Republicans really have this war on government down pat. They have made the current Congress the most dysfunctional, least productive ever. They've starved government agencies to make them as inefficient as possible. Their obstruction of judges is wrecking that branch, too, and
the individual judges.
For many district and circuit court judges, going to work means doing their job—plus the jobs of other judges who are supposed to be there, but aren't. That's because federal courts are full of vacancies that aren't being filled by the Senate, and Congress hasn't created new judgeships in many states for decades, despite skyrocketing caseloads.
Litigants are waiting years for their civil cases to be heard because criminal cases take precedence. Judges are struggling with burnout. And many courts are relying on semi-retired judges just to stay afloat.
The Huffington Post talked to half a dozen federal judges about how court vacancies and the lack of new judgeships affect their workloads. All of them said they feel like they're underwater and desperately need more judges, but at the same time, they aren't comfortable calling out Congress for failing to do its job. Many didn't feel it appropriate for a judge to weigh in on legislative or political matters. So their situations don't change.
"For the most part, we've just resigned ourselves that this is our fate and there's nothing we can do about it," said Judge Morrison England Jr., the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California. […] "We've complained. We've begged. We've cajoled. We've done everything you can humanly do to try to get additional judgeships."
This is a fantastic story from HuffPo's Jennifer Bendery, and worth reading in total. The numbers she presents are staggering: there's an empty seat in that California district that's been open for more than 1,000 days; judges normally take 500-600 cases annually, but have more than 1,000 in this district; reaching that average caseload would require six new judgeships. That's just one district.
The same problems are playing out across the whole of the federal judiciary and what it means for the American people is justice delayed.
"What happens is you have to keep pushing civil cases further out. They've already been waiting sometimes three to four years," England said. "I get concerned when cases are so old. Memories are fading; people are no longer around. It's not serving anyone trying to get justice."
Part of the problem is that Congress has stopped creating judgeships—it hasn't done it since 1990, and there's been a 39 percent increase in cases filed at district and circuit courts. The other, massive, problem is Republican obstruction of nominees to existing vacancies, from refusing to work with President Obama to name nominees at all, to refusing to allow them to reach the Senate floor for confirmation. At this point in President George W. Bush's final year in office, the Democratic Senate had confirmed 29 judges. This year, the Republican Senate has allowed just six.
