And the Republicans might even go along with that….
As Democrats plot their strategy, they are floating expanding the number of lower court seats, an idea that could have some bipartisan support.
“I have in the city of Buffalo a huge — they don’t have enough judges. There’s this long line before you can get to court because they don’t have enough. So we could expand those,” Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said during a recent interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the majority whip and incoming Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, also appeared open to the idea, saying that a GOP senator had already raised the issue with him.
“Interestingly enough, I had a Republican senator who approached me about expanding the number of federal judges in his state so there seems to be some sentiment that there [are] backlogs in the dockets of federal judges,” Durbin said.
Expanding the number of court seats would require legislation in Congress, including GOP support in the Senate.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) hasn’t discussed the issue with Durbin but said he is willing to discuss more lower court judgeships.
…
Biden is starting his presidency with the fewest number of judicial vacancies since former President George H.W. Bush, according to FiveThirtyEight.
But Democrats are hinting that additional vacancies could be coming as judges who might have been wary of retiring during the Trump administration begin to take senior status, which would help Biden, who previously chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee, broaden his ability to shape the courts.
Republicans publicly pressured GOP-appointed judges to step down last year as their control of the White House and the Senate GOP majority increasingly and accurately appeared in jeopardy.
“There will be lots of vacancies that come up. And I think there are a lot of judges, Democratic appointees who didn’t take senior status while Trump was president who now will, and … then we get to fill it,” Schumer said.
The federal courts have emerged as a growing lightning rod in recent years as the Senate has been buffeted by back-to-back Supreme Court fights and Democrats have faced growing pressure from their base to enact broad judicial reforms…
Federal Courts were already backed up.The pandemic will make things are lot worse.
This is definitely needed.
Republican voters and leaders (like police and prosecutors) generally want verdicts (and if guilty) punishment to come much more quickly than at present.
Their natural allies and supporters in business (which depends on as much certainty as possible) want lawsuits resolved quickly — even when on the losing end. Waiting uncertain years and then losing is the worst possible outcome for them, but only slightly worse than waiting all those uncertain years and winning or tying.
¶ But that’s matched on the other side by Democrats, liberals, progressives, minority-group advocates, public defenders and defense lawyers who hate to see criminal and civil defendants wait (in various degrees of confinement or freedom) for years that are also uncertain for them.
¶ When Cong. Gabby Giffords was shot and a quite conservative Federal judge killed, the two of them were working closely together to increase his overworked bench.
…For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin?…
Hamlet, Act III, scene 1