Nomination of J. Leon Holmes to be United States District Judge

NOMINATION OF J. LEON HOLMES, TO BE UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE-Continued

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I want to share some thoughts about the Holmes nomination. I feel very deeply about it. I respect so much my friend, the Senator from Texas, and her service in this body. I will say that she and I have talked about it before. I think we are missing something here. I urge her to reconsider the position she has taken, although I know she has taken it carefully and I doubt that is likely. But I urge her and others to consider what we are doing here, about how we vote on judges.

Let me just say that Americans and people around the world have various beliefs, and to some people different beliefs are viewed as strange. Those with religious beliefs may have different views on some issues than those who don't have religious beliefs. There is quite a lot of that. We don't all agree. We have different views about whether there is a Trinity, or what do you think about the virgin birth, and issues of all kinds. We have a lot of differences of opinion.

We have a view in this country that there cannot be a religious test for a judge or any other position in Government. There cannot be a religious test that you can put on them, saying you have to have a certain religion or certain belief before you can be an official in this Government. No, that is not true. We should not do that.

I guess what I will first say-and I hope I can be clear about this-we differ in our religious principles. It has been suggested that Mr. Holmes' religious principles are extreme. I say to you that his principles are consistent with the Catholic Church's principles. What he has said in every writing I have seen, and as I understand it, they are perfectly consistent-in fact, he defended classic Catholic doctrine. He defended classic Catholic doctrine. Regardless of whether he had a personal view that was somewhat unusual about his religious faith, that is not the test we have here. The question is, Will his personal religious beliefs he may adhere to strongly interfere with his ability to be a good judge?

He and his wife wrote a letter to a church in a church newspaper to discuss how they have ordered their marriage, and they have ordered it in the classical terms of Christianity. As a matter of fact, I think the Baptist Church recently affirmed a similar position in their denomination. It is the second largest denomination in the U.S.-second to the Catholic Church. That is not an extreme view. Whether you agree with it, it is scriptural, it is Christian doctrine. He defended and explained and wrote about that.

Isn't it good that we have a nominee for the Federal bench who is active in his church, who thinks about the issues facing his country and writes about them and talks about them? That is a healthy thing. The question is-and it is legitimate for those who are concerned about those views-if they don't agree with his view on abortion or on how marriage is arranged, to inquire of the nominee whether those views are so strong they would affect his or her opinions from the bench. That is the test. If we get away from that, we have a problem.

What is going to happen when we have a Muslim who has been nominated here or an Orthodox Jew, or any other denomination that doesn't agree with us on religious beliefs? Are we going to demand that they come before the Senate Judiciary Committee and renounce their faith as a price to be paid before they can be a Federal judge? No, sir, that is wrong. This is big-time stuff; this is not a little iddy-biddy matter, Mr. President. We should not be in that position. Yes, inquire if the person's views are so strongly held that they would impair his ability to be a Federal judge. Yes, ask whether they are a good lawyer, or do they have a good reputation among the bar, or do people respect their integrity, do they have good judgment, do people like and admire them. Ask those things. Ask whether the person has lack of judgment. But don't say: I don't agree with your theology on marriage; I don't agree with your church's view on abortion; therefore, I am not going to vote for you. That is a dangerous thing. It should not be done. It is a mistake for us to head down that direction. I cannot emphasize that too much.

This is wrong. We should not do this. It is not the right way to evaluate Federal judges. I understand when somebody says: I just feel strongly about this deal on marriage that he and his wife wrote. I feel, feel, feel. We need to stop thinking like that and not be so much worried about how we feel, and we better think about the consequences of our actions and our votes.

This is a dangerous precedent. I respect Judge Holmes. He is a man who has reached out to the poor, helped women lawyers to an extraordinary degree, helped them become partners in his firm. He has a wonderful wife who respects him and defended him in a real hot letter in response to the criticism of the article that she and Judge Holmes wrote. I think we ought to look at that.

We have confirmed people to the bench that have made big mistakes in my judgement-we have confirmed people to the bench that have used drugs, yet, we are now debating keeping this man off the bench for his religious writings. Would Mr. Holmes be in a better position with members of this body if he had smoked dope instead of written religious articles? That should not be so.

