Biden presented a threat to veto the bill to expand the American judiciary

By Nate Raymond and Dan Burns

(Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday voted into law to add 66 new judges to the nation's understaffed federal courts, a bipartisan move that would have been the first major increase in the judiciary since 1990.

The JUDGES Act, originally supported by a majority of members of both parties, would have increased the number of trial court judges in 25 district courts in 13 states including California, Florida and Texas, in six waves every two years through 2035.

Hundreds of judges appointed by presidents of both parties have taken the rare step of publicly defending the bill, saying federal cases have increased by more than 30 percent since Congress last passed legislation to fully expand the judiciary.

But the outgoing Democratic president made good on a veto threat issued two days before the bill passed the Republican-led House of Representatives on December 12 by a vote of 236-173.

In a message to the Senate formally rejecting the bill, Biden said it “hastily” created new judges without answering important questions about whether new judges are needed and how they will be distributed nationally.

Republican Senator Todd Young of Indiana, who sponsored the bill in the Senate, responded that the veto was “very partisan politics.”

By moving new judges to the president's three executive positions, the bill's sponsors hoped to address long-standing concerns among lawmakers about creating new vacancies for an opposition president to fill.

It won approval from the Democratic-led Senate in August. But the bill stalled in the Republican-led House and was taken up for a vote only after Republican President-elect Donald Trump won the November 5 election and the chance to name the first set of 25 justices.

That prompted accusations from top House Democrats, who began to abandon the measure, that their Republican colleagues broke a key legislative promise by having lawmakers approve the bill when no one knew who would appoint the first wave of judges.

Had the bill been enacted, Trump would have been able to fill 22 permanent and three interim judges in his four years in office, in addition to the 100-plus judicial appointments he is expected to make.

That appointment will allow Trump to continue to strengthen his influence in the judiciary. He appointed 234 justices during his first term in office, including three members of the US Supreme Court with a 6-3 majority vote.

Biden on Friday surpassed Trump's total of 235 nominations, despite naming fewer appeals and justices to the US Supreme Court during his tenure.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston and Dan Burns in New York; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Nicholas Yong)