I decided to change the name of my weekly Capital review to “Weekly Roundup” instead of “Weekly Purge”. Getting bills to become law, is like herding cats, rather than the visual you get from a horror movie, though as we move into the next congress, it may have elements of that more than I’m willing to admit today.
Just so you understand what is involved in tracking activity on Capital Hill, I have an example for you for December 12th in the House of Representatives: House passed a bill that originated in the Senate to add more district Judges.
The floor opened at around 9am, and the first bill to be considered was Senate Bill 4199 “To authorize additional district judges for the district courts and convert temporary judgeships.” I circled it because this is contentious: it was originally a bipartisan bill to break the logjam of cases all over the country by allocating 11 judges per each of the next 6 sessions of Congress in the next three unknown administrations. Over 600,000 cases have been delayed and languishing because of overload in the courts, and many years have passed since the government has considered expanding the number of judges.
According to House Democrats, this agreement hinged on having the bill passed before the presidential election, which has come and gone. Democrats argue that the agreement is null and void, and should not go forward since we now know who will get the first 22 judges to appoint for lifetime positions. The vote passed the house on this day - 207 to 173; 29 Democrats voted for this bill. Upon cursory glance, it would appear those Democrats who’s districts would benefit from the extra judges. But, its not as simple as that. On August 1st, the Senate unanimously passed the bill S.4199. There were also some last minute changes to the bill that I’m not clear on.
Additionally, I searched through other media to see who and what is being reported about this? I found this video of Jim Jordan and Jerry Nadler arguing for and against the bill on 9 December:
The argument hinges on the failure of the leadership of the Republican controlled house to bring the bill up for voting since August. They waited until December, after the election to bring it up on the calendar. The Republicans argue that Senators have ability to weigh in on those appointments. The Democrats argue that Trump isn’t required to listen to those (Democrat) Senators and probably won’t given his previous behavior (appointing partisan judges who overturned Roe v. Wade and then taking credit for it). Republicans hand waved this argument.
I can see the politics being played on the Republican side, as much as they deny it. At the same token, we’re talking about district court judges - not appellate judges, so I’m guessing it won’t alter significantly, the movement of cases upwards toward the Supreme Court. Here is the readout of the law from the Congressional Record, with the full bill:
I highlighted in yellow the bill, and highlighted in green the specific new judgeships created that Trump will be able to appoint - with Senate approval required - in 2025 (3 in California, 1 in Delaware, 1 in Florida, 1 in Indiana, 1 in Iowa, 1 in New Jersey, 1 in New York, and 2 in Texas), and 2027 (1 in Arizona, 4 in California, 2 in Florida, 1 in Georgia, 1 in Idaho, and 2 in Texas). If this is not Vetoed by the President, then we’ll need to see how these appointments impact the judicial process, or not. From a partisan perspective, this is more of “death by a thousand cuts.”
Notable Cases heard by the Supreme Court over the past week include US v. Skremetti, determining if a Tennessee bill prohibiting medical treatments of trans minors, is legal:
The oral arguments were presented December 4th by Chase Strangio, the first out trans lawyer to argue before the court:
The Administration continues to pull names out of a hat to pick administration nominees. See my spreadsheet at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_t9EiTdtTLP63FfQC7bRbD0hXuQ41HagMKk2K8vLHsQ/edit?usp=sharing to see them all. Latest entry is Kari Lake to head Voice of America. Wow.