Plan to Reorganize 9th Circuit Gains

WASHINGTON — The Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to reorganize the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, leaving California and Hawaii in the circuit and splitting off the rest of the Western states it encompasses.

Backers of the proposal, headed to the Senate floor, said it is needed to reduce the workload of the country’s largest U.S. appeals court.

But critics say it is a ploy by conservative Western Republicans in Congress to remove their cases from liberal judges serving in the current court, based in San Francisco. Sens. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.) and Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) are among those who have been backing the change for years.

“Reorganization will alleviate the unmanageable caseload 9th Circuit judges are currently burdened with as well as allow citizens in that circuit to receive swifter case review,” Gorton said.

Kevin Kirchner, an attorney for the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, said the proposal is a case of “environmental gerrymandering.” The circuit has upheld several legal victories by environmentalists in recent years regarding logging of national forests in Oregon and Washington.

The House has not passed the bill, which would create a new circuit based in Phoenix and made up of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, Nevada and Arizona.