DC Courts pleads with Congress for funding as system reaches tipping point

descriptions off, selected

captions settings, opens captions settings dialog

captions off, selected

This is a modal window.

Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window.

End of dialog window.

The Hill's Headlines - September 20, 2026

The Hill's Headlines - September 20, 2026

Years of flat funding are stretching the District of Columbia Courts thin, placing a system relied on by thousands each day under what officials describe as unsustainable pressure.

It’s left administrators, judges and clerks to juggle an ever-growing caseload and heightened security needs with a budget that hasn’t kept pace.  

“We have certainly reached a critical inflection point,” said Herbert Rouson Jr., the executive officer of D.C. Courts.

And the system is unique in that it is entirely federally funded.

D.C. Courts, which includes both the trial and appeals courts for the nation’s capital, is requesting $298.1 million from Congress for the next fiscal year — a $35 million increase to its operating budget to address the caseload, strengthen cyber and physical security, and maintain essential services. 

“Funding levels have remained unchanged since fiscal year 2023, but the demand for court services has actually surged since that time,” Rouson said.

The strain, he said, can be felt in the courts’ workload.

Filings across both D.C. Superior Court and the D.C. Court of Appeals have been on the rise since 2023, with the number of criminal cases up by 150 percent and domestic violence misdemeanors up by roughly 37 percent.

And because the courts generally function similarly to a state court, the system doesn’t get to decide which cases it hears. 

“Every case that’s filed, we have to do something with it,” Rouson said. “We have to handle it. We have to process it, and that takes staff to do.” 

That often means also handling cases brought by federal prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, which acts as the local district attorney for most felony offenses committed by adults within the district.

Take........

© The Hill