On Tuesday, December 6, 2011, the House is scheduled to consider H.R. 1021, Temporary Bankruptcy Judgeships Extension Act of 2011, under a suspension of the rules, requiring a two-thirds majority for passage. 

H.R. 1021 was introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) on March 10, 2011, and was referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.  The Committee held a markup of the bill on March 17, 2011, and ordered the bill to be reported, as amended, by voice vote.

H.R. 1021 would extend the temporary office of 30 bankruptcy judgeships authorized or extended under the Bankruptcy Judgeship Act of 1992 and Bankruptcy Judgeship Act of 2005 until applicable vacancies identified in this Act occur in the office of a bankruptcy judge for specified districts in California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and Nevada.

The bill would prohibit filling specified bankruptcy judge vacancies occurring more than five years after enactment of this Act and resulting from the death, retirement, resignation, or removal of a bankruptcy judge (thus extending the lapse date under current law by five years).  

According to the House Committee on the Judiciary, a bankruptcy judge is an Article I judge appointed for a term of 14 years.  Some bankruptcy judgeships are permanent; others are described as “temporary” because federal law prohibits the judicial district to which the temporary judgeship is allocated from filling a vacancy resulting from the death, retirement, resignation, or removal of a judge after a date certain (this so called “lapse date” varies among judicial districts and relates to when the judgeship was filled).

For example, the Eastern District of Tennessee currently has four bankruptcy judgeships: three permanent and one temporary.  The first vacancy in the office of bankruptcy judge in that district that occurs by reason of a judge’s death, retirement, resignation, or removal that occurs after April 20, 2010, could not be filled, so the district would lose a bankruptcy judgeship.  That date has obviously passed.  Many lapse dates for judgeships in other judicial districts have passed; others are in the near future.

The Judicial Conference’s 2011 recommendation to Congress was to create new bankruptcy judgeships or convert temporary judgeships to permanent judgeships in districts with heavy caseloads and to extend temporary bankruptcy judgeships in others.  H.R. 1021 would extend the lapse date of temporary bankruptcy judgeships in several judicial districts (including the districts for which the request was to convert a temporary judgeship to permanent status) by five years from the date of enactment.  Those districts are:

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that implementing H.R. 1021 increase direct spending by about $2 million over the 2012-2016 period and about $5 million over the 2012-2021 period.  Pay-as-you-go procedures apply because the legislation would affect direct spending.  Enacting the legislation would not affect revenues.  Implementing the bill also would increase spending subject to appropriation by $4 million over the next five years, CBO estimates.