Why legal experts and federal judges call for a judiciary expansion in Arizona

The Gaggle: An Arizona politics podcast

The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Feb. 24 to hear arguments from federal judges across the country about the need to expand the bench including Diane Humetewa, a federal judge in Arizona and the former U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona.

She testified about the longstanding, unmet need for more federal judges in her state.

Arizona is one of the nation’s fastest-growing states, but the number of judges has been stagnant for most of the past three decades. This has caused a legal backlog. It's been more than 30 years since Congress passed a broad expansion of the judiciary. In that time, the nation’s population has grown, technology has raised an array of previously unimaginable legal concerns and globalization has upended the economy.

Democrats and Republicans agreed at the February hearing that the nation is overdue for more judges.

In this week's episode of The Gaggle: An Arizona politics podcast, hosts Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Ronald J. Hansen break down why and how this legal bottleneck affects Arizonans.

Joining the show are Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, and Rep. Greg Staton, D-Ariz., a judiciary committee member.

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