Press Release:
After just leading the United States Senate to confirm Meredith Vacca, who will be the first Asian American to serve on the Western District bench, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer today announced Senate passage of the bipartisan Judicial Understaffing Delays Getting Emergencies Solved (JUDGES) Act, to address nationwide shortages and case backlogs by increasing the number of federal district judges across America.
These increases, which follow the recommendation of the Judicial Conference, would add 5 additional federal district judges in New York, including one in the Western District of NY (WDNY), which has long sought a 5th full time federal district judge to address its severe case backlogs, which have ranked among the worst in the nation.
“Our federal courts in New York and across America simply can’t keep up with the immense workload. As our country has kept growing and growing, our federal courts sadly have not kept pace, with no significant increase in judges since 1991. Western New York’s federal courts have long had one of the largest and worst case backlogs in the nation, leading to months long wait times and adding a long sought after 5th full time district judge will help tackle that challenge head on. I am proud to have led the bipartisan JUDGES Act to passage which will add the more judges needed to hear cases and address backlogs, including Western NY’s, ” said Senator Schumer. “I urge the House to quickly take up this important legislation. ‘Equal Justice Under Law’ can’t always be counted on if our federal bench is stretched beyond capacity or if you have to wait years and years to get a verdict. Justice delayed is justice denied and we must make sure our federal courts are given the additional judges they need to handle their current caseload.”
Schumer said that courts in New York and across the country are often overburdened due to a shortage of federal judges. Schumer explained that Congress is responsible for establishing the number of judgeships in the district courts of the United States, but has not passed legislation to significantly address this number since 1991. Back then, the courts had approximately 280,000 pending cases across the country for the current established number of judges. Yet, as of March 2023, there were nearly 690,000 pending cases in federal district courts across the country, averaging 491 filings per judgeship per year. Schumer said this judicial shortage has been felt especially hard in Western NY whose federal courts have routinely ranked in the top tenworst backlogs in the nation, with median wait time at nearly 17 months during the 12-month period ending in March 2023. At the end of 2023, WDNY had 3,565 pending cases for its four judges. During 2023, 2,885 cases were filed for WDNY’s four judgeships, far exceeding the national average of 491 filings per judgeship.
The JUDGES Act would directly tackle this crisis by adding more judges in line with the nonpartisan recommendations of the Judicial Conference. In total, Schumer said the bill will create 66 new, federal district court judgeships across the country, in addition to the Western District of NY receiving an additional judicial slot, the Eastern District of NY and Southern District of NY are also slated to receive two additional judges each.
Throughout his time serving as Senate Majority Leader, Schumer has made it a priority to strengthen the federal judiciary, including recommending a number of historic picks to the federal bench in NY. Just this past week, the Senate confirmed Monroe County judge Meredith Anne Vacca, a Korean-American, and also the first woman of color to serve as judge on the Western District of New York bench.
When Schumer first started recommending judges as a senator, there were no women on the WDNY bench. Schumer changed that when he recommended Rochester attorney Elizabeth Wolford as the first woman to serve on the WDNY bench. Judge Wolford was confirmed in 2014 and currently serves as the Chief Judge for the WDNY. In 2021 Schumer made another historic pick in recommending Trini Ross as the WDNY U.S. Attorney, the first Black woman ever to lead the Western District of New York U.S. Attorney’s office.Now, Ms. Vacca will sit on one of the few 50 percent female benches in the country, as Schumer has focused on elevating women to these critical positions. In New York as a whole, including the federal benches in WDNY and NDNY, as well as EDNY and SDNY, 27 out of 51 active federal district court judges are women, thanks in large part to Schumer’s efforts.
