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.

As drafted, the bill would take effect immediately after passage and provide direct relief for our burdened federal judiciary. Yet, some want to play partisan politics by suggesting that the bill should not take effect until four years from now, in 2013. This would be an abrupt deviation from past judgeship bills which have never had an effective date beyond a year from passage - including the bill introduced last year with Republican support.

Since the last time Congress passed a comprehensive judgeship bill in 1990, filings have risen by 42 percent in the courts of appeals and by 34 percent in the district courts. Piecemeal efforts to add judges in the intervening years have failed to meet the growing demands placed on the system.

Today's average weighted filings per district court judgeship is 472, and many districts are in direr straits. For example, the Western District of Texas has an average caseload of 688 per judge; the District of Minnesota has 799; and the Eastern District of California has a whopping 970. Moreover, court of appeals filings have risen more than 50 percent in less than ten years, from 40,898 in 1990 to 61,492 in 2008. Based on 2008 figures, the average caseload per three-judge appeal panel was 1,049 - dramatically above the 773 average in 1991.

These rising caseloads threaten to diminish the quality of the judicial system. The heavy workload placed upon our federal judiciary is slowing the delivery of justice. Litigants pursuing claims of workplace, gender, disability, age, or race discrimination in the civil context often have their case pushed aside so that judges have time to deal with the cases on their ever-growing criminal dockets.

Federal courts must have an adequate number of judges to safeguard our most cherished rights and liberties. And, especially in today's tough economic times, litigation costs become an even bigger concern as cases are drawn out over time.

The Federal Judgeship Act of 2009 is long overdue. Senators from both parties should come together to meet the needs of all Americans for access to equal justice under the law. Justice delayed is justice denied.