TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Barry Kolar on Sep 22, 2022

Democratic lawmakers want to add 51 judges to the country's federal appeals courts, a move they say is necessary to reduce case backlogs but that would also give President Joe Biden a chance to appoint more judges, Reuters reports,. U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia on Wednesday led a group of seven Democrats in introducing the Circuit Court Judgeships Act of 2022, which they said would address understaffed appellate courts nationally. Under the bill, eight circuits would gain judges including the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit, which would get 10 more, and the conservative-leaning New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, with 13 new ones for 30 total. Despite growing caseloads, the appeals courts have not gained any new judges in over three decades.