In a move that reflects the ongoing tensions between the White House and Congress in the lame-duck session before the new administration is sworn in, President Joe Biden issued a statement saying he’d veto the bipartisan JUDGES Act. The legislation aims to address a long-standing judicial shortage and has led to a backlog of cases.
The act, which had passed through the Senate with overwhelming support and was on its way to the House, would create 63 permanent judicial positions. If enacted, it would have given Donald Trump the authority to appoint 22 of those new judges when he returns to the White House—an outcome that has raised significant concerns among Democrats.
“The bill would create new judgeships in states where Senators have sought to hold open existing judicial vacancies,” said the statement from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget on Tuesday. “Those efforts to hold open vacancies suggest that concerns about judicial economy and caseload are not the true motivating force behind passage of this bill now.”
The White House also sharply criticized the bill’s rushed timing. While the Senate passed the measure in August, the House didn’t take it up until after the election—giving lawmakers only a few weeks to finalize such a significant piece of legislation before the 118th Congress concluded.
“Further, the Senate passed this bill in August, but the House refused to take it up until after the election,” the statement added. “Hastily adding judges with just a few weeks left in the 118th Congress would fail to resolve key questions in the legislation, especially regarding how the judges are allocated.”
The passage of the JUDGES Act, now that Trump is set to take office, means that he would be in a position to make significant judicial appointments—around a third of the new judgeships. The timing of the bill’s consideration after the election, Democrats argue, suggests that it’s more about influencing the future makeup of the judiciary than addressing the actual workload of the courts.
“The magic of this undertaking was we were going to do it before the election, so no one knew who had the advantage or not,” said Sen. Richard J. Durbin to The New York Times. “I think the magic of the moment’s been lost.”
California Republican Rep. Darrell Issa said to CNN on Tuesday that the legislation earned “the support of a unanimous Senate and a strong bipartisan majority in the House,” adding, “The Biden White House can veto this bill, but it can’t stop a consensus idea whose time has come.
Speaker Mike Johnson also weighed in on Tuesday. “The bipartisan JUDGES Act passed unanimously in the Senate months ago. But NOW the White House has a problem with it for ONE reason,” he wrote on X. “America just elected Trump. The American people deserve timely justice & the Biden-Harris White House shouldn’t stand in the way.”
According to a CNN report, House Republicans said they were unable to vote on it before the election because work needed to be done for it, and other legislation took priority.
The fight over the JUDGES Act isn’t just about the number of judges—it’s a high-stakes battle over the ideological direction of the judiciary. With the prospect of 22 new judgeships being filled by a Trump administration, the Democrats’ battle of the courts signifies a party that’s strategizing on how to amass power that’s quickly waning.
Campaign Action
