Biden vetoes bill to add 66 federal judges, leaves courts overworked, understaffed | Opinion

Judges in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California have been overworked and understaffed for decades. Now, no thanks to President Joe Biden, there will be no relief coming for one of the busiest district courts in the country.

The president vetoed the Judicial Understaffing Delays Getting Emergencies Solved (JUDGES) Act of 2024, nonpartisan legislation that would have added 66 new judgeships starting this year and then every two years through 2035. California could have been one of 13 states to receive the new judges.

Instead, Biden waded into politics by rejecting the first comprehensive judgeship bill in more than three decades.

The bill, he said in his Dec. 23 veto message, “seeks to hastily add judgeships with just a few weeks left in the 118th Congress.” The president raised unimportant questions about the allocation of the new positions and how the work of senior status judges and magistrate judges affect the need for new judgeships.

“The efficient and effective administration of justice requires that these questions about need and allocation be further studied and answered before we create permanent judgeships for life-tenured judges,” Biden said.

There is no need for further studies, not when the number of pending federal civil cases has risen 346% over the past 20 years, according to the federal courts policy-making Judicial Conference. As of March, there were about 82,000 pending cases in federal courts.

In the Eastern District of California, which serves more than 8.4 million residents in 34 counties stretching from Redding to Bakersfield, there are six judges handling an average of 1,305 pending cases. Felony criminal cases take more than 28 months for disposition; civil cases last an average of 10.4 months. The Judicial Conference had recommended the Eastern District Court get four more judges.

“That court has been overworked and understaffed for decades really, because they don’t have enough judges and they have too many cases,” Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor, told The Fresno Bee in 2023 when Judge Ana de Alba was confirmed to the district court. “They carry like twice the caseload of the average judge around the country.”

Politicizing the judiciary is wrong

For Biden or Congress to politicize a solution to a problem is sad, bad and unnecessary.

Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, backed the JUDGES Act. “This legislation transcends partisanship — it’s about delivering timely justice for millions of Americans,” he said. “By expanding judgeships in the Eastern District of California, we will ensure that cases are heard without unnecessary delays.”

The president questioned why the House of Representatives waited until Dec. 12 to pass a bill that the Senate passed in August. The answer? Politics.

House Republicans were swayed by the November election.

Why did Biden veto a bill that was recommended to Congress in 2023 by the Judicial Conference of the United States? The answer, again, is politics. Incoming President Donald Trump would get to appoint 25 of the new judgeships.

Biden was rightfully criticized, by Democrats and Republicans, for his veto. Federal judge Robert Conrad, director of the administrative office of the U.S. Courts, said the veto was “extremely disappointing.”

“It is not a bill that was hastily put together,” he said in a statement. “Rather it is the product of careful and detailed analysis which considers primarily the weighted caseload per active judge in each judicial district, while also factoring in the contribution of senior judges, magistrate judges and visiting judges.”

Federal judges, like Chief Judge Randy Crane of the Southern District of Texas, are correct to fear delays will erode public confidence in the judiciary and steer potential litigants away from federal courts.

“Without having a jury hear your case and a judge rule on legal issues in a timely manner, you stall the progression of legal precedents that are vital to economic, technological, and social advancement, and undermine public trust in the legal system.”

It’s time to get politics out of the judicial system.

This story was originally published January 3, 2025 at 12:24 PM.