Across the country, federal courts are buckling under an ever-increasing caseload in the absence of long-awaited congressional action that would add judges to match a significant growth in litigation over the last several decades.

It’s been 34 years since lawmakers last passed a comprehensive bill increasing the number of judges on lower courts. In that period, the American population has grown by 80 million. The number of filings in US district courts increased by more than 30%. In the past year, there were more than 724,000 pending cases being handled by a federal trial bench made up of 677 judgeships (including roughly 40-50 vacancies) – a 72% increase in pending cases over the last decade, during which, no new district seats have been created.

  • @MakeitstopEnglish
    8•9 days ago

    Gerrymandering.

    Senate seats can’t be altered much shifting the lines on the map because there’s two per state, what you take from one you give to the other because they are statewide. The House however can be radically altered by shifting districts around. This leads to fewer competitive districts, which means that in many districts the only part that matters is getting the nomination. That incentivizes running to the political extremes to get the support of your base, and appeasing the influential people since their support or opposition can make a big difference. There’s also an entire ecosystem of friendly propaganda outlets and social media platforms that allow politicians to gain attention (and donations) nationwide, and those echo chambers incentivize the most extreme attention grabbing behaviors.

    The result of all this is that a large portion of the house was elected because they were the loudest and most extreme candidates in the Republican party. Many prefer dysfunction and even government shut downs if the alternative is bipartisanship (even for nonpartisan legislation or bills from their own agenda). They also like to target anyone in their own party who dares to be less extreme than them, even when doing so may weaken the party as a whole. The already tiny margin they held in the House has shrunk because of their own in fighting. But as long as they hold a majority, they can still control the agenda and prevent anything useful from being done.

    Edit: Corrected idiocy about the senate.

    • @decerian
      4•9 days ago

      Senate seats can’t be altered much shifting the lines on the map because there’s two per state, what you take from one you give to the other

      Senate seats are ALWAYS state-wide elections, with no district lines to draw or gerrymander. Gerrymandering still arguably has an impact on senate elections, but it’s a secondary factor of reducing turnout and not a primary factor of just picking the best districts.