House Drops Plan to Split 9th Circuit Court

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10533889/from/RS.2/

In the face of US Senate opposition, House Republicans have dropped a plan to split the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals.

House Republicans who contend the nation's largest federal appeals court has gotten too big to be effective had sought to attach legislation breaking it in two to a deficit-trimming bill.

Senators led by California Democrat Dianne Feinstein vowed to block the move if it made it to the Senate floor. The measure was left out when the bill passed the House early Monday. A Senate vote could come later in the day.

Nevada Democrat Harry Reid also opposes the measure while Republican Senator John Ensign supports it.

The Ninth Circuit covers nine states with about 54 million people, and has 28 judgeships. The circuit with the next-largest number of judgeships is the New Orleans-based Fifth Circuit, with 17.

Opponents of splitting the 9th Circuit alleged political motives by Republicans annoyed by its rulings, including a 2002 opinion that declared the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional when recited in public schools.

The House legislation would have created a Ninth Circuit covering California, Hawaii and the Pacific Islands, and a new 12th Circuit covering Alaska, Washington state, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Nevada and Arizona.

The Ninth Circuit will eventually be split, I suppose. It's very large, and covers a lot of area, both in terms of geography and population. But it will only happen after a truly bipartisan committee gets together to do the splitting, and work out the details. The Democrats couldn't engineer a split in the 1980s, neither party could get the upper hand in the 1990s to do it, and even with their current hegemony, the Republicans aren't going to be able to do it exclusively on their terms.