Nan Aron

A new bill that would provide much-needed relief for the federal judiciary is caught up in the "say no to everything" approach of Senate Republicans.

No one disagrees that American courts need more judges. What's different now is that rather than both parties working together to pass legislation to create more seats, Republicans are refusing to support this effort.

As Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee stated in a letter to The Wall Street Journal on Oct. 14: "Just as I have sponsored bipartisan bills incorporating the Judicial Conference's recommendations during the past eight years, I have done so again this year. The difference this year is that no Senate Republican is cosponsoring the effort. They have all apparently had a change of heart now that we have a Democratic president."

Senator Leahy, along with 18 co-sponsors, recently introduced The Federal Judgeship Act of 2009 to address the needs of our overburdened judiciary. The legislation would establish 12 new judgeships in six courts of appeals and 51 new judgeships in 25 district courts. The Act mirrors the recommendations of the Judicial Conference of the United States - chaired by Chief Justice John Roberts - which carefully assessed court workloads and other local factors including the number of senior, magistrate, and visiting judges; geographical factors; and case complexity. The Judicial Conference conducts a rigorous six-step process before making a final judgeship recommendation to Congress in its biennial report. The outcome balances the need to control growth with the need to seek vital and important resources appropriate for the judiciary's caseload. 

A similar bill introduced last year had the backing of a number of Republican Senators, including Sens. Orrin Hatch (R- Utah), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) who voted for its passage in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Currently, this year's bill only has support from Democratic members. Support from senators on both sides of the aisle will be critical to passage. In 1990, a Democratic Congress and a Republican president came together in bipartisan fashion to address the resource needs of a coequal branch of government.