As if the
vacancy crisis in the federal judiciary weren't enough, not its contending with the sequester. According to the chief judges from 87 federal jurisdictions who
just wrote to congressional leadership pleading for an end to the cuts, it's devastating.
“[Funding reductions] have forced us to slash our operations to the bone, and we believe that our constitutional duties, public safety, and the quality of the justice system will be profoundly compromised by any further cuts,” the letter, sent from the office of Chief Judge Loretta Preska of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, said.
The letter said that flat funding, followed by the sequestration cuts that took effect in March, have had "a devastating impact on court operations nationwide" and that "[e]mergency measures were implemented throughout the federal court system to address the drastically reduced funding levels." [...]
"Still, we remain deeply concerned about the effects on our mission in the event a Continuing Resolution (CR) is enacted for the full year," the letter said. "A second year under sequestration will have a devastating, and long lasting, impact on the administration of justice is this country."
This echoes warning from none other than the
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
While emphasizing that he was speaking on behalf of the courts, not the wisdom of a given policy, Chief Justice John Roberts recently protested that the sequester’s “sustained cuts” have a “direct” and harmful impact on judicial services, leading to furloughs and layoffs.
“The idea that we have to be swept along because it is good public policy to cut everybody–I am not commenting on that policy at all–but the notion that we should just be swept along with [sequester cuts] I think is really unfounded,” Roberts said at a judicial conference in May.
That's just collateral damage in the war the Republicans are waging on American government, all three branches. That it makes daily life for millions of people demonstrably worse is of absolutely no consequence. This letter should serve as a wake-up call to them, but it won't.