President Biden will veto a bipartisan measure that would have filled more federal judgeships across the country, White House officials said Tuesday, raising questions about the bill’s true “motivating force” as President-elect Donald Trump takes office.
In August, the Senate unanimously passed the Judicial Understaffing Delays Getting Emergencies Solved (JUDGES) Act, which was co-sponsored by Democrats and Republicans and would have allowed the next three presidential administrations to appoint 66 federal district judges in understaffed states with a large backlog of cases.
The White House said in a statement from the Office of Management and Budget that S. 4199 was not needed for the efficient and effective administration of justice, even though judicial staffing is important to the rule of law.
“The bill would make new judgeships available in states where Senators have been trying to keep open existing judgeships.” Those efforts to keep open positions suggest that worries about the cost and number of cases being handled by judges are not the real reason for passing this bill right now.
The bill is being looked at by the House this week, more than four months after it was passed by the Senate.
The White House pointed out that Trump was re-elected before the bill was discussed in the lower chamber, which is controlled by the GOP. They seemed to be saying that there was a political reason to get the soon-to-be 47th president more appointments to the courts.
“Adding judges quickly with only a few weeks left in the 118th Congress would not answer important questions in the legislation, especially about how the judges are assigned,” the statement said.
Trump, 78, has been talking to Biden, 82, about putting together his team for a second time in the White House. This is happening at the same time that Trump asked Republican senators to block Democratic judicial nominees during the lame-duck session of Congress.
In late November, after he won the election, Trump complained on his Truth Social account, “The Democrats are trying to stack the Courts with Radical Left Judges on their way out the door.” “Senators from the Republican Party need to stand up and say no to more judges being confirmed before January 20th!”
Capitol Hill is tense because the JUDGES Act is still not moving forward. Lawmakers were quick to criticize Biden’s plan to veto the bipartisan bill.
On X, Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), one of the bill’s co-sponsors, said, “President Biden just threatened to veto my JUDGES Act of 2024, which would end the judicial crisis that has Americans waiting years for their day in court.”
“The Biden Administration’s threat to veto the JUDGES Act makes me very sad.” “This bill passed the Senate unanimously, showing that people from both parties agree that we need to fix an urgent problem with our judiciary,” said Sen. James Lankford (R-Oklahoma).
But Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) agreed with Democrats that the House was unfair when it put off acting on the bill until after the election.
Nadler said on Monday, “My coworkers and I begged them to take it up.” “We told them what was at stake.” They knew that there would be support from both parties for adding much-needed new judgeships only if the bill was signed into law before November 5, but they refused.
The Post asked Trump’s team a question, but they did not answer.