Jeff Denham: “Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I was saying, the GAO identified three different reasons: GSA continues to build courthouses…”

“Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I was saying, the GAO identified three different reasons: GSA continues to build courthouses bigger than what Congress authorizes. Congress authorizes one thing, but then GSA goes out and builds not only something completely different, but much bigger and at much greater expense. Number two, we don't have the judges that were once proposed. Third, judges don't share courtrooms. These courtrooms get used about 2 hours a day, and we don't have any courtroom sharing across the Nation. We could be utilizing these courthouses quite a bit more than what they are today. As a result, we demanded that the judiciary conduct a real courtroom-sharing study so that a third party can figure out how many judges are needed. And over the last 11 years, the judiciary projected there would be somewhere between 72 and 81 judges in L.A. by 2011. The judiciary declared L.A. the number one judicial space emergency in the United States and proposed a massive, huge new courthouse. However, today we know the primary justification for an L.A. courthouse was wrong. There are fewer judges in L.A. today than there were in 1997. Today we have two buildings with 61 courtrooms and 59 judges. We have 61 courtrooms and only 59 judges, no courtroom sharing, being utilized less than 2 hours a day. In that light, I have asked GSA to stop its plans to spend $400 million on a courthouse in Los Angeles. GSA has told me explicitly that they will continue with the project at whatever cost.…”