Republican-led House panel advances bill to add more judges

By Nate Raymond

March 5 (Reuters) - A U.S. House of Representatives panel advanced a bill on Wednesday to add 66 new judges to understaffed federal courts nationwide, reviving a measure former President Joe Biden in one of his final acts vetoed as Democrats began balking at giving Donald Trump the ability to appoint additional judges.

The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee on a nearly party-line 16-11 vote signed off on a re-introduced version of the JUDGES Act that, if passed, would usher in the first major expansion of the federal judiciary since 1990.

The measure, long sought by the judiciary, is identical to one that unanimously passed the U.S. Senate last year when it was then in Democratic control and that later cleared the Republican-led House on a 236-173 vote.

But Biden vetoed the bill, citing in part the House's delay in taking it up. The House voted for that measure only after Trump won the Nov. 5 election, when it was clear the Republican president could appoint the first 25 new judges.

U.S. Representative Darrell Issa, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee's panel on courts, on Wednesday said the need for new judges remained, citing a need for more judges to address a "staggering" backlog of cases in many jurisdictions.

"It is, in fact, necessary for the effective administration of justice," he said. "The bill takes critical steps to strengthen our federal judiciary and restore the ability to serve the people effectively."

He urged his Democratic House colleagues who had pre-election backed the legislation to do so again.

He said even if Trump had the power to name the first 25 judges, his ability to do so would be restricted since the majority were in states with Democratic senators, who could wield "blue slips" to block him from appointing conservative judges in their home states they did not support.

But ultimately only one Democrat on the committee voted for the bill, Representative Lou Correa of California, whose state would gain 21 judges over a decade.

Representative Jamie Raskin, the panel's top Democrat, said that while he agreed the courts needed more judges, he could not support giving Trump more influence over the courts and that Democrats would only support the bill if his ability to do so was eliminated.

Trump made 234 judicial appointments during his first term in office, including three members of the U.S. Supreme Court's 6-3 conservative majority, and is expected even without the JUDGES Act to appoint over 100 more in his second term.

"Obviously we're not going to be party to another court-packing scheme," Raskin said.

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