Amid all of the talk about phase 4 (or 5, I’ve lost count at this point) of the COVID stimulus, there’s a possibility that we’ll see some judgeships added to the federal district courts for the first time in almost 20 years.

A few weeks ago, the Judiciary Committee held a hearing about adding judgeships to the federal bench, to compensate for the increasing caseloads over time. https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/the-judicial-conferences-recommendation-for-more-judgeships

Judge Brian Miller of the Eastern District of Arkansas testified on behalf of the Judicial Conference to make an emergency request for 7 new judgeships, as follows: “...for a subset of courts that are in extreme need (IN-S,1; DE,1; NJ, 1; TX-W, 1; AZ, 1; FL-S, 1; CA-E, 1).”

He also communicated a request to make 8 temporary district judgeships and 14 temporary bankruptcy judgeships permanent. Those seats, if not periodically reauthorized by Congress, will lapse upon the next retirement of a judge. See the top of page 3 here: https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Miller%20Testimony2.pdf

Making these seats permanent would no longer require Congress to get involved every 2 or so years to extend their expiration dates.

At the June hearing, Lindsey Graham made some kind of commitment to potentially adding these judgeships in the bill, but we’ll have to wait for the bill text to know for sure. https://twitter.com/fedjudges/status/1278137719852539907