Congressman Cohen Says Creating New Judgeships Must Await Decisions about Existing Federal Courthouses

WASHINGTON – Congressman Steve Cohen (TN-9), a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, today suggested that the status of federal buildings, including the Odell Horton Federal Building in Memphis, should be resolved before a bill creating 66 new federal judgeships advances. The General Services Administration prompted by Elon Musk listed more than 400 “non-core” properties for disposal on Tuesday, including the federal courthouse in Memphis.

After raising the issue, members of the Judiciary Committee discussed writing Elon Musk a letter asserting the committee’s jurisdiction over the courthouses where judges work.  

Congressman Cohen also argued against the Permitting Promptly Ending Political Prosecutions and Executive Retaliation Act, a measure that would permit state charges against a president or vice president removed to federal courts if they “hinder, burden or delay” their duties. Congressman Cohen compared the effort to prohibitions on teaching critical race theory and called it “critical law theory” – making presidents immune from criminal prosecution under state laws.

In the debate during the markup of the bill on creating new judgeships, Congressman Cohen said in part:

“Elon Musk has proposed closing 400 federal buildings, one of which is the federal courthouse in Memphis – without a new courthouse. All of a sudden, we’re going to put it up for sale or get rid of leases. The Odell Horton Building is a building that has my office in it, as well as my three predecessors’ offices, Senator Hagerty’s office is in it, the U.S. attorneys are in it, federal judges are in it and the U.S. marshals are in it. How can we be considering new judges when we’re dispossessing other judges and putting them out on the street? That’s wrong, even if it’s (proposed by) Musk…Before we start naming new judges, we probably ought to figure out where we’re going to have the courts sit.”

See his full remarks on the measure here.  

On the bill to make presidents immune from state criminal prosecutions, Congressman Cohen said in part:

“This is critical law theory. Republicans don’t want people, and Donald Trump doesn’t want people, to know that he was a convicted felon and he wants to find any way in the world to end that. He wants to say ‘I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m perfect. I’m the greatest guy in the world…’ He got convicted on 34 counts, felonies, by a jury. Every single juror said guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty…No matter what you do with this law, he’s guilty and history will record it as such.”

Congressman Cohen said the measure would permit the kind of forum shopping that resulted in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case going before a Trump-appointed loyalist like U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who dismissed the charges.

See those remarks here.

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