President Joe Biden on Monday vetoed legislation to add 66 new judges to understaffed federal courts nationally, a once widely bipartisan measure that would have been the first major expansion of the federal judiciary since 1990.
The JUDGES Act, initially supported by many members of both parties, would have increased the number of trial court judges in 25 federal district courts in 13 states including California, Florida and Texas, in six waves every two years through 2035.
Hundreds of judges appointed by presidents of both parties took the rare step of publicly advocating for the bill, saying federal caseloads have increased by more than 30% since Congress last passed legislation to comprehensively expand the judiciary.
But the outgoing Democratic president made good on a veto threat issued two days before the bill passed the Republican-led House of Representatives on Dec. 12.
“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 in a message to the Senate formally rejecting the bill on Monday.
By staggering the new judgeships over three presidential administrations, the bill’s sponsors had hoped to get around lawmakers’ longstanding concerns about creating new vacancies that a president of an opposing party could fill.
It received the Democratic-led Senate’s unanimous approval in August. But the bill lingered in the Republican-led House and was only taken up for a vote after Donald Trump won the Nov. 5 election and the chance to name the first batch of 25 judges.
That prompted accusations from top House Democrats, who also began to abandon the measure, that their Republican colleagues had broken a central promise of the legislation by having lawmakers approve the bill when no one knew who would appoint the initial wave of judges.
In his message to the Senate, Biden added that the bill would have added judgeships in states where senators have sought to hold open existing vacancies, suggesting their professed concerns about excessive caseloads “are not the true motivating force behind passage of this bill now.”
