Subcommittee focuses on bankruptcy, courts

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The Senate Judiciary Committee has created a new subcommittee focused on federal courts and the bankruptcy litigation system.

The new Subcommittee on Bankruptcy and the Courts is one of the new subgroups created by splitting up the former Administrative Oversight and the Courts Subcommittee. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., named chairman of the new subcommittee, said the new configuration will allow lawmakers to better address the needs of people in the bankruptcy system and help them resolve their disputes “fairly, efficiently and at a minimum of cost and inconvenience to all concerned.”

He said he also plans to focus more broadly on issues facing the federal court system and its litigants.

“We have a judicial vacancy crisis in many parts of this country, and I’d like to look at what can be done to address it,” Coons said in a statement. “Our federal courts have traditionally been the last bastion for many Americans to assert their civil rights, but recent federal court decisions have made it harder to not only enforce federal civil rights, but also rights that people may have as a consumer or as an employee under state law. That has to change.”

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., was named ranking member of the subcommittee.