Biden vetoes once-bipartisan effort to add 66 federal judgeships, citing 'hurried' House action

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Yahoo! News/AP

Mon, December 23, 2024 at 10:32 PM EST


WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Monday vetoed a once-bipartisan effort to add 66 federal district judgeships, saying “hurried action” by the House left important questions unanswered about the life-tenured positions.

The legislation would have spread the establishment of the new trial court judgeships over more than a decade to give three presidential administrations and six Congresses the chance to appoint the new judges. The bipartisan effort was carefully designed so that lawmakers would not knowingly give an advantage to either political party in shaping the federal judiciary.

The Democratic-controlled Senate passed the measure unanimously in August. But the Republican-led House brought it to the floor only after Republican Donald Trump was reelected to a second term in November, adding the veneer of political gamesmanship to the process. The White House had said at the time that Biden would veto the bill.

“The House of Representative's hurried action fails to resolve key questions in the legislation, especially regarding how the new judgeships are allocated, and neither the House of Representatives nor the Senate explored fully how the work of senior status judges and magistrate judges affects the need for new judgeships,” the president said in a statement. “The efficient and effective administration of justice requires that these questions about need and allocation be further studied and answered before we create permanent judgeships for life-tenured judges,” Biden said.

Read more: https://www.yahoo.com/news/biden-vetoes-once-bipartisan-effort-033240044.html

[Joinfortmill]

1. I trust Joe. He knows something about this we don't.

[BumRushDaShow]

2. The GOP House sat on this bill until after the election

rather than acting on it right after the Senate passed it and that right there showed that they would have probably torpedoed it had Harris/Walz won.

[Think. Again.]

3. Yep, he knows he doesn't want to give the nazi's a chance to appoint additional judges ove the next 4 years.

[Prairie Gates]

4. Goooood!

What does Bannon say? The era of bipartisanship is over? The conversation is over? Fine.

[LymphocyteLover]

5. Good, although I imagine Repubs will bring this up again in the new term

[BumRushDaShow]

6. Yeah but it would still have to get through the Senate cloture

of 60 votes and they don't have it. And I know the GOP has threatened to do what we kept pushing to do - get rid of that Rule or at least make it a "talking filibuster". But we shall see.

[Prairie Gates]

7. That's fair...let them try

Nix that: MAKE THEM DO IT.

Give nothing.

[Polybius]

9. Can't the incoming Congress just pass it again?

If yes, I'm sure it will be done by February.

[BumRushDaShow]

10. It wouldn't make it through the Senate without 60 votes now

unless they change that filibuster Rule (it was passed there by unanimous consent before but now Democrats most likely wouldn't go along with it given who would be jamming through RW loon judges with the authority).

[Polybius]

11. Ahh, I didn't realize it could be filibustered

Since there is no filibuster to confirm federal judges and this is about expanding the federal federal judiciary, I assumed that it was bound by the same no-filibuster rules. I should stop assuming.

[BumRushDaShow]

12. "Confirmations" (both Executive and Judical Branch) had the "nuclear option" applied

only needing a simple majority to proceed to debate and a final vote.

But as it stands, ALL legislation EXCEPT that done by "reconciliation", requires 60 votes for cloture in order to proceed to debate. This is why the 45 folks are looking at doing as much as they can by "reconciliation". But that special process is budget-related and due to the "Byrd Rule", pretty much forbids any "policy" riders.

[GB_RN]

13. Correct.

Anything that does not directly impact the federal budget will be washed out of a reconciliation bill by the Senate Parliamentarian (sometimes called the Byrd Bath). Items that are merely tangential to the budget will most likely not qualify for reconciliation.
On the flip side of that, a point of order can be called and the Parliamentarian can be overridden by a simple majority. The Democrats tried this tactic to include a provision in a reconciliation bill. The provision would have increased the minimum wage, and the Parliamentarian said it didn’t qualify (not directly impacting the federal budget).

The vote to overrule her was where we saw Manchin begin his descent into insanity and Synema pull her cutesy thumbs-down, “nay” vote. While overrides are rarely attempted, I wouldn’t put it past the fascists.

See, I don’t trust them to honor the rules as long as chucking them gives them an opportunity/advantage. Prime example: The “McConnell Rule.” McConnell said that in a presidential election year, no appointments to the SCOTUS should be made until the public had a chance to make their “choice” known. Mitch the Bitch concocted this shit just to keep Obama from appointing a replacement for the dead scumbag, Antonin Scalia. He then promptly ditched his own rule when Ginsburg died, just before the ‘20 election. Another example: Chucklehead Grassley ditching the Senate Judiciary Committee’s “blue slip” tradition to prevent Democrats from blocking Cantaloupe Caligula the Corpulent’s craptacularly fascist and unqualified judicial nominations. With Durbin as chair under Biden, and there was talk of ditching the blue slips permanently, Chucklehead hypocritically screamed about scrapping rules as long as it was convenient for the Democrats.

I hate ‘em all.