236-173 on Thursday and the Senate via unanimous consent in August, say the bill is aimed at addressing case backlogs in the federal court system. The measure would add 63 permanent positions to the federal judiciary and three temporary positions. The permanent positions would be created in phases between 2025 and 2035.

In total, 207 House Republicans and 29 House Democrats voted for the measure. Members of both parties agreed the federal judiciary needs more judges. But the timing of the vote drew opposition from the Biden administration and some House Democrats, who said Republicans were playing political games by refusing to bring the bill up for a floor vote until after the November general election.

By waiting to vote on the bill until after the election, there is no longer uncertainty over which presidential candidate would get to appoint the first two tranches of judgeships, which would come in 2025 and 2027, Democrats argued. New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, argued that when the bill arrived in the House, Republican leadership refused to touch it.

“If Republican leadership had brought the bill to the House floor in September, we could have passed it on suspension in no time,” Nadler said. “Back then, the president would still have been unknown, and the underlying promise of the bill was still present.”

Read more: https://rollcall.com/2024/12/12/house-passes-bill-to-add-new-judges-amid-biden-veto-threat/