While SmartRules never takes a political position, and remains forever neutral, news surrounding our flagship state of California as well as the 9th Circuit Court always catches our eye. The Los Angeles Times Op-Ed piece by Ben Feuer, The Republican case for breaking up the notoriously liberal 9th Circuit makes no sense raises some interesting points regarding the potential fallout if the 9th district, deemed by some to be too large and unwieldy, were to be divided into two districts.
Representing 11 Western states and 20 percent of the country’s population, the 9th Circuit has been on the radar for proposed changes for some time, with complaints ranging from too big to too clogged, and most notably, too liberal. Four bills from Republican senators are poised to address the “Nutty 9th” but Feuer says none of them will work. While Feuer concedes the amount of cases handled is staggering, the court is efficient and productive nonetheless. The real goal here, according to Feuer, is to attack the circuit’s liberalism yet this too could be wind up being exacerbated with two new circuits evolving into even more dramatically liberal arenas.