Keep 9th Circuit intact.

Byline: The Register-Guard

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is a geographic monster - it covers nine western states, including Oregon, and two Pacific islands. It's also busy. Last year, the court received 16,000 appeals, 7,000 more than the next busiest court and triple the national average.

But the San Francisco-based court's size and workload isn't driving the latest in a series of congressional attempts to split the court in two. Conservative lawmakers want to take a chainsaw to the court because they believe it's dominated by "activist judges" who uphold environmental laws that rankle timber, mining and energy interests in the West.

There may well be sound reasons for breaking up the 9th Circuit. But an anti-environmental agenda and a desire to give President Bush an opportunity to appoint judges to a new appellate court aren't among them.

Earlier this year, the House Judiciary Committee approved a bill that would leave California and Hawaii in the 9th Circuit and create a new Twelfth Circuit for the remaining seven states, including Oregon. Earlier this week, the Senate Judiciary Committee - whose chairman, Arlen Specter, R-Pa., has endorsed a split - heard testimony on a Senate bill that is identical to the House version. Given the growing momentum for the bill, a vote is likely before the end of the year.

Congress should punt this misguided plan into the stands. A serious plan to ease the court's load would divide California into two circuits instead of lumping California and Hawaii into a new 9th Circuit that would have nearly three-fourths of the court's current caseload but less than 60 percent of the allotment of federal judges.

Nor does the move make budgetary sense. Start-up costs are estimated at more than $100 million. The vast majority of 9th Circuit judges oppose splitting the court - a move that the late Justice Byron White eight years ago deemed "unnecessary" and "impractical."

In time, Congress should have a serious, bipartisan examination of the 9th Circuit's caseload, jurisdiction and staffing. But it should jettison this ideologically driven and fundamentally flawed proposal.