"Split The Circuit" Debate Heats Up In Congress

Theme for the day: "Weblogs are great, but you knew that, right?" And this time in particular Howard Bashman's. Howard writes today about Senator Murkowski's (R-AK) statement that he plans to keep offering amendments that would divide the Ninth federal appellate circuit and create a new one (the Twelfth), "on every bill until we obtain a vote on this issue." The Senator's full statement in the Congressional Record is the tenth item on this page. This is big news in my neck of the woods (i.e., the Ninth Circuit), and I believe Howard -- thanks to an email from one of his readers, Law Professor Arthur D. Hellman of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law -- may be the first, other than the Senator himself, to get the word out. (These searches presently reveal only Senator Murkowski's press release on the subject.)
--Correction: the press release is from last year, Howard's still the sole Web source on this unless Google's missing something.

Of course, Ernie and his trusty Radio news aggregator spotted Howard's post even before I did. (I've had no initial success getting Radio to run right on the Mac. Guess I need to try, try again.)