The Hill News

Nine hundred days: that’s enough time for a newborn to grow ready for nursery school, and significantly longer than a term of Congress. It’s also the length of time that a number of seats on the federal judiciary have been vacant, due to the gridlock in Washington.
 
It’s getting to the point where there are so many judicial emergencies, it’s hard to know where the crisis is even focused. Alarm bells are going off everywhere: New York to Arizona, Illinois to California, Florida to Wisconsin. Many states are affected.
 
What’s the big deal? The remaining judges can work a little harder, cases can move a little slower, right? But, at this point, the problem grows ever-larger and has crippling effects on the justice system. With vacancies routinely hovering in the low to high 90s, civil dockets in many districts are grinding to a halt.

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