COURT WATCH : Partisan Game

There are currently four vacancies on the 28-judge 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That circuit, which covers nine Western states including California, is already struggling with an enormous backlog of cases, the second largest in the nation. Nominations to fill two of the vacancies are pending in the Senate; both nominees are distinguished jurists and would be an asset to that busy appellate court. But if a senator from Montana prevails with a petulant, partisan game, neither nomination will move forward.

Republican Sen. Conrad Burns is blocking all appointments to the 9th Circuit until that large court is split up. Burns’s gambit is not new. Republicans from the Northwest and Mountain states, long angered by rulings from this court protective of natural resources, have tried before to split up the sprawling circuit. Presumably, smaller units would be friendlier to powerful interests in the region, like the timber and mining industries. Burns and Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.) recently introduced a bill to create a new 12th Circuit out of Montana, Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington.

The 9th Circuit may indeed be disproportionately large, in terms of the territory and population in its jurisdiction and the size of its caseload, as compared with the other circuits. But that is an entirely separate and considerably less urgent matter from the one that the Senate must now address, the persistent vacancies on this key court. Burns’ obstructionist behavior does a disservice to the thousands of people from across the circuit with business before that court.