Senate Unanimously Passes Padilla’s JUDGES Act to Address Judicial Emergencies
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, the Senate unanimously passed bipartisan legislation led by U.S. Senators Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Todd Young (R-Ind.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), and James Lankford (R-Okla.) to address the judicial emergencies occurring in district courts across America. The Judicial Understaffing Delays Getting Emergencies Solved (JUDGES) Act would address these judicial shortages by increasing the number of federal district judges across the country in line with the nonpartisan recommendations made by the Judicial Commission, including an additional 21 judges across the four California districts. The bill now heads to the House of Representatives.
Courts across the country are overburdened and facing a shortage of federal judges. As of March 31, 2023, there were 686,797 pending cases in federal district courts across the country, averaging 491 filings per judgeship over a 12-month period. Compare that to 1990, the last time Congress passed comprehensive legislation to address judicial shortages, when there were just 279,589 pending cases across the country. Last year, the Judicial Conference of the United States, a nonpartisan policy-making body for federal courts, recommended that Congress create 66 new district court judgeships, including 21 overdue judgeships in California, to help alleviate this crisis.
“Every American deserves to have their day in court in a timely manner, but U.S. district courts across California and the nation have been overwhelmed by pending cases with far too few judges to hear them,” said Senator Padilla. “This bipartisan legislation would help reduce unacceptably long litigation wait times by adding 21 judges to federal district courts throughout California over the next 11 years. I am thrilled to see this bipartisan legislation unanimously pass the Senate, and I urge my colleagues in the House to act with urgency to address these critical shortages.”
This bipartisan bill would act on the findings in the 2023 Judicial Conference of the United States report by adding the recommended judgeships every two years over the next three presidential terms. In California, a state with several of the most overworked and understaffed districts in the country, the bill would create additional much-needed judgeships: nine in the Central District, four in the Eastern District, six in the Northern District, and two in the Southern District.
Congress bears the constitutional responsibility of establishing judgeships in the district courts of the United States. However, the last comprehensive authorization of new judgeships, which established 11 additional circuit court judgeships and 74 district court judgeships across America, occurred in 1990. Since then, targeted legislation enacted between 1999 and 2003 created 34 additional district court judgeships. It has now been two decades since Congress last authorized additional district judgeships.
Full text of the bill is available here.
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