Court split

Senators look to bust up 9th Circuit

Efforts to split the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Nevada, have materialized from time to time for more than two decades. In 2004, the U.S. House voted narrowly to move ahead with such a proposal. But a companion bill introduced in the upper chamber by then-Sen. John Ensign, a Nevada Republican, sputtered and went nowhere.

Now, two Republican senators from Arizona, John McCain and Jeff Flake, have taken up the cause.

Not surprisingly, politics clouds the issue. The 9th Circuit, based primarily in California, is known for its left-leaning judges and many Democrats suspect that efforts to divide the federal panel derive from partisan motivations. It would be naive to deny the point.

But despite the inherent politics, a legitimate case exists that deconsolidation could improve the administration of justice.

The 9th Circuit is by far the largest of the 13 federal appellate courts, covering nine Western states and two Pacific island territories. It has 29 active judges and 20 senior jurists — far more than any other court. It was created by Congress in 1891 when just 3 percent of Americans lived in the western United States.

The court’s makeup is an anachronism that fails to reflect the country’s current demographics.

“It’s so big the three-judge panels cannot keep track of what they’re all doing,” Vanderbilt Law School professor Brian Fitzpatrick told the Review-Journal’s Debra Saunders. “You’ve got a panel over here that says one thing and a panel over there that says the opposite thing.”

Walter Olsen of the Cato Institute points out that the court’s sheer size prevents it from handling cases “en banc” — meaning “full bench.” It sits only 11 of its 29 judges for such hearings.

In addition, Sen. Flake notes that the average wait time for a decision at the 9th Circuit is 15 months, which he argues is a burden for those with issues before the court.

The McCain-Flake proposal would spin off a 12th Circuit to include Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Washington and Alaska. The remaining 9th Circuit would consist of California, Oregon, Hawaii, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.

It’s true that the proposal would not increase the number of judges; it would simply disperse 10 of the 9th Circuit’s judges to the new court. But the smaller population of the new district would generate fewer cases, thus potentially pushing them through the system at a quicker pace.

With Republicans controlling both houses of Congress and the White House, chances seem better than ever for reform. The fact that many of the court’s judges fall to the left is no more reason for Democrats to resist a breakup than it is to for the GOP to advocate for one.

Instead, the foremost concern for those debating a split of the 9th Circuit should be speeding up the pace of justice and improving efficiencies for the residents of the states involved.

From that perspective, the McCain-Flake plan makes sense for Nevada.

Perhaps members of the Nevada Association of School Psychologists might want to rethink their attempts to lobby state legislators. The ReviewJournal reports that the group feels being held back is “not good for mental, social and emotional health” (Feb. 8, “Psychologists don’t want third-graders held back”). My thoughts:

1. Each year of social promotion tends to increase and compound the number of skills not mastered.

2. It is far better to irritate a child’s psyche through retention at the third-grade level than to allow year after year of academic failure until the student becomes a disruption, amasses a tremendous number of absences and fails to graduate.

3. Teachers find themselves trying to teach to the highest level possible while also attempting remediation for the under-performing kids. Teachers try to assist this group by offering afterschool sessions, individual instruction, specialized homework and/or parent/ teacher conferences, for example, but the load is overwhelming.

4. We must realize that mathematics is, in essence, a language. Many students who are not literate in reading are also not literate in mathematics. Pardon the expression, but that becomes a “double whammy” as the school years pass by.

My advice is to retain at the third-grade level and “nip it in the bud,” as the saying goes. Being forever true to her uber-liberal core, Rep. Dina Titus did what she does best. She takes a swipe at Donald Trump’s immigration order by making sweeping generalizations about the numbers and ethnicity of our visitors and the money they spend in our casinos (Tuesday letter to the Review-Journal).

Rep. Titus’s “harrowing look” at Mr. Trump’s order would have us believe that it will severely impact the numbers of our international visitors which, by her count, was about 8.6 million last year.

Seriously, how many of those 8.6 million international visitors would actually have been affected by the order? How many refugees are applying for a wine-and-dine pass to come to Las Vegas for a little drinking and gambling, despite the fact that Islam strictly forbids drinking and gambling?

I searched and searched and nowhere did I find the Rep. Titus’s letter from 2010 criticizing Barack Obama’s six-month ban on Iraqi refugees.

Could it be because Mr. Obama is a member of her party and there truly was no impact on Nevada’s economy?

Rep. Titus should take a stand and stop the fearmongering on behalf of the Democrats over

Your Feb. 5 editorial about increased traffic fatalities was quite good. However, there was no mention of a major contributing factor.

For many years, environmentalists have been demanding more and more fuel economy. One of the easiest methods to achieve this is to make vehicles lighter. Instead of solid, steel frames we now use sheet-metal unibodies on most vehicles. Instead of heavy, solid steel bumpers, we have plastic decorative panels that offer little protection.

Tires on today’s vehicles are also lighter and less able to absorb abuse.

What are the senators who confirmed Donald Trump’s extraordinarily incompetent and biased Cabinet going to do with their 30 pieces of silver?

Each individual senator personally betrayed America’s children — and America itself — by stuffing even more cash into the pockets of billionaires and into their own pockets for re-election lusts.

Judas kissed Jesus as he betrayed him. Who will each of you kiss for the betrayal of us and our children? Mr. Trump?