Full Version: Taking a Splitting Maul to the Ninth Curcuit
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On a day when another "activist" ruling from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had conservatives fuming, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi stood up for the court, opposing a Republican plan to split it in two.
A Republican proposal to split the liberal, San Francisco-based Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has made its way into a must-pass House budget reconciliation bill, much to Democrats' dismay.
A Republican proposal to split the liberal, San Francisco-based Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has made its way into a must-pass House budget reconciliation bill, much to Democrats' dismay.
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Supporters of the bill think the 9th Circuit is too large and unwieldy and that a split would balance the caseload more effectively. From July 1, 2004, to June 30, 2005, more than 15,600 cases were appealed to the 9th Circuit, triple the nationwide circuit court average of 4,783.
"We have done a sensible reorganization," Murkowski said at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on administrative oversight and the courts. "This will create circuits with more manageable population, manageable travel distance and manageable caseloads."
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"Splitting the 9th Circuit into two or even three courts of appeals would require the creation of new and costly bureaucracies to administer these new courts, thereby losing the economy of scale achieved by having a single administration tending to the federal courts of the 9th Circuit," she said.
"We have done a sensible reorganization," Murkowski said at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on administrative oversight and the courts. "This will create circuits with more manageable population, manageable travel distance and manageable caseloads."
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"Splitting the 9th Circuit into two or even three courts of appeals would require the creation of new and costly bureaucracies to administer these new courts, thereby losing the economy of scale achieved by having a single administration tending to the federal courts of the 9th Circuit," she said.
(source)
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Should Congress split the Ninth Circuit Court? Why or why not?
If so, how many circuits should it be split into?
How would this affect the political makeup of the would be former Ninth Circuit?
How would this affect the area the Ninth Circuit Court serves? The nation?
QUOTE(crashfourit @ Nov 9 2005, 02:41 PM)
Should Congress split the Ninth Circuit Court? Why or why not?
If so, how many circuits should it be split into?
How would this affect the political makeup of the would be former Ninth Circuit?
How would this affect the area the Ninth Circuit Court serves? The nation?
If so, how many circuits should it be split into?
How would this affect the political makeup of the would be former Ninth Circuit?
How would this affect the area the Ninth Circuit Court serves? The nation?
In reading this topic I wasn't sure what the 9th Circuit covered so I looked it up. Wow!
http://www.uscourts.gov/courtlinks/
My first thought was this is waaaay to big to be very useful. Then again I don't know a heck of a lot about how a circuit court of appeals operates so I don't know what would be gained by splitting it or leaving it.
Usually I am anti bureaucracy and am not that fond of creating yet another one especially in the government. However at times new ones are needed.
I guess my question in this case would be, could you create a new bureaucracy and shrink the old one? While you would still end up with two that, combined, are bigger than the old one you don't need to create two of the same size from the old one.
How many government agencies do we have that cover that much territory? If you look at it from the other end of the (pure size) spectrum, why do we have a D.C. circuit anyway? Is there a reason that it has it's own? (After reading the Wikipedia entry I understand a little better)
From a strictly logistical standpoint it would seem prudent to break up the 9th circuit. Heck it would probably be good to realign the whole court systems boundaries to make them more closely reflect the population balance today. Considering how population shifts maybe it would be good to adjust them on a 50 year plan sort of like the the census' 10 year plan.
However I can't provide any support for this other than it would look better on the map (although the population balance of the 9th circuit has gone from 3.3% of the US total in 1891 to 19.3% in 2000.)
For more information I would recommend the Wikipedia article here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States...e_Ninth_Circuit
My conclusion? It's probably a good thing to split the 9th into at least 2 new courts.
I would make the split along the Northern California/Northern Nevada border. Anything north of this (including Alaska) would be in one. Anything south of this (including Hawaii etc.) would be in the other. Why? Because it looks pretty.
Why not? It's as good as many other reasons used.This is a simplified version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.