Most of the members of this committee probably don’t know of my opposition to giving more judges, but I’m going to vote for this bill.
But before I give you my explanation of voting for it, I just think all of you should know why I’ve been standing in the way of some of these permanent positions. I haven’t stood in the way too much of temporary judges.
But,I’ve had questions about how the Judicial Conference allotment works out, andhaven’t been satisfied. I think this bill will help us in that direction.
I haven’t been satisfied that every senior judge is working hard, and if they aren’t doing a certain amount of work, then we’reexpending a lot of money on staff that they have and clerks that they have.
Then, what I have studied about the 93, or 92 district judges, or their districts – some of them are not working very hard, and others are way overloaded with the work that they have to do and the number of cases.
And I thought there ought to be some way that we could, by moving judges either permanently or on a temporary basis, from some district to another district,help out. [That] would be a partial solution to the problem.
And then, of course, we always put in temporary judges.
But, after the years of having these concerns about whether we ought to put on more judges or not, I’ve still got to say that the people of this country are entitled to justice, and justice is a speedy process, and when that’s slowed down, it’s not really justice.
So, those are the concerns that I’ve had until now. And, I suppose I still have some of those concerns, but I think this bill will help with some of these concerns.
First, I’d like to note for the record that, even with the changes, I still think this bill creates too many new judgeships.
So many, in fact, that it’ll end up being the largest omni-judge bill—at the district level—in over 45 years if it becomes law.
Nevertheless, my office has diligently worked with many of your offices in an attempt to improve this bill. Something I think that we’ve achieved.
So if you want to know why I’ve changed my mind on it, it’s because of the collegiality of people on this committee [who were] really willing to look for some changes in the bill.
With these changes, this bill will now more thoughtfully and deliberately create new judgeships incrementally in six tranches spread out over 12 years. Given the large amount of judges, this is a much more reasonable and manageable pace for our Judiciary.
This bill will now also improve transparency by evaluating judicial caseloads and the methods by which future judgeship recommendations are offered.
This is achieved, in part, by having the Administrative Office of the Court post the biennial Judgeship Recommendation Reports online, where it can be accessed by the public.
This bill will also direct the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to evaluate factors that may impact judicial caseloads and future judgeship recommendations. In particular, the GAO will look at the judgeship methodology for the first time in over a decade, as well as the impact of non-case time on overall judicial caseloads and the utilization of senior judges within our courts.
I’m hopeful that these efforts will ensure that judicial administration is efficient and effective. Additionally, these measures will help dispel some of the intrigue underlying these judgeship recommendations in the future.
While this bill isn’t perfect, and it does not have everything that I would’ve wanted, it is a much improved bill.
Given these changes and the good faith efforts of our colleagues, and as I’ve said twice already, I’m voting for this bill.
Before I yield back, I’d also like to thank, in particular, Senator Young and Ranking Member Graham and their staffs’ hard work on this bill. I’d also like to thank Chairman Durbin and Senator Coons and their teams for their work on this bill.
Thank you.
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