House Republicans Renew Effort to Expand Trial Courts (1)

House Republicans are reviving legislative efforts to expand federal trial courts after Joe Biden vetoed a bipartisan bill last year.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who led the last version of the bill, previewed plans at a House Judiciary panel hearing Tuesday to put forth legislation adding judgeships that he said would “undoubtedly” advance in the House soon.

The legislation will be re-introduced this week and will have the same staggered structure as the earlier bill, which would’ve added 63 permanent and three temporary judgeships to federal district courts in tranches over the next decade, an Issa spokesperson said ahead of the hearing.

The new legislation would take effect in 2025 like earlier one, allowing President Donald Trump to appoint the first batch of trial judges.

Issa expressed a commitment at the hearing to making the effort bipartisan.

“I will not suggest a bill that both parties shouldn’t take,” Issa said. “If we’re going to have a piece of legislation, it has to be balanced, and it has to be nonpartisan to the greatest extent possible.”

The hearing, hosted by a panel Issa chairs, featured testimony from Judge Timothy Tymkovich of US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

The George W. Bush appointee described a “severe shortfall” of judges and urged Congress to address it. He noted that he’d testified on the same issue before Congress in 2013.

Democrats asked Tymkovich about Republican-led efforts to impeach judges who’ve ruled against the new Trump administration and the potential that President Donald Trump would flout court orders. Tymkovich generally declined to discuss issues outside of the need for more judgeships.

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) floated the possibility of establishing an independent agency that protects federal judges, a responsibility currently handled by the US Marshals Service, part of the Justice Department. Issa expressed interest in the idea as well, calling it “a truly bipartisan question,” and asked Tymkovich to take that idea back to the judiciary.

Past Efforts

Congress hasn’t broadly expanded the judiciary since 1990, or added a single new judgeship in over two decades. Meanwhile, federal court caseloads, and the population, have grown.

The Sacramento-based US District Court for the Eastern District of California has six active judges for a population of eight million, among the most severe disparities in the country. Federal courts near the southwest border and in Delaware, a business hub, have also seen their caseloads overwhelm the size of their benches.

The so-called JUDGES Act enjoyed the support of federal judges last Congress, some of whom visited lawmakers on Capitol Hill in-person to advocate for the legislation.

The measure sailed through the Senate, then controlled by Democrats, unanimously last summer, before it was known whether Donald Trump or Democrat Kamala Harris would get the first batch of judicial appointments.

However, the once-bipartisan bill lost the support of Democrats after House Republican leaders didn’t advance it until after Trump won the presidential election.

Democratic Concerns

This year’s effort could still face opposition from Democrats wary of handing Trump more judges to appoint this term.

Republicans and Democrats at the hearing accused the other of playing politics.

Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia, the top Democrat on the subcommittee who co-sponsored the last bill with Issa, said he’s open to a “good faith discussion” about the need for more judges, but that any new judgeships would need to begin after the Trump administration.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said Republicans are “itching to appoint loyal MAGA judges to the bench to support the lawlessness of Elon Musk and Donald Trump.”

In a statement on Monday, Raskin said it would be “unconscionable to reward this party’s constant betrayals of the Constitution and their own agreements by giving them even more power to stack the bench against the Constitution and justice.”