Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judgeship and Reorganization Act of 2005

H.R. 3125, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judgeship and Reorganization Act of 2005, proposed a major restructuring of the federal judicial system by splitting the existing U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit into two separate entities. Under this plan, the Ninth Circuit would have been reduced to covering California, Hawaii, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands, while a newly created Twelfth Circuit would have assumed jurisdiction over Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.

The bill aimed to manage the heavy caseload of the Western United States by authorizing the appointment of several new federal judges and establishing new administrative hubs for the reorganized courts. For citizens, this change would have altered where federal appeals are heard and which judicial panels set legal precedents for their specific states. While the bill was introduced and referred to a subcommittee, it did not advance further in the legislative process and never became law.