Senate Unanimously Passes Landmark Bill to Add 66 Federal Judgeships

Sen. Todd Young (R-Indiana), who introduced the Judges Act of 2024, speaks to reporters in Washington, on March 10, 2020. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

The Senate has passed bipartisan legislation to create dozens of additional judgeships on federal district courts across the United States after a multi-decade dry spell when Congress added no new judges.

The measure, called the Judicial Understaffing Delays Getting Emergencies Solved (JUDGES) Act of 2024, cleared the upper chamber by unanimous consent on Aug. 1 and now heads to the House for consideration.

The Judges Act of 2024 seeks to create 63 permanent and three temporary judgeships on federal trial courts and, if signed into law by President Joe Biden, will mark the first time since the 1990s that Congress has created additional district court judgeships.

The bill, which passed the Senate Judiciary Committee by a unanimous vote in June, implements recommendations from the 2023 Judicial Conference of the United States by establishing new judgeships to be filled over the course of two presidential terms. It also introduces transparency measures and provisions aimed at improving access to justice in underserved regions.

“Too many Hoosiers and Americans are being denied access to our justice system due to an overload of cases and a shortage of judges,” Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), the bill’s co-sponsor, said in a statement praising its passage. “Our bipartisan bill will help alleviate this shortage and ensure all Americans have the opportunity to have their day in court.”

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), who co-introduced the bill, said that Congress not authorizing federal judgeships for decades has led to a significant backlog of cases.

“I’m grateful the Senate has unanimously passed our bipartisan bill to address the crisis facing overworked federal judges across the country,“ he said in a statement. ”I urge the House to swiftly pass this bill, and once President Biden signs it into law, I’m hopeful we can restore stability to our judicial system and help ensure access to justice for all Americans, no matter where they live.”

Congress is constitutionally responsible for establishing district court judges but the last comprehensive authorization to do so took place in 1990. At the time, congressional action established 11 additional circuit court judgeships and 74 district court judgeships across the United States.

Since then, targeted legislation enacted between 1999 and 2003 created 34 additional judgeships at the district court level, with the Judges Act of 2024 poised to break the decades-long dry spell.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who voted along with all the other senators to pass the Judges Act of 2024, had previously opposed adding more judges. He had questioned how the Judicial Conference determined which districts needed more judgeships and said he would have liked to create a way to allow judges in under-worked districts to move to busier ones instead.

At the Senate Judiciary committee session in June, Grassley said he still had some of those concerns, including that the bill would create too many judgeships.

“But, after the years of having these concerns about whether we ought to put on more judges or not, I’ve still got to say that the people of this country are entitled to justice, and justice is a speedy process, and when that’s slowed down, it’s not really justice,” he said at the time, before voting to back the measure, citing the way the bill “more thoughtfully and deliberately” creates new judgeships incrementally in tranches over two presidential terms.

The measure adopts a recommendation by the Judicial Conference, the judiciary’s policymaking body, to add 66 judges in 25 districts in 13 states. Three of the new judgeships, in Oklahoma, will be temporary ones.

The additions will take place in five tranches through 2035.

Currently, the judiciary has 677 authorized district court seats and 10 temporary ones.