Scoop: House Dems mount 11th-hour push to kill judges bill

• The JUDGES Act would create 63 judgeships over the next 10 years, including 11 in 2025 and another 11 in 2027 – when Trump will be president.

Driving the news: In a notice sent to House Democrats on Tuesday evening, House Minority Whip Katherine Clark's (D-Mass.) office said "Democrats are urged to VOTE NO" on the legislation.

• That means Democratic leadership will send its whip team to actively persuade colleagues to oppose the bill.
• The notice said the bill "attempts to provide a solution to our backlogged court system," but urged Democrats to be "clear-eyed on what authorizing a significant number of new, empty judgeships means under a future Trump Administration."
• Clark's office also noted that the Office of Management and Budget said Tuesday that Biden will veto the bill if it passes Congress.

Between the lines: The bill passed the Senate unanimously in August, but House Republicans waited until after the election to bring it up for a vote in the lower chamber.

• Judiciary Committee ranking member Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), who opposes the bill, has argued that Democrats would have widely supported it had it been voted on when the next president was still unknown.
• Republicans have said there has simply been too much on their plate to vote on the bill before now, while also noting that many of the new judgeships will be in states where Democratic senators will have a say.

What to watch: The bill is set to be voted on this week and can pass with a simple majority, meaning Republicans can do it without bipartisan support.

• Some Democrats in states poised to get new judges argued to Bloomberg last week that the backlog is too much of an issue to put aside for partisan reasons – though that was before the Biden veto threat and the whip effort.
• With Democrats likely to oppose the bill en masse, Congress is unlikely to muster the necessary two-thirds majority to override Biden's veto.