Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy dropped a bill today that would create dozens of new appellate and district court judgeships.

"After years of debate and federal courts struggling to adjudicate cases despite the overwhelming burden of heavy caseloads, the time to enact a comprehensive federal judgeship bill is long overdue," Leahy said.

The legislation would establish four new judgeships on the 9th Circuit; two on the 2nd Circuit; and one judgeship each in the 1st, 3rd and 6th Circuit courts. It would create one temporary slot on the 3rd, 8th and 9th Circuit benches. The bill also would establish 38 permanent new district court seats across the country.

Texas Republican John Cornyn asked Sonia Sotomayor whether a hypothetical Supreme Court ruling recognizing a Constitutional right to same-sex marriage would represent the court making law or interpreting it.

As she has done all week, Sotomayor effectively dodged the question, characterizing the query as "so embedded with its answer" that it would be inappropriate for her to respond, particularly because same-sex marriage is "being hotly debated on every level of our three branches of government."

"This is the type of situation where even the characterizing of whatever the court may do as one way or another suggests that I have both prejudged an issue and that I come to that issue with my own personal views suggesting an outcome," she said. "And neither is true. I would look at that issue in the context of the case that came before me with a completely open mind."

A California federal judge has dismissed a raft of lawsuits against telecommunications companies related to the Bush administration's warrantless electronic surveillance program.

Vaughn R. Walker, a district judge in the Northern District of California, threw out the lawsuits because of a provision in a 2008 law that conferred civil immunity on telecom companies who cooperated with the government surveillance.

"We're deeply disappointed in Judge Walker's ruling today," said Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "The retroactive immunity law unconstitutionally takes away Americans' claims arising out of the First and Fourth Amendments, violates the federal government's separation of powers as established in the Constitution, and robs innocent telecom customers of their rights without due process of law."

Ninth Circuit Judge Jay S. Bybee has declined an invitation from Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy to testify about his role in writing controversial Justice Department memoranda providing legal rationales for harsh detainee interrogation techinques.

Liberal activists have called on the House of Representatives to impeach Bybee, who previously served as Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, for the part he played in buttressing the use of techniques that critics say amounted to torture.

"Two weeks ago, I invited Judge Jay Bybee to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. I did so after reading accounts in The Washington Post suggesting he has expressed regrets regarding his work at the OLC, and then, in comments he sent a couple days later to The New York Times, he turned around and defended the same legal opinions, incidentally legal opinions that have now been withdrawn," Leahy said. "I invited him to come forward and tell the truth and the complete truth before the committee. Which -- which Jay Bybee do we rely upon -- the one that is in the press Monday or the one who's in the press the next day?"

Federal Judge Jay S. Bybee is facing pressure from members of Congress to resign or face possible impeachment for his role in the preparation of one of the interrogation memos released last week.

Bybee, who has been on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit since 2003, signed one of the four memos released last week in his previous capacity of head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.

He also signed another controversial August 2002 memo setting a high bar for what constitutes torture.

"If the White House and Mr. Bybee told the truth at the time of his nomination, he never would have been confirmed," Patrick J. Leahy, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Tuesday, according to CNN . "So actually, the honorable and decent thing for him to do now would be to resign. If he's an honorable and decent man, he will."