Sponsors (6)
Introduced October 21, 2025 by Daniel Scott Sullivan · Last progress October 21, 2025
The bill reduces appellate backlogs and clarifies circuit structure by creating a new circuit and adding judges, improving access to timely justice for many litigants, but it raises federal costs, creates short-term administrative disruption and transfer challenges, and risks politicized appointment dynamics.
Litigants in the overloaded Ninth Circuit (and jurisdictions moved to the new Twelfth) will see faster appellate processing and reduced backlogs because the bill creates a new circuit and adds judges to split caseloads.
Federal courts and court staff gain funded capacity to hire judges and support personnel and to expand facilities, enabling courts to implement the reorganization and handle more cases.
Pending cases, records, and en banc petitions get legal clarity and protections so already-filed matters are preserved and correctly routed to successor courts, avoiding retrials or lost records.
Taxpayers will face materially higher federal costs—new judgeships, salaries, staff, facilities and open-ended implementation funding—raising the federal bill for the judiciary.
Litigants, attorneys, and courts will face short-term disruptions, transfers, and procedural confusion during the transition that can delay case resolution and increase litigation costs.
Appointment and temporary cross-designation practices could shift judicial balance or be perceived as politicized, affecting public confidence in outcomes and potentially altering regional case law.
Based on analysis of 17 sections of legislative text.
Splits the Ninth Circuit into two circuits, reallocates judges (including many new judgeships), transfers pending appeals, allows cross-designations, and authorizes funds to implement the reorganization.
Creates a major reorganization of the federal courts in the western United States by splitting the existing Ninth Circuit into two separate circuits, creating a new Twelfth Circuit and a reconstituted Ninth Circuit. It reallocates active and senior judges based on their duty stations or personal choice, adds many new district and circuit judgeships in specified districts, provides temporary cross-designation rules between the two circuits, transfers pending appeals to the appropriate new court, establishes locations for certain circuit offices, and authorizes unspecified funding and administrative steps to implement the changes. Most provisions take effect one year after enactment, but some judgeships and a small number of circuit-seat changes take effect on enactment and additional cohorts of district judgeships begin on set future dates.