Judiciary Requests More Funding to Afford Influx of Trump Judges

I guess this is a “good” extra expenditure to have. It means we are moving in the right direction. :smile:

The United States Judicial Conference is asking for a 4.4% budget increase to account for the new Judges appointed by Trump.

Each new District Judge commands a 2020 salary of $216,400 while each new Circuit Judge costs $229,500 in 2020. Then you have staff, including 2 law clerks for each Judge and 1 secretary for each Judge. Additionally a few additional new courthouse staff are needed with additional Judges. More courtroom bailiffs may also be required.

All of that is not cheap, so the budget increase is not at all a surprise.

On a side note, as of right now, Trump has appointed 192 Judges under Article III. 2 Supreme Court Justices, 51 Circuit Judges, 137 District Judges and 2 Trade Court Judges.

And Trump is toying with a record that he is 70 Judges from tying and 71 Judges from breaking.

That is President Carter’s all time record for Article III Judicial appointments during a single Presidential term, a record that still stands. Carter appointed 262 Article III Judges, including 0 Supreme Court Justices, 56 Circuit Judges, 203 District Judges, 1 Court of Claims Judge and 2 Customs and Patent Appeals Judges.

Since the Court of Claims and Court of Customs and Patent Appeals were later combined to become the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Carter can be effectively credited with 59 Circuit Judges, rather than 56.

71 appointments between now and Christmas will be quite a difficult feat, but not out of the question.

Trump will likely NOT break Carter’s record on Circuit Judges, simply because there won’t be enough vacancies to fill. Only 4 or so are expected. If he breaks Carter’s overall record, he will have to do it by breaking Carter’s District Judge record.

They need more than that just go get a head start on expanding the immigration courts.

The Article III Judiciary and the immigration courts are funded in entirely different appropriations bills with unrelated processes.

The Article III Judiciary is included in the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Bill.

The immigration courts are included in the Commerce/Justice/Science Appropriations Bill, since the immigration courts are part of the Justice Department.

They both come originally out of the judiciary committees though don’t they?

Appropriations fall under the Appropriations Committee and its various subcommittees.

The request for appropriations comes from the United States Judicial Conference for the Article III Judicial. For immigration courts, the Attorney General, via the President, makes the request.

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These are infilled positions that are already accounted for in the budget. Having these positions vacant just saves the cost of paying these positions. The judges and staff should already be accounted for in the budget. I don’t see newly appointed judges to positions that should already be in the budget as a reason to increase the allotted $$$.

If they’ve long been vacant there’s a very good possibility they have been scratched from successive budgets.

If not, where did the appropriated money disappear to?

That is not how a budget works.

The Judicial Budget is kind of flaky as the Judiciary has a couple of slush funds it uses in addition to regular appropriations. It has several million coming in via PACER fees. It also collects filing fees and criminal and civil fines. That is why that, during a government shutdown, the Judiciary can continue to operate for several weeks without appropriations.

Yes it is. Money that is appropriated has to be spent or it’s cut from the next budget on a regular basis. That’s why when you get to the end of the year every department that hasn’t spent all of their funds starts blowing through what’s left as quickly as possible.

They are also prioritized as essential so they’d be towards the end of the list when it comes to actually getting shut down.

Can you find a single example of when the budget for Article III judges was reduced?

I’m telling you how federal budgeting and appropriations work.

If the money for those judgeships was appropriated where did it go?

Are you going to keep dodging the question and deflecting or give us an answer?

What question?

You haven’t asked me a question.

I understand what you are trying to say about the use of allocated funds but you are just wrong in this subject. Judicial positions do not disapoear grime the budget just because the position is not currently occupied.

I’ve asked you the same question repeatedly.

If the money for those judgeships was appropriated where did it go?

The ? at the end indicates it’s a question.

Are you going to answer it?

Didn’t go anywhere. It wasn’t spent.

Then where is it? All annual appropriations have to be spent or rescinded and returned to the treasury with very few exceptions.

The positions are funded. Every Article III judge is allotted in the budget the government is not reducing the number of judges allotted due to the number that was paid in the prior year.
It just doesnt work that way.

We’ve had over a hundred open seats for more than a decade now.

Where did the money go if it was appropriated?

Repeatedly dodging the question isn’t a convincing argument.