Local Access to Courts Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of S. 32, which would amend title 28 to provide an additional place for holding court in the Southern District of Texas and in the Southern District of California.

Under due process and equal protection, our basic access to justice rights don't change or shouldn't change depending on where we live. But in practice, that is exactly what is happening, as my distinguished colleague Mr. Schmidt just explained. When residents of the Southern District of Texas or the Southern District of California need to drive for hours to attend court or to go serve on a jury, which is a civic obligation, they have less access to justice than other citizens with easy and direct physical access to the court system.

It makes no sense that just because someone lives in a more rural district they should incur dramatically increased travel time and administrative expenses just to seek justice. With the price of gasoline and diesel soaring today with inflation, that is no joke.

Adding courthouses is a small step in the right direction toward making the courthouse doors accessible to all Americans, no matter where they live.

The Southern District of Texas spans 43 counties, and the Southern District of California includes San Diego County, the second most populated county in California. Residents there have the same problem many people are experiencing across the country. To access both the physical and the metaphorical courthouse doors, they need to travel long distances and wait in the backlog before having their day in court.

The easiest way to alleviate the burdens on the residents of these two growing districts is to add a courthouse. This change is cost free because there is an existing judicial facility available for the court to use in both of these places. Making use of this existing building would ensure that litigants, attorneys, witnesses, and other court users would have greater access to the justice that our Federal courts and our Constitution provide.

The administrative body for the Federal court system, the Administrative Office of the Courts, supports this bill. They know, like we do, that our country cannot have a flourishing justice system when its buildings are falling apart, its staff are underpaid, and there is a perpetual shortage of judges to administer the laws.

We have a lot to do to ensure Americans have equal access to our laws and a judiciary that they can trust to fairly hear them out and adjudicate their disputes.

This bill won't fix all the problems, but it will help more than 13 million Americans who deserve equal access to justice and greater access where they live.

I appreciate Representatives McCaul, Ruiz, and Issa for their bipartisan work on this issue. I want to recognize Mr. Schmidt for his distinguished stewardship of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to support this commonsense legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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