Executive Session
Floor Speech
EXECUTIVE SESSION -- (Senate - January 20, 2010)
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I wish to speak on the nomination of Judge Beverly Baldwin Martin who President Obama nominated to the Eleventh Circuit on June 19. I remain at a loss as to why it has taken this long for her nomination to come before the full Senate for a vote. Judge Martin's nomination is one of the few that has had strong bipartisan support. Both of her home State Senators, Senator Chambliss and Senator Isakson, have expressed their support for the President's nominee from the beginning. I have also expressed my support for Judge Martin and I believe she will be easily confirmed when the vote occurs.
As I have said many times, Republicans have been and are ready and willing to proceed to a roll call vote on her nomination for months but, for whatever reason, our Democratic colleagues, the leadership, would not take yes for an answer. Instead, they chose to force votes on controversial nominees such as David Hamilton and Andre Davis. Given those nominees' records, it was no secret they would engender opposition and that it would take some time for their records to be examined and to be prepared for debate.
I do not know the reasons for not calling up Judge Martin's nomination sooner. I hope it wasn't to purposely delay this noncontroversial nomination in order to create an illusion that a lot of judges are being obstructed. Certainly we have been accused of obstructing nominations in the last few months and we have heard these allegations repeated on the Senate floor and in the press, often supported by inaccurate and misleading information. Some of my Democratic colleagues have said they want to confirm judicial nominees at the same pace the Democratic-controlled Senate confirmed President Bush's nominees. I think my colleagues should be careful what they wish for, because President Obama's nominees have fared far better than President Bush's. For those who were not here then, and for those who don't--or won't--remember, I wish to take a moment to describe exactly what happened during that time.
President Bush began his Presidency by extending an olive branch and renominating two prior Clinton nominees to seats on the Circuit Courts of Appeal--one step removed from the Supreme Court. He renominated Democratic nominees. How was he repaid for that? The Democrats took the olive branch and broke it and gave it back to him. It began soon after President Bush was elected when a group of well-known professors--liberal activist professors--Laurence Tribe, Marsha Greenberger, and Cass Sunstein, met with the Democratic leadership and proposed changing the ground rules of the confirmation process in a meeting, apparently--certainly not open to the public. They proposed that Senators should consider a nominee's ideology--this had not been historically done--and for the first time in the history of the country, they proposed that the burden be shifted to the nominee to somehow prove they were worthy of the appointment instead of having the Senate respect the presumptive power of the President to make nominations and then object if that nomination was a concern to them. So it was clear to me then that as a result of that meeting, a majority of the Democrat Members of this body agreed to what they proposed. After the Democrats took control in the 107th Congress, then-Majority Leader Daschle promised to ``use whatever means necessary'' to defeat President Bush's judicial nominees.
Before the 2001 August recess, the Democrats granted hearings for only two circuit court nominees, and one was Roger Gregory, a former Clinton nominee who was renominated. They even refused to hold a hearing for now-Chief Justice John Roberts. His nomination at the time was to the District of Columbia circuit which had been scheduled for a hearing before the change in the Senate majority. Then, in an unprecedented and, I think, partisan move, our Democratic colleagues indiscriminately returned every single one of President Bush's 40 pending judicial nominations. There was no consideration of an individual nominee's record. There was no consideration of bipartisan support for the nominee. It was a simple obstruction, it appeared to me. Thirty of these nominees were later confirmed by voice vote or by a substantial majority.
This was followed by another unprecedented event: the systematic filibuster of highly qualified nominees, many of whom were later confirmed by voice vote or a substantial majority. The Democrats filibustered 30 attempts to hold up-or-down votes on at least 17 judicial nominees, highly qualified nominees--some rated unanimously well qualified by the American Bar Association. Senator Reid summed up what they were doing during the filibuster of Priscilla Owen--a fabulous nominee; a justice on the Texas Supreme Court; a great lady--he opposed her nomination and he said in his quote: ``There is not a number of hours in the universe that would be sufficient'' to debate her nomination.
So, today, we hear outrage that President Obama's nominees have been waiting for weeks or months for a confirmation vote. President Bush's nominees to the circuit courts waited an average of 350 days--almost a year, on average; I was here--from nomination to confirmation. That was just the average. The majority of President Bush's first nominees to the circuit courts waited years for confirmation votes and some never even received a hearing in committee, despite being highly qualified, outstanding nominees. Priscilla Owen, Justice Owen of the Texas Supreme Court, waited 4 years for a confirmation vote. John Roberts, Jeffrey Sutton, and Deborah Cook all waited 2 years. Dennis Shedd and Michael McConnell waited for more than a year and a half. Terrence Boyle, who was nominated by President Bush for the Fourth Circuit, languished close to 8 years and never received a vote, even though he passed out of the Judiciary Committee with a majority, and the Democrats had the majority. Miguel Estrada, rated unanimously well qualified by the American Bar Association, was filibustered through seven cloture votes and never confirmed. Charles Pickering, Carolyn Kuhl, Williams Myers, Henry Saad, William Haynes--all I think outstanding nominees--all were filibustered and never confirmed. So I ask my Democratic colleagues: Did we have any outrage from that side then?
