There is broad agreement among both Republicans and Democrats alike that there is a pressing need for more federal judges as the current number of judges across the country is insufficient to handle the massive and growing number of pending federal cases.

Yet, in an overt display of petty partisanship, President Joe Biden is threatening to veto a bill with strong bipartisan support that will create dozens of new federal judgeships over the next decade, the New York Post reported.

And though the Biden White House hasn't explicitly said so, the reason for the threatened veto is unmistakeably clear -- President-elect Donald Trump would get the opportunity to nominate the first two of several batches of desperately needed new judges.

Bill would create dozens of new federal judges

In August, and with unanimous consent, the Senate passed S. 4199, a bill known as the "Judicial Understaffing Delays Getting Emergencies Solved Act of 2024," or JUDGES Act, which would create up to 66 new permanent and temporary judgeships in understaffed states across the nation.

Beginning in January 2025 and recurring every two years until 2035, 10 or 11 new judgeships would be created, with those new positions to be filled with nominees from the sitting president who will be considered and confirmed or rejected by the Senate at that time.

President Biden and the White House had previously expressed their agreement with the dire need for dozens of new judges to help preside over a massive backlog of pending cases -- currently estimated at an average of nearly 500 cases per sitting judge -- but their tune has now changed in light of the fact that President-elect Trump would get to nominate the 2025 and 2027 slates of new judgeships.

Biden threatens to veto bill creating new judgeships

In a Statement of Administration Policy issued on Tuesday, the Biden White House expressed its opposition to S. 4199 and said, "While judicial staffing is important to the rule of law, S. 4199 is unnecessary to the efficient and effective administration of justice."

"The bill would create new judgeships in states where Senators have sought to hold open existing judicial vacancies. Those efforts to hold open vacancies suggest that concerns about judicial economy and caseload are not the true motivating force behind passage of this bill now," the statement continued with an unsubtle dig at Republican senators.

"In addition, neither the House nor the Senate fully explored how the work of senior status judges and magistrate judges affects the need for new judgeships," the White House complained. "Further, the Senate passed this bill in August, but the House refused to take it up until after the election."

"Hastily adding judges with just a few weeks left in the 118th Congress would fail to resolve key questions in the legislation, especially regarding how the judges are allocated," the Biden administration added. "If the President were presented with S. 4199, he would veto it."

House passes bill despite veto threat

It would appear that the hypocritical and partisan veto threat from the lame-duck president held little weight with members of the House, as Roll Call reported that the legislative body seemingly ignored the White House statement and proceeded to pass a House version of the bill passed unanimously by the Senate in August.

The vote in the House was not similarly unanimous, though it was bipartisan, as 29 House Democrats joined with 207 House Republicans to achieve a final passing vote of 236-173 on Thursday.

Of course, it remains to be seen if President Biden will make good on his veto threat now that the House has passed the decidedly uncontroversial bipartisan measure to add dozens of new judgeships that Biden himself had previously called for.

If he does veto the bill, it would be a display of partisan "pettiness," according to Rep. Darrel Issa (R-CA), since Democrats won't get first crack at nominating the new judges, and, according to Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX), "nothing more than childish foot-stomping."