President Joe Biden vetoed a bipartisan bill that would have created 63 permanent federal judgeships. The bill aimed to address an increased population and resulting caseload in the federal court system. Had Biden signed the Judges Act, President-elect Donald Trump would have been able to appoint 22 of the new judges. The legislation passed the Senate unanimously and the House by a vote of 236-173.
Biden cited the bill’s hasty passage as his reason for the veto. In a statement, he argued that the House’s “hurried action fails to resolve key questions in the legislation, especially regarding how the new judgeships are allocated,” and criticized the lack of thorough consideration of the impact of senior status judges and magistrate judges on the need for additional judgeships.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell strongly criticized Biden’s veto, accusing the president of naked partisanship and selfish spite. McConnell stated that it was “hard to imagine a justification for blocking the JUDGES Act that doesn’t smack of naked partisanship,” adding that it was “almost inconceivable that a lame-duck president could consider vetoing such an obviously prudential step for any reason other than selfish spite.”
The number of federal judgeships has not significantly expanded in 35 years, despite a 100 million-person increase in the U.S. population and a 40% rise in federal case filings during that time. Proponents of the bill argued that this has led to significant delays and overburdened judges. The bill proposed adding 10 or 11 new judgeships every odd-numbered year from 2025 to 2035, strategically targeting the busiest regions across 13 states.
Biden further argued that the bill’s allocation of judgeships was politically motivated, stating that it would create new judgeships in states where senators had sought to keep existing judicial vacancies open. He suggested this indicated that concerns about judicial economy and caseload were not the primary reasons for the bill’s passage.
If enacted, the bill would have allowed President Trump to appoint 11 judges in 2025 and another 11 in 2027. These 22 judgeships would have been distributed across the country, with a significant number allocated to California (6), Texas (4), and Florida (3), with the remainder dispersed among smaller states.