Committee Votes To Split Up 9th Circuit

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to reorganize the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, splitting California and Hawaii off from the rest of the Western states in the circuit.

Backers of the proposal, headed to the Senate floor, said it is needed to reduce the work load of the country’s largest U.S. appeals court.

Critics say it is a ploy by conservative Western Republicans in Congress to remove their cases from liberal judges serving in the current court based in San Francisco.

Sens. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., and Conrad Burns, R-Mont., are among those who have been backing the change for years.

“The large size of the 9th Circuit has reduced its ability to run efficiently,” Gorton said. Kevin Kirch ner, an attorney for the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, said it was a case of “environmental gerrymandering.” The circuit has upheld several legal victories by environmentalists in recent years regarding logging of national forests in Oregon and Washington.

Gorton said the circuit had 8,092 new filings last year, 2,000 more than the second-largest circuit. It has 28 judges, while the other circuits average 14, and serves more than 45 million people - nearly 60 percent more than the next largest, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans which includes Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.

The bill still also must be passed by the House. It would create a new circuit based in Phoenix, Ariz., made up of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, Nevada and Arizona. California and Hawaii would remain in the 9th Circuit.