COLUMBUS — A new Ohio Senate bill would add two judges to the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas as the county’s judges struggle under the heaviest caseloads in the state.
Senate Bill 471, introduced Sept. 14 by Democratic Sens. Bill DeMora and Hearcel Craig of Columbus, would expand the court’s General Division from 17 to 19 judges. The new judges would be elected in 2028 and take the bench in 2029. The bill has not yet reached a committee in the Republican-controlled legislature.
Franklin County ranks No. 1 in Ohio for pending cases per judge, according to a policy brief from DeMora’s office. Each Franklin County Common Pleas judge carried an average docket of 761 pending civil and criminal cases in 2025, compared with an average of 452 cases for each of Cuyahoga County’s 34 judges — even though Cuyahoga County has a smaller population.
“That’s way too many,” DeMora told The Columbus Dispatch. “Some civil trials are taking three years to come to fruition, and that’s far too long.”
The county’s population grew 13.8 percent between 2010 and 2020 to 1.32 million, and projections place it between 1.49 and 1.67 million by 2050. Total case filings rose 26.5 percent between 2020 and 2025. Because criminal cases take precedence by court rule, civil cases face the longest backlogs.
“It slows down the justice system,” DeMora said. “And people aren’t getting the justice they deserve or need by having to wait so long because there’s such a backlog of cases because we don’t have enough judges to do them.”
