The bipartisan effort was carefully designed so that lawmakers did not knowingly give any political party an advantage in shaping the federal judiciary.
President Joe Biden on Monday vetoed a bipartisan initiative to create 66 federal district judge positions, arguing that the House of Representatives' “hasty action” left important questions about those lifetime positions unanswered.
The legislation would have spread the creation of the new lower court judge positions over more than a decade to give three presidential terms and six Congresses the opportunity to appoint the new judges. The bipartisan effort was carefully designed so that lawmakers did not knowingly give any political party an advantage in shaping the federal judiciary.
The Democratic-controlled Senate passed the measure unanimously in August.
But the Republican-led House of Representatives only brought it to the floor after Republican Donald Trump was re-elected to a second term in November, adding a veneer of political gamesmanship to the process.
The White House had said at the time that Biden would veto the bill.
“The House's rushed action does not resolve key questions in the legislation, especially regarding how new courts are assigned, and neither the House nor the Senate fully explored how the work of senior status judges and judges magistrate judges affects the need for new courts,” the president said in a statement.
“The efficient and effective administration of justice requires that these questions of need and assignment be further studied and answered before creating permanent courts for judges with lifetime appointments,” Biden said.
He stated that the bill would also have created new courts in states where senators have not filled existing judicial vacancies and that those efforts “suggest that concerns about judicial economy and caseloads are not the true motivating force behind the approval of this bill now.
“Therefore, I am vetoing this bill,” Biden said, essentially condemning the legislation for the current Congress. Overriding Biden's veto would require a two-thirds majority in both chambers of Congress, and the House vote fell well short of that margin.
Organizations representing judges and lawyers had urged Congress to vote in favor of the bill. They argued that the lack of new federal courts had contributed to deep delays in resolving cases and serious concerns about access to justice.
Sen. Todd Young, R-Indiana, reacted quickly, calling the veto a “wrong decision” and “another example of why Americans are counting the days until President Biden leaves the White House.” He alluded to a full pardon Biden recently granted to his son Hunter on federal gun and tax charges.
“The president is more enthusiastic about using his office to provide relief to his family members who received due process than he is to provide relief to the millions of regular Americans who are waiting years for their due process,” Young said. “Biden's legacy will be 'pardons for me, no justice for you.'”