Some things just do not change
Another Supreme Court term has come to a close, and, while many things changed in the law, one thing stayed the same: The justices spent much of their time reversing the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The 9th Circuit, which hears appeals in federal cases in the Western United States, is the largest of the 13 such courts, with 28 active judges and more than 20 part-time senior judges. The 9th Circuit is almost three times the size of an average court of appeals, and its jurisdiction stretches from Alaska to Arizona, an area comprising nearly one-fifth of the American population.
The 9th Circuit also has a long-running streak as the most overturned, which went unbroken this year. The Supreme Court reviewed 22 cases from the 9th Circuit last term, and it reversed or vacated 19 times. By comparison, the Supreme Court reviewed only five cases, vacating or reversing four, from the next-busiest court of appeals, the 5th Circuit based in New Orleans.
In other words, although the 9th Circuit decided only one-third more appeals on the merits than the 5th Circuit, it was reversed nearly five times more often.
The 9th needs to be broken up into at least four more courts. Of course, with the Dem controlled Congress being more interested in using the courts to attack the Executive Branch than getting the courts into some sort of sane shape, that won’t be happening any time soon.
Even the likely extensive amount of political hay they could make up by all the interviewing of Bush’s appointees wouldn’t make up for the time they wouldn’t have to order investigations on other matters.