Sens. Chris Coons and Ashley Moody introduced a bipartisan bill to scrap the rule that forces judges on two powerful federal courts to live within 50 miles of Washington, D.C.
The measure targets the Court of Federal Claims and the Federal Circuit, courts that already hold nationwide jurisdiction over high-stakes disputes. Coons, a Democrat from Delaware, and Moody, a Republican from Florida and a former state judge and federal prosecutor, framed the change as a way to recruit top talent without forcing a move into the capital region.
Fox News Digital reported the senators brought the bill forward on Tuesday. Moody has called the legislation her Better Bench Act. Their offices did not respond to comment requests on Thursday.
The Court of Federal Claims primarily handles claims filed against the federal government. The Federal Circuit hears appeals involving patents, trademarks, government contracts, and related matters. It also reviews decisions from lower courts and agencies tied to the federal government and has served as a feeder for Supreme Court justices.
Decisions from either bench can affect people and businesses far from the capital, including constituents in Delaware and Florida. Yet the current residency rule limits who can take the job to candidates willing to live inside that 50-mile ring.
Coons put the stakes in plain terms for intellectual property and contract cases that shape real businesses.
"Americans deserve the best, most qualified judges, especially in areas like intellectual property law, where expertise is key to understanding complex cases and fairly deciding the future of many entrepreneurs’ businesses,"
He added that the old limit has narrowed the field for too long.
"For too long, we have limited the pool of judges available to take on the toughest IP and federal contract cases to those willing to uproot their lives and move to Washington, D.C. No longer. This bipartisan bill ensures that courts of national jurisdiction can draw from a pool of national talent."
Moody cast the residency mandate as outdated and disconnected from the courts’ national reach. She argued nominations should rest on merit rather than zip code.
"For a court that covers the entire country, we should be considering nominating judges from everywhere in America based on merit, not their proximity to the D.C. bubble,"
She tied the bill directly to a wider bench and a wider reflection of the country.
"My Better Bench Act removes an outdated residency requirement to expand the pool of qualified Americans who can serve and allows our courts to be a better reflection of the nation as a whole."
Photo captions place both senators at the U.S. Capitol in October 2025, with Moody leaving the Senate floor after a vote on Oct. 21, 2025.
Zach Smith, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital that recruiting top talent to relocate to the District has long been hard. He pointed to how other appellate courts already operate.
"It's often difficult to recruit top-level talent from across the country to relocate to the District of Columbia for these judgeships,"
Smith noted that many circuit courts cover multiple states, with judges living across those states and gathering in one place to hear arguments. He called that geographic dispersal a normal arrangement, not an experiment.
"Many other circuit courts of appeal cover multiple states, and often the judges on those courts sit throughout the states that that court covers, and then they often come together to meet and hear cases and hear oral arguments in a specific location. This type of geographic dispersal it's not an unusual arrangement."
He also flagged the Court of International Trade in New York City as another bench with broad geographic jurisdiction and no comparable residency demand on its judges.
Thomas Berry, director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies, largely agreed the proposal has merit. He said these two courts draw jurisdiction from the issues they decide, not from a regional map.
"These courts have jurisdiction based on the issue involved, so, potentially, if this meant that the judges were able not just to live elsewhere, but even hear oral arguments elsewhere, that could potentially be more convenient for some types of cases if they're, say, involved parties on the opposite side of the country,"
Berry stressed that regional courts of appeals have used dispersed living and sitting patterns for more than a century without losing their ability to do the work.
"all of the other regional courts of appeals have been basically working under such a system for over 100 years, and clearly it hasn't gotten in the way from them doing the work that they're meant to do."
Fox News Digital noted that critics could raise taxpayer travel costs or a drop in day-to-day, face-to-face collegiality if judges live farther apart. Neither Smith nor Berry treated travel expense as a serious barrier.
Berry referenced studies from the coronavirus pandemic period that found fewer dissents when judges spent less time together in person. He still returned to the long record of regional circuits that have functioned with geographic spread for generations.
Investigators of the legislative record will need to determine the full bill text, any cosponsors beyond Coons and Moody, and whether the measure only lifts the residency rule or also speaks to where oral arguments may be heard. Public materials described in the reporting have not released a formal cost score or a judiciary position on the change.
These courts sit at the center of patent fights, government contract battles, and claims against federal power. Their rulings already bind parties across the map. Keeping the judge pool tied to a short drive from the capital shrinks the list of lawyers and scholars who can serve without uprooting families and practices.
Coons and Moody present the fix as simple: drop the 50-mile fence, judge candidates on skill, and let national courts draw national talent. Smith and Berry see the approach as consistent with how other federal appellate courts have worked for decades.
The bill’s next steps remain procedural. Lawmakers have not yet shown a public markup path, and the sponsors’ offices offered no further detail after the Thursday outreach. What is clear is the core trade they propose: less geographic gatekeeping in exchange for a wider bench on courts that already speak to the whole country.
When courts of national reach stay locked inside one city’s orbit, the country gets a smaller talent pool and a narrower view of the law. Opening those seats beyond the capital belt is a basic test of whether institutions serve the nation or the neighborhood.
