WASHINGTON – On today’s news that Congressman Hank Johnson, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet, introduced the District Court Judgeships Act of 2021, and on yesterday’s news that Senators Chris Coons and Todd Young introduced bipartisan legislation to authorize additional judgeships, Constitutional Accountability Center (CAC) President Elizabeth Wydra issued the following statement:

“CAC commends the sponsors and cosponsors of these critical pieces of legislation, both of which aim to address a problem that has been documented by countless organizations and institutions, including the nonpartisan Judicial Conference headed by Chief Justice John Roberts — our federal court system does not have enough judges to efficiently carry out its job of administering justice.

As CAC stated in congressional testimony earlier this year, Congress has not significantly increased the number of federal judgeships since 1990, even as our nation has grown in population by a third, and even as the number of cases filed has increased.  This has consequences.  As of March 31, 2020, there were nearly 30,000 civil cases pending for more than three years, and 99% of those cases were before a federal district court judge.

If justice delayed is justice denied, then failing to increase the number of lower court judges is nothing less than a denial of justice to the American people.”

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RESOURCES 

CAC Statement for Hearing on “The Need for New Lower Court Judgeships, 30 Years in the Making”
Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet
United States House of Representatives, February 24, 2021
https://www.theusconstitution.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/CAC-Statement-2021-02-24-HJC-Courts-Hearing-on-The-Need-for-New-Judgeships-30-Years-in-the-Making-1.pdf 

“The Judicial Conference Rightly Continues to Request Additional Judgeships” Becca Damante, March 18 2021
https://www.theusconstitution.org/blog/the-judicial-conference-rightly-continues-to-request-additional-judgeships/

Lower Court Expansion Letter to HJC-2.24.21.
https://www.theusconstitution.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Lower-Court-Expansion-Letter-to-HJC-2.24.21.pdf