Let's look at his basic background and reputation for excellence. Of course, we know the two Democratic Senators from his home State of Arkansas support his nomination. So he has home State support.

We know the American Bar Association rated him their highest rating, "well-qualified."

We know he is probably the finest appellate lawyer in the State of Arkansas.

We know the Arkansas Supreme Court, when at various times they need a lawyer to sit on that court, they have called him two or three times to sit on the court.

He is one of the most respected lawyers in the State of Arkansas.

He was Phi Beta Kappa at Duke University. I think he was No. 1 in his class in law school.

This is a man of integrity, of religious faith and conviction, who is active in his church, who has reached out to the poor all his life, tried to do the right thing, and he is the one who comes up here and gets beaten up.

This is what his hometown newspaper, the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, said. These are the kinds of comments from the people who know him:

What distinguishes Mr. Holmes is a rare blend of qualities he brings to the law-intellect, scholarship, conviction, detachment, a reverence not just for the law but for ideas, for the life of the mind. All of that would shine through the clutter of argument that awaits any judge. He would not only bring distinction to the bench, but promise. In choosing Leon Holmes, the President could bequeath a promise of greatness.

I think that is high praise. That is a beautiful comment. I suggest that is something anyone would be proud to have said about them.

He has practiced commercial litigation at the trial and appellate level in State and Federal courts. He has acquired significant courtroom experience. He is currently a partner at Quattlebaum, Grooms, Tull & Burrow in Little Rock. He was rated "well-qualified" by the ABA.

He knows the value of hard work. He came from humble roots and is the only one of his seven siblings to attend college. He worked his way through college, finished law school at night while working a full-time job to support his family.

He is an accomplished scholar. As I said, he finished at the top of his class, was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa while a doctoral student at Duke University. He was named outstanding political science student upon graduation from the college. That is pretty good. Duke University is a pretty fine university.

During the academic years of 1990 to 1992, he taught a variety of courses at Thomas Aquinas College in California. He taught law at the University of Arkansas during the year he clerked for Justice Holt of the Arkansas Supreme Court. One does not get selected to be a law clerk for a supreme court judge if one is not good. He displayed wide-ranging academic interest. His doctoral dissertation discussed the political philosophies of W.E.B. Debois and Booker T. Washington. It analyzed the efforts of Martin Luther King, Jr., and has made efforts to reconcile their views. He has written substantial essays dealing with the subjects of political philosophy, law, and theology. He has been active in the bar in Arkansas. He taught continuing legal education courses on numerous occasions. He has been awarded the State bar's best CLE award four times. He sits on the board of advisers of the Arkansas Bar Association. He chaired the editorial board for the bar's education for handling appeals in Arkansas.

That is pretty good. The Arkansas Bar does a publication on how to handle appeals in Arkansas. He was chosen to chair the editorial board for that publication. I submit to my colleagues that his peers think he is a good lawyer.

He sits on the judicial nominations committee for the Arkansas State courts which recommends attorneys to the Governor for judicial appointment in supreme court cases where one or more justices recuse themselves. He is one of a top handful of appellate lawyers in Arkansas, and in 2001, the Arkansas Bar Association bestowed its writing excellence award on Mr. Holmes.

On two occasions Leon Holmes has been appointed to serve as a special Arkansas Supreme Court judge, which is a real honor for a practicing attorney. The judges have praised his service in those cases, and more than one has urged him to run for a seat on the Arkansas Supreme Court. So he is well respected by the plaintiffs bar in Arkansas.

Mr. Holmes is currently defending on appeal the largest jury verdict ever awarded in Arkansas history. It is the case of a nursing home resident who allegedly died from neglect. He is representing the plaintiffs side on appeal.

If you are a plaintiff lawyer and you won in trial the largest civil judgment in Arkansas history, and it is on appeal and you want a lawyer to represent you, you want the best lawyer you can get, and you have the money to get that lawyer, you have a verdict worth millions, probably hundreds of millions of dollars-I do not know. Who did they choose out of the whole State of Arkansas? Leon Holmes. What does that say? They put their money on him. Their case was put on his shoulders.

