‘Why wouldn’t we want to allocate more judicial resources, more help, to those courts that need the help rather than to pack the D.C. Circuit Court with judges it simply doesn’t need?’
Texas Insider Report: WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) criticized President Obama and Senate Democrats on the Senate floor today for attempting to pack to the D.C. Circuit Court with additional judges for the purposes of political ideology, rather than judicial need.
His full speech can be seen here, and excerpts of his remarks are below:
“President Obama argues that the D.C. Circuit Court needs three more judges in order to get its work done. But the facts simply don’t bear that out. That’s not true.
“For example, between 2005 and 2013, the D.C. Circuit’s total number of written decisions per active judge actually went down by 27%, the number of appeals filed with the court fell by 18%. So instead of having more work to do, it has less work to do than it did in 2005.
“One D.C. Circuit Court judge recently told the Senior Senator from Iowa that if any more judges were added now, there wouldn’t be enough work to go around. Well, you might be wondering then why the President and why Senator Reid want to pack the D.C. Circuit Court with three additional judges if there’s not enough work to go around today.
“I would just note, Mr. President, that the D.C. Circuit Court also has a unique record in that it actually took four months off between May and September of this year, hardly the record of a court that has too much work to do and simply can’t get it done.
“Meanwhile, there are courts across our country, both appellate courts and district courts, that are overburdened, some of which are labeled as a judicial emergency.
“Why wouldn’t we want to allocate more judicial resources, more help, to those courts that need the help rather than to pack the D.C. Circuit Court with judges it simply doesn’t need?
“I hope that members of both parties will agree that the reasonable things to do would be to pass the Grassley bill, the Grassley compromise, to reallocate these judges to the places where they’re really needed and to prevent the stacking of this court and this reckless power grab.”
Senator Cornyn serves on the Finance and Judiciary Committees. He serves as the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee’s Immigration, Refugees and Border Security subcommittee.