Let's look at the current pace of nominations. Unlike President Bush, President Obama did not extend an olive branch by renominating any of the outstanding pending nominees President Bush had submitted who were being held up. In fact, he ignored a request by all of the Republican Members of this body to do that. Instead, he chose Judge David Hamilton as his first nominee. He could hardly be characterized as a consensus nominee. Thirty-nine Senators--all Republicans--voted against him after a full debate.
The treatment of President Obama's and President Bush's nominees for the Fourth Circuit will illustrate what I am saying. During the 110th Congress, despite the 33-percent vacancy rate on that court, four of President Bush's
well-qualified, consensus nominees to that court, the Fourth Circuit, were needlessly delayed and ultimately blocked. President Bush nominated Steve Matthews in September of 2007. Despite his stellar qualifications, he was forced to wait 485 days to even get a hearing and the hearing never came. His nomination was returned in January of 2009. Chief Judge Robert Conrad of the district court had the support of his home State Senators and received an ABA rating of unanimously well qualified. Despite overwhelming support and exceptional qualifications, including having played point guard for Clemson in the ACC, he waited 585 days for a hearing that never came. His nomination was returned. Judge Glen Conrad had been chosen by Janet Reno, President Clinton's Attorney General, to investigate one of the allegations against President Clinton. Out of all of the prosecutors in America, she chose Judge Conrad. It is an outrage that he was not confirmed. He was a stellar nominee and should have been confirmed. The bar respected him and so did the Democratic administration.
Finally, Rod Rosenstein, whom the ABA rated unanimously well-qualified and who served in the Department of Justice in both Democrat and Republican administrations, waited 414 days for a hearing that never came. His nomination was returned on January 2, 2009.
President Obama's Fourth Circuit nominees have fared far better. Take Judge Andre Davis. He received a hearing a mere 27 days after his nomination, a committee vote just 36 days later, and was confirmed in early November of last year. Justice Barbara Milano Keenan was nominated on September 14, 2009. She received a hearing just 22 days later and was voted out of committee 23 days after that. Both Judge Albert Diaz and Judge James Wynn were nominated on November 4, 2009. The committee quickly held their hearing on December 16, 2009--despite the fact that the Senate was consumed with the healthcare debate--and their nominations are listed on the committee's agenda for this week.
The raw numbers also demonstrate that this is not the simple ``apples to apples'' comparison that some have tried to make it out to be.
President Obama has nominated little more than half the judicial nominees that President Bush had nominated at this point in his Presidency. Despite holding a time consuming Supreme Court confirmation hearing, the Judiciary Committee has still managed to hold hearings for all of President Obama's nominees, except for the few that were nominated just before the recess last month and were not ripe for hearings before the break. Compare that to this point under President Bush when 31 of his judicial nominees had yet to receive hearings.
And, not only has the Senate confirmed nearly the same percentage of President Obama's judicial nominees as were confirmed at this point under President Bush, but we are moving faster. Indeed, President Obama's circuit court nominees have received confirmation votes mere months after being nominated--far quicker than President Bush's circuit court nominees, who waited an average of 350 days. Many waited years and many never even received an up-or-down vote. The simple fact is that President Obama has nominated fewer and we have confirmed more.
All of this is not to lay the groundwork for some sort of payback, but to set the record straight. Republicans have not held a private retreat to plot how to block judicial nominees. We have not taken orders from outside groups to block nominees based on their ideology. We have not blocked nominees because we do not want them to sit on a specific case. We have not once attempted to filibuster nominees in the Judiciary Committee. That is how Democrats treated President Bush's nominees. Those are the facts.
We have not and will not do any of those things. Instead, we will continue to thoroughly analyze the records of President Obama's nominees, and hold fair and rigorous hearings to ensure that each nominee possesses the impartiality, the commitment to the rule of law, the integrity, the legal expertise, and the judicial restraint necessary to sit on our Nation's judiciary.
As ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, I look forward to continuing to work with the chairman to process nominations in the bipartisan manner that we have established over the past year.
I yield the floor.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source