Senate votes to expand federal courts, create dozens of new judge openings

Whoever wins the 2024 presidential election could have 22 new federal judge positions to fill, in addition to the vacant seats that arise due to resignations, retirements and promotions. Congress is working to create 63 new permanent district judgeships, the first new seats since 2003. 

The Judges Act of 2024 passed the Senate unanimously and it now heads to the House.

If the bill is signed into law, the next president will be able to appoint 11 of the judges in 2025 and 11 more in 2027. Those 22 seats span the country. There are six in California, four in Texas and three in Florida, while the rest are dispersed in smaller states. 

Not only would the bill create the first news seats since 2003, it would be the first significant expansion since 1990. 

“Our federal courts are in a genuine crisis of workload,” Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said. “Not since 1990 have we added any significant amount of new federal judges. Since then, our nation has added 100 million people, federal filings have increased 40% and the weighted case average across our nation is 550 cases per judge.” 

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, was initially concerned the bill created too many new positions. So, the authors spread out the appointments. The bill will add 10 or 11 new seats every odd numbered year from 2025 to 2035. 

“The people of this country are entitled to justice and justice is a speedy process. And when that slowed down it’s not really justice,” Grassley said when announcing he’d vote for the bill. 

District courts hear a bulk of the nation’s court cases. More than 353,000 criminal and civil cases were filed at the district court level in 2023. Due to the backlog, at year’s end there were 702,433 pending cases. District courts are the ultimate decider in a vast majority of cases. For instance, in 2023, only 40,681 appeals were made to the circuit courts. 

The Supreme Court typically gets all the attention when senators and the president campaign on judicial issues. The reality is, of the more than 400 combined judicial appointments made by President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, approximately 330 were at the district level. These judges receive lifetime appointments, so they make decisions far longer than the president who nominated them stays in office.