2013-042 Requesting our US Senators to forward to President Obama a bi-partisan slate of qualified judicial nominees to fill the vacant federal judge position in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Sherman Division with preferenc

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Congressional Record., Volume 149 Issue 168 (Wednesday, November 19, 2003) Page 6 of 8 Rapid population growth in the Sherman Division over the past decade, particularly in Collin and Denton Counties, underscores the need fox an additional court facility. Sherman Division civil and criminal weighted filings over the past five years have grown by 1001. Sherman now has the second heaviest weighted caseload of the six divisions in the Eastern District of Texas. In the near future, two resident district judges, a resident magistrate judge and a visiting district judge will be hearing all Sherman Division cases in only two courtrooms. The court has already run out of room in Sherman and needs to acquire additional court facilities in the Division. Having court facilities in both Sherman and Plano will enable the court to better manage the rapidly growing caseload and provide better service to a large population base in southern Collin County. It is the court's intention, when a place of holding court in Plano is authorized, to assign the case filings as follows: 50& civil and criminal cases docketed and tried in Sherman (Judges Brown and Davis) 50% civil and criminal cases docketed and tried in Plano (Judge Schell) In light of the above, the judges of this court hereby REAFFIRM our prior resolution to establish Plano as a place of holding court in the Sherman Division, and RESOLVE, if pending legislation passes that authorizes Plano as a place of holding court, to have half the Sherman Division caseload docketed and tried in Sherman, and the other half of the caseload docketed and tried in Plano. The court intends to maintain at least one resident judge in Sherman and one resident judge in Plano. If Judge Brown ceases holding court in Sherman, a new resident judge shall be designated to hold court in Sherman as soon as possible, and pending the new judge's residing in Sher —, 50% of civil and criminal cases shall be docketed and tried in. Sherman, and the clerk'.-5 office in Sherman shall remain staffed sufficiently to support a resident judge. Signed this 13th day of June, 2003. For the Court: John Hannah, Jr. Chief Judge. Mr. BERMAN. Mr, Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentle -an from Texas (Mr. Hall). Mr. Hirt; Mr. Speaker, when I arrived at the Capitol today, I was handed the floor schedule that indicated that Senate bill 1720 had been placed on the Suspension Calendar. We have not had a lot of time to try to work out the details, but I am grateful to a lot of people for their assurance that we are going to keep the agreement that has been made between the two courts. First, I want to thank, of course, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Chairman Sensenbrenner), Debby Lehman, Sam Gaxg, Blain Merritt, and Phil Kiko for their good work and far their support. I thank the ranking member, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), of the Committee on the Judiciary and Perry Applebaum. I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Berman), my friend and ranking member on the subcommittee, and Shanna Winters and Alec French. They have all worked hard during the course of the day to work out assurance, and with the gentleman from Texas's (Mr. Johnson) support of assurance that this i4il.l be a 50 -50 division. httpJhvww.gpo.go v /fdsys /pkg/CREC- 2003 -1' - 19/htmFCREC- 2003- 11- 19- ptl- PgH11586... 9/2012013