[CheyennePress]

Why is splitting the 9th even that important? Just fill it with conservatives. Problem solved. It's going to be a lot easier to defeat that filibuster than one against splitting the 9th.

There are four vacancies on the court right now. Time to fill them.

All that splitting the 9th is going to do is limit the range of cases it's going to hear. You're still going to have the same dopes from the People's Republic of San Francisco bringing their cases before the court if you split the 9th.

It would give President Bush the chance to appoint a bunch of new originalists to a new circuit, but you'd still have the 9th over there creating federal rulings that can only be overturned by the Supreme Court. If you ask me, you're better of trying to get that circuit under control.

Anyone got a reason why splitting would actually be better?

[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

[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!)

[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.

[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.

[Theodore R.]

The fact is that splitting the Ninth should not be controversial among rank-and-file uninformed voters. But the GOP is too fearful to attempt even such a modest step at judicial reform. It's like the GOP is Casper the Friendly Ghost. Before long, even WY will turn Democrat the way things are headed.

[Free Dominoes]

Anyone got a reason why splitting would actually be better?

Yeah, it's assumed that as well as the split, new judgeships will be created so there will be an opportunity for Bush to stack these new judgeships with conservative judges. This is the real reason this will never happen as long as the Rats can filibuster the bill.

[rcocean]

1) There is NO reason, other liberal politics NOT to Split it.

2) The 9th Circuit has twice as many judges as any other circuit. Splitting it would put it in line with the other circuits.

3) The large size of the 9th circuit, means that large numbers of cases are decided by 3 panel judges. Hence, most of the wacky rulings, for example, you only needed 2 ACLU left-wing wackos to overturn the pledge of allegiance.

4) The states, and federal cases that effect them, differ greatly. By splitting up the 9th circuit, you would ensure that cases that most interest the smaller states would receive the attention they deserve. That's why senators from the small mountain states what it split.

5) The liberals have a majority in the circuit. That's the ONLY reason the Liberals don't want to split the circuit. To hell with what's right, power is all the Democrats care about.