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House panel OKs splitting 9th Circuit

Associated Press

WASHINGTON – The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved dividing the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in two, arguing the split would result in two more effective circuit courts.

“The 9th Circuit is too large, too cumbersome,” Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Calif., a former California attorney general, said after the 22-12 vote.

But opponents said the move was based partly on GOP opposition to some of the court’s rulings, among them the 2002 opinion that declared the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional when recited in public schools.

“There are all kinds of bogus arguments about judicial efficiency,” said Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif. “It masks the real reason, which is the right wing doesn’t like some of the 9th Circuit’s decisions.”

The 9th Circuit Court covers nine states with about 54 million people, and has 28 judgeships. The circuit with the next-largest number of judges is the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit, with 17.

The legislation by Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., would create a 9th Circuit covering California, Hawaii and the Pacific Islands, and a new 12th Circuit covering Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Nevada and Arizona.

A bill making the same division has been introduced in the Senate by Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and John Ensign, R-Nev. It got a hearing Wednesday before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee.

Unlike the Senate bill, the House bill also would create dozens of new judgeships throughout the country, something with wide support in Congress. Democrats contended supporters were jeopardizing the new judgeships by attaching them to the controversial 9th Circuit split that would be unlikely to make it through the Senate.

The GOP-led House passed a 9th Circuit split measure last year, also adding it to a bill creating more judgeships, but it didn’t get a Senate vote. This time around, the House Judiciary Committee is trying to make the bill part of a budget-reduction package that would not be subject to Senate filibuster.