Look, he has given back to the community. This is not a man who is selfish as a practicing lawyer just to see how much money he can make. He was a habeas counsel for death row inmate Ricky Ray Rector, the mentally retarded man who was attempting to avoid execution. It came before then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton. He refused at that time to commute the death sentence. But Holmes helped prepare the case for the evidentiary hearing in Federal court after habeas had already been filed.

Not many big-time civil lawyers give their time to represent poor people, or mentally retarded people on death row. Holmes represented a Laotian immigrant woman suffering from terminal liver disease when Medicaid refused to cover treatment for a liver transplant. Do my colleagues think he made a bunch of money off that case? He did it because he thought it was the right thing to do. He helps people who are weak and do not have fair access to the courts.

He represented a woman who lost custody of her children to her ex-husband, who could not afford counsel on appeal. He represented an indigent man with a methamphetamine felony history in connection with traffic misdemeanors.

He has given back to his community outside the law, also. He was a house parent for the Elan Home for Children while a graduate student in North Carolina. He served as director of the Florence Critten Home of Little Rock, helping young women cope with pregnancy.

He is partner with Philip Anderson, a former president of the American Bar Association who does not share Judge Holmes' views on a lot of issues politically, but he strongly supports him as an excellent judge, as do a large number of women.

Let me read some of the people who know him. This is what his history shows. Some say, well, we do not know. He has these religious beliefs. What do we know about him in practice? Will he get on the bench and do all of these horrible things? It is not his record to do that kind of thing.

Female colleagues from the Arkansas bar who know him support him strongly. This is what one said:

During my 7 years at Williams & Anderson, I worked very close with Leon. We were in contact on a daily basis and handled many cases together. I toiled many long hours under stressful circumstances with Leon and always found him to be respectful, courteous and supportive. I was the first female associate to be named as a partner at Williams & Anderson. Leon was a strong proponent of my election to the partnership and, subsequently, encouraged and supported my career advancement, as well as the advancement of other women within the firm.

So they say, well, he and his wife wrote this article quoting St. Paul and we think he does not like women. What about him being a strong supporter of this woman being the first female partner at his law firm?

Continuing to quote from the letter:

..... Leon treated me in an equitable and respectful manner. I always have found him to be supportive of my career ..... Leon and I have different political views; however, I know him to be a fair and just person and have complete trust in his ability to put aside any personal or political views and apply the law in a thoughtful and equitable manner.

That is Jeanne Seewald in a letter to Chairman Hatch and Senators LEAHY and SCHUMER dated April 8 of last year when this issue came up. So this lady does not share his political views, or I assume his views maybe on abortion or other issues, but she knows he will be a fair and good judge.

Here is another letter:

Leon has trained me in the practice of law and now, as my partner, works with me on several matters. His office has been next to mine at the firm approximately two years. During that time, I worked with Leon as an expectant mother and now work with him as a new mother. Leon's daughters babysit my 11-month-old son.

I value Leon's input, not only on work-related matters but also on personal matters. I have sought him out for advice on a number of issues. Although Leon and I do not always see eye-to-eye, I respect him and trust his judgment. Above all, he is fair.

While working with Leon, I have observed him interact with various people. He treats all people, regardless of gender, station in life, or circumstance, with the same respect and dignity. He has always been supportive of me in my law practice, as well as supportive of the other women in our firm. Gender has never been an issue in any decision in the firm.

That is a letter from Kristine Baker, April 8, to Senators HATCH, SCHUMER, and LEAHY.

Another female attorney in Little Rock, AR, Eileen Woods Harrison, states:

I am a life-long Democrat and also pro-choice. I commend Mr. Holmes to you. He is a brilliant man, a great lawyer and a fine person.

That was a letter sent to Senators HATCH, SCHUMER, and Leahy.

Another one states:

I heartily recommend Mr. Holmes to you. He is an outstanding lawyer and a fine person. While he and I differ dramatically on the pro-choice, pro-life issue, I am fully confident he will do his duty as the law and facts of a given case require.

One more-well, let me ask right there, has there been any instance shown where he has failed to comply with the law in his practice, in any way shown disrespect to the court, or in any way said a judge or a lawyer should not obey the law and follow the law? No, and these letters say that.

