Very Good News!!!
Future of 9th Circuit Under Review
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
••House Panel Mulls Dividing 9th Circuit Court
WASHINGTON — For many conservatives, the words "9th Circuit" mean more than just a federal appeals court in California. The words embody everything they think is wrong with liberal activism, West Coast politics and the judges who tried to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance.
Those same conservatives think their new clout following President Bush's re-election may help put some weight behind a movement to split up the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (search), leaving the 9th in California, creating a new 12th Circuit for neighboring Idaho, Arizona, Montana and Nevada; and a new 13th Circuit for Washington, Alaska and Oregon.
"Almost everything is going to be affected by the election," said Kay Daly, who heads the Coalition for a Fair Judiciary (search), a conservative group working to get Bush's judicial nominations through the Senate. She said conservatives will be pushing hard to split up the 9th Circuit.
"The 9th Circuit seems to wield an awful lot of power, and it is the most reversed court in the nation," she said. "There's some serious judicial activism going on there."
By a vote of 205 to 194, the House on Oct. 5 passed an amendment by Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, to the Bankruptcy Judgeship Act (search) that would divide the 9th Circuit into three parts. The entire bankruptcy bill passed the House shortly afterward. |
