House GOP drops plan to split 9th Circuit

AP/MSNBC ^ | 12/19/05

[lowbridge]

In the face of US Senate opposition, House Republicans have dropped a plan to split the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals.

House Republicans who contend the nation's largest federal appeals court has gotten too big to be effective had sought to attach legislation breaking it in two to a deficit-trimming bill.

Senators led by California Democrat Dianne Feinstein vowed to block the move if it made it to the Senate floor. The measure was left out when the bill passed the House early Monday. A Senate vote could come later in the day.

Nevada Democrat Harry Reid also opposes the measure while Republican Senator John Ensign supports it.

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

Opponents of splitting the 9th Circuit alleged political motives by Republicans annoyed by its rulings, including a 2002 opinion that declared the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional when recited in public schools.

The House legislation would have created a Ninth Circuit covering California, Hawaii and the Pacific Islands, and a new 12th Circuit covering Alaska, Washington state, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Nevada and Arizona.

[GeronL]

Senators think they have to power to block someone from their state they think is not right. No idea why, and those states are all pretty liberal apparently

[publana]

I'd rather split the state of CA into three states. I've given up on seeing that place fall off into the ocean in my lifetime. :/

(CA freepers: just a joke!)

[AnimalLover]

BUMP

[Left2Right]

I believe a logical case could be made for it:

Since California is the 6th largest economy in the world and Nevada is one of the fastest growing states, having a smaller 9th District is reasonable since the current one is unwieldy and overworked. Also, California and Nevada face a lot of the same issues that will come up in the future.

Putting Arizona into the 10th District and Wyoming, Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Alaska into the new 12th District makes sense too. Arizona has more issues in common with states like New Mexico, issues such as illegal immigration and border control, so it makes sense from an efficiency point of view to have Arizona in the 10th District. Modern society today tends toward specialization in all fields, so why shouldn't government also modernize and tend toward some slight and reasonable specialization?

Same idea for the new 12th District; those states have lots of Natural Resources and other common issues, so it would make sense to have one court district for the new 12th District.

The main problem, IMHO, is one of marketing and creating a populist type of message. Unfortunately, this issue got framed as a way to "get back" at the 9th Circuit Court for its history left leaning rulings. Framing the issue in such a way so as to reduce the emotional content of the issue and present it as a "common sense" solution would have a better chance of success.

[NavVet]

One more reason to throw those stupid "surveys" from bill Frist in the circular file.

[Iconoclast2]

Why is this important? Because the fewer people who live under the 9th's judicial tyranny, the closer we move to a Free Republic.

The 9th is also almost completely dysfunctional. It is impossible to get them to act on anything in a timely fashion (other than fashionable liberal causes), because the Court has become so bureaucratized.

As for filling it with conservatives, almost none are even nominated.

[sauron]

Whoa, there, Kalifornian.

I live in Nevada, and we don't want to be part of a 9th Circuit that includes that madhouse insane asylum on the Left Coast.

Count us in as part of the new 12th Circuit.

Sauron

[HHKrepublican_2]

This was most likely a comprimise for some of the other things we got passed.

[Dont_Tread_On_Me_888]

Tax cut?

Tax cuts come and go. Considering the mega-fat spending spree and global welfare giveaways Bush has orchestrated, the more likely scenario when the RATs gain power soon will be more of the "go version", not more "come".

On the other side of the ledger, spending never "goes". Once started, it is like a cancer. Example, take President Bush's $15 BILLION blank check to Africa that maintains female genital mutilation and bad sex practices, rapes of young girls, etc. (because we did not demand they clean up their butcher-like rituals before the blank check was sent). Once that $15 BILLION is flittered away to various warlords and corrupt officials, you will see a renewal like it was on autopilot, and will see a 100% increase to $30 BILLION, more than likely. Bush has had a habit of increasing many welfare plans by 50% to 200%, not your standard 2-3% or close to inflation like many past presidents have done. If Bush is not in power when the renewal comes up, it is anybody's guess what the RAT Marxists will do.

Now be real, do you honestly believe the tax cuts will stay? Think of the RATs gaining power which they will do, and think of the debt, the deficit, the ranting the RATs have done about the tax cut, the Medicare spending boom and Social Security boom from the baby boomers retiring, the illegal alien free medical care and housing etc. (the 15 million illegal aliens will have three to four kids each over the next six years so make that about 60 million, not even counting the new invaders headed our way), think of California going bankrupt which they will, think of the cost of the war, the threats from Iran and North Korea, think of China's massive military buildup, the growing percentage of the total budget devoted to social welfare, currently at 67% projected out, compared to JFK's 30%, . . .

Now c'mon . . . you do not seriously believe that with that backdrop, the tax cut will stay. I know you do not. I know that, once you ponder all the above, you will realize your "tax cit" example was a lame point. Yes, the tax cut was right and a check mark in the positive side of the ledger for Bush, but his tax cut is temporary but his spending precedent was permanent. That is the way spending works in Washington. Bush's stratospheric increases to existing social programs, and his new social programs with huge starting budgets have created "new baselines" for the RATs to leapfrog from.

C'mon now. Ponder all this and realize "tax cut" just does not make it as an offset to all the negatives.

[adam_az]

"We need Tom Delay back."

Delay - that's his nickname. He did the same crap.

Remember a year ago when he eviscerated border security from the homeland security bill? Billions of funding, not a penny for the border.

Sensenbrenner, Tancredo, etc held up the bill in an attempt to keep the border security provisions. The GOP "leadership" steamrolled over them by promising it would be addressed early in the following year. It was... Bush made his big amnesty in all but name proposal. Not quite what the rest of us had in mind!

We were sold out. Again.

[b4its2late]

Daschle is smiling.

[bybybill]

Thanks for your dose of reality. I had also forgot, silly me, that the sky is going to fall, and then , there`s the UN, Halliburton, and those pesky black helicopters.

[sport]

Thanks for the reminder.

It had slipped my mind.

The politicans in Congress are not the ones the terrorists are going to kill in wholesale numbers. They may kill a few individually but not in bunches.

Therefore, unless they can gain politically from it, they do not give a damn.

From what I have seen this applies equally to Republicans and Democrats.

George Wallace once said, "There is not a dime's worth of difference between the Republicans and Democrats."

It is my observation that this has shrunk to three cents.

The Republicans may say more things we like to hear than the Democrats but that is where it stops.

[xzins]

If the 9th covers 54 million and the next closest covers 17 million, then it would appear that there is a need.

However, no matter what gets formed out west it will be liberal.

Why have 2 liberal circuits instead of just one?

Better to try to effect the balance of power on the one circuit court.

[Williams]

yes I agree, I meant this was an issue on which the republicans had no political need to cave.

[Dr.Zoidberg]

Republicans cowering in the face of DemonicRat resistance?

It's Unpossible.

And there is no way this could come as a surprise to anyone.

[KC_Conspirator]

This is one of the best ideas for our judiciary yet. The 9th Circus routinely has their judgements over turned. One year it had 100% of its 20+ rulings overturned by SCOTUS. They do not serve the American people at all.

[twigs]

Thank you for the map!

[teletech]

Keep caving in GOP and you will find yourselves in the minority again.