Beth Deere, in a letter dated March 24, 2003, to Senators HATCH and LEAHY, states:

I support Leon Holmes because he is not only a bright legal mind, but also because he is a good person who believes that our nation will be judged by the care it affords the least and the littlest in our society. I am not troubled that he is personally opposed to abortion. Mr. Holmes is shot through with integrity. He will, I believe, uphold and apply the law with the utmost care and diligence.

Well, I do not know what else can be said. The only thing I can see is that people do not like his views on abortion, they do not like the views on family he and his wife have, and they are holding him up for that. His views are not extreme. His views are consistent with the faith of his church, not only his church, but the majority of Christendom.

Now does that make someone unqualified to be a Federal judge? Is the rule that no true believers in Catholic doctrine need apply for a Federal judgeship? They say that is not it; they say that they are not anti-Catholic. I am not saying anybody is anti-Catholic. I am saying a lot of people do not agree with the doctrine of a lot of Christian churches and that should not affect how they vote on a nominee if the nominee is proven to be committed to following the law.

It is all right, of course, for a person to have a religious faith; everybody says that. We would never discriminate against anybody who has religious faith. But if their faith calls on them to actually believe something and they have to make choices and those choices are not popular or politically correct at a given time, but they adhere to them because they believe in them, it is part of the tenets of their faith and the church to which they belong-and I would note parenthetically no church spends more time studying carefully the theology of its church and the doctrines of its church than the Catholic church-if they are consistent with that church's beliefs, they now no longer can be confirmed as a Federal judge?

It is all right if one goes along and does not ever do anything to actually affirm aggressively the doctrine of their church. In other words, if one goes to mass and never says anything about the question of abortion or family or other issues outside of the church doors, then they are all right, but if someone actually writes an article somewhere and says, I believe in this, they risk being punished. Actually, in this case it was an article written from one Catholic couple to other Catholics discussing in depth some of the doctrines of the church and how they believed in them. So the Holmes shared their thoughts within their church family about how the church's views ought to be interpreted and expressed their personal views about how it ought to be, does that disqualify them from being a Federal judge? No. I think this is a bad policy.

The question should simply be this: Will he follow the law of the U.S. Supreme Court on abortion even if he does not agree with it? And the answer is, yes. He has already stated that unequivocally. His record shows that.

The lawyers who practice with him who are pro-choice, women lawyers who affirm him so beautifully and so strongly, say he is going to follow the law. The American Bar Association, which is pro-choice and to the left of America on a host of issues, gave him their highest rating of well qualified.

The Arkansas Supreme Court has asked him to sit on their court at various times because they respected him. In 2001, he wrote the best legal writing in the State.

Some say they are worried because he has never been a judge. So he has not sat on the bench before. I do not think that is a matter that disqualifies him. Most people who become judges have not been a judge before on the district bench.

So what do we do to assess how he will act as a Judge? We talk to the lawyers, talk to the American Bar Association, talk to other judges in the State, and ask: What is this person like?

They all say he is first rate. Both Democratic Senators from Arkansas, who know this man, known lawyers who know this man and are familiar with his reputation, support him.

As one of our Members said earlier, in criticizing him, they asked: How can I vote for someone who believes women should be subordinated to men in this modern age?

That is not the gist of the Pauline doctrine in Ephesians. Mrs. Holmes wrote to tell us that she is not subordinate and she believes in equality and that their joint article did not mean anything other than that.

The Catholic Church does believe in ordination of only males. Some may disagree with that. I am a Methodist. We, I am pleased to say, ordain women. There are many women ministers in our church. But I want to ask again, if a person agrees with the doctrine of his church, which has been discussed and considered by the finest theologians for hundreds of years, and he agrees with that, and we don't agree with that, we don't think that is right, do we now think we should vote against that person because we don't agree with his religious beliefs? It is very dangerous to do that. We should not do it.

I ask again, what about other denominations and other faiths that have different views from ours? We may find them far more offensive than this. Are we going to refuse to vote for them? Are we going to insist that those people renounce the doctrines of the church to which they belong as a price to be paid before they can become a Federal judge? I hope not. I think we are making a mistake.

If there was something which would show that Judge Holmes could not follow the law, was not a first-rate attorney, did not have the respect of his colleagues, did not have the respect of the American Bar Association, had women lawyers who thought he was a sexist and unfair in the treatment of them and they came forward and said so, OK, I might be convinced. But none of that occurs here. That is not what we have. We have nothing but his personal beliefs that are consistent with the faith of his church. Some people don't agree with his views regarding his faith and tell us that they are going to vote against him because of that. That is not a good idea; that is not a good principle for us in this body to follow.

This is what his wife wrote. The first thing I will just note in here, she said, "The article is a product of my"-she italicized "my"--"my Bible study over many years of my marriage."

But it was a joint article. She says this:

I am incredulous that some apparently believe my husband views men and women as unequal when the article states explicitly that men and women are equal. The women who have worked with my husband, women family members, women friends, can all attest to the fact that he treats men and women with equal respect and dignity. I can attest to that in a special way as his wife.

She noted this was an article from a Catholic couple to Catholic laypeople. "It has no application to anyone who is not attempting to follow the Catholic Christian faith." She also notes that Leon cooks his share of meals, washes the dishes, does laundry, and has changed innumerable diapers, and she has worked many years outside the home, although right now she does not.

I would like to have printed in the RECORD an article from the Mobile Press-Register of the State of Alabama. It notes the similarity to the treatment given to Alabama's attorney general, Bill Pryor, when he was nominated to the Federal court of appeals, a man who also is a thoughtful, intelligent, committed Christian Catholic. This is what the Mobile Press-Register says:

The example of Bill Pryor should be illustrative in the case of Leon Holmes as well. When a nominee enjoys strong bipartisan support from the home-state folks who know him best, and from some of the top non-partisan legal officers in the country, that support should weigh far more heavily than should the out-of-context criticisms from ideological pressure groups whose fund-raising prowess depends on how much havoc they wreak on the nomination process.

I know Attorney General Bill Pryor was asked about his personal religious views on issues such as abortion. He answered honestly and truthfully and consistently with his faith, a faith that he studied carefully. People didn't like it: Well, I don't agree with you on abortion, they say.

So what. We don't have to agree on abortion to support somebody for a Federal judgeship. He affirmed and had demonstrated that he would follow any Supreme Court rulings and could demonstrate as attorney general of Alabama he followed those rulings. That wasn't enough for them. They weren't satisfied.

I ask unanimous consent this article dated July 5, 2004, be printed in the RECORD.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

[From al.com, July 5, 2004]

Pryor's Example Bears on Holmes Controversy

U.S. Senators considering how to vote Tuesday in a new judicial nomination battle should reflect on a lesson provided by a decision just written by Judge William Pryor of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Judge Pryor, of course, is the Mobile native and former Alabama attorney general whose own nomination to the bench was long blocked by smear tactics employed against him by liberal opponents. When Senate Democrats used a questionable filibuster to deny Mr. Pryor the ordinary lifelong term as a judge, President George W. Bush gave him a special "recess appointment" to the bench that lasts only through the end of 2005.

One of the many cheap shots launched at Mr. Pryor during the confirmation battle was the charge that he was insensitive to women's rights. The allegation, based on a legal brief he filed on one technical aspect of a federal law, ignored the overwhelming bulk of his legal and volunteer work to secure protections for women.

One of Mr. Pryor's first decisions as a federal judge, released last Wednesday, proves again the illegitimacy of the original charge against him. The case involved a woman in Delray Beach, Fla., who claimed she was the victim of two counts of sex discrimination by her former employer. The district court had thrown out both of her claims on "summary judgment," meaning it found so little legal merit to her allegations that the case wasn't even worth a full trial.

On appeal, however, Mr. Pryor reinstated one of the woman's claims and ordered it back to trial at the district level. His willingness-on well-reasoned legal grounds, we might add-to force the woman's case to be heard provides yet more evidence refuting the allegation that he somehow is hostile to women's rights.

HOLMES IS LIKE PRYOR

As it happens, another Bush nominee is facing similar, and similarly baseless, allegations. Arkansas lawyer and scholar Leon Holmes is due for a Senate vote on Tuesday. While no filibuster is planned against him, opponents hope to defeat him on a straight up-or-down vote by highlighting past statements of his that supposedly touch on women's rights.

The parallels to the Pryor nomination battle are striking, both because opponents are taking the nominee's statements out of context and because much of the opposition stems from factors emanating from the nominee's Catholic faith.

In the most prominent controversy, Mr. Holmes and his wife together wrote an article for a Catholic magazine that touched on Catholic theological teachings concerning marriage and gender roles in the clergy. Included was an explication of the famous lines in St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians that say, "Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord."

Aha! Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California asserted that this passage makes Mr. Holmes antagonistic towards women's rights. Never mind that in the very same article, the Holmes couple wrote: "The distinction between male and female in ordination has nothing to do with the dignity or worth of male compared to female," and "Men and women are equal in their dignity and value."

Never mind that Mr. Homes has elsewhere written that "Christianity and the political order are assigned separate spheres, separate jurisdictions." Never mind that a host of pro-choice, liberal women from Arkansas have written in favor of Mr. Holmes' nomination, nor that the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has praised the "rare blend of qualities he brings to the law-intellect, scholarship, conviction, and detachment."

And so on and so forth: For every out-of-context allegation against Mr. Holmes, there is a perfectly good answer.

BIPARTISAN SUPPORT

Philip Anderson, a recent president of the American Bar Association and a long-time law partner of Leon Holmes, endorsed Mr. Holmes: "I believe that Leon Holmes is superbly qualified for the position for which he has been nominated. He is a scholar first, and he has had broad experience in federal court. He is a person of rock-solid integrity and sterling character.
He is compassionate and even-handed. He has an innate sense of fairness."

Finally, in what in less contentious times would end all questions about Mr. Holmes' fitness, both senators from his home state, Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor (no relation to Bill), have endorsed his nomination-even though he and President Bush are Republicans, while both of them are Democrats.

It would be virtually unprecedented for the Senate to turn down a candidate nominated by one party and supported by both of his home-state senators from the other party.

The example of Bill Pryor should be illustrative in the case of Leon Holmes as well: When a nominee enjoys strong bipartisan support from the home-state folks who know him bests, and from some of the top non-partisan legal officers in the country, that support should weigh far more heavily than should the out-of-context criticisms from ideological pressure groups whose fund-raising prowess depends on how much havoc they wreak on the nomination process.

Leon Holmes is no more antagonistic to women's rights than is Bill Pryor-who, it should be mentioned, is in the Hall of Fame of Penelope House, a prominent local women's shelter.

Mr. Holmes ought to be confirmed, and the character assassination must come to an end.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I think we will soon be voting-at 5:30. I urge my colleagues to remember this. You do not have to agree with a nominee's personal religious views to support him or her as judge. The fact that you do not share a person's personal religious views on a host of different matters is not a basis to vote no. The question is, Will that person follow the law?

That is the right test. That is the classical test we have always had. We are getting away from it. We have Members I respect in this body who say we just ought to consider ideology, we just ought to consider their politics, just put it out on the table. Let's not pretend anymore that these things are not what some of my colleagues base their judicial votes on, let's put it out there.

But I say to you that is a dangerous philosophy because it suggests that judges are politicians, that judges are people who are empowered to make political decisions; therefore, we ought to elect judges who agree with our politics. It is contrary to the Anglo-American rule of law through our whole belief system in which judges are given lifetime appointments so they can be expected to resist politics and to adhere to the law as it is written and as defined by the Supreme Court of the United States. That is what it is all about. That is what we need to adhere to here. If we move away from that idea, if we suggest we no longer believe or expect judges to follow the law and not to be politicians, we have undermined law in this country to an extraordinary degree. The American people will not put up with it.

The American people will accept rulings even if they don't like them if they believe the court is following the law, if they believe the court is honestly declaring the Constitution. But if they believe our Supreme Court has ceased to do that, or any other judges in this country have ceased to do that, and they are then imposing their personal views-even though they have not been elected to office, don't have to stand for election for office, hold their office for life and they are unaccountable-they will not accept that.

There is a danger in America at this point in time. What President Bush is doing, day after day, week after week, is simply sending up judges who believe the law ought to be followed and they ought not to impose their political views from the bench.

How can we be afraid of that? Our liberties are not at risk by these judges, as one wise lawyer said at a hearing of the Judiciary Committee, of which I am a member. He said: I don't see that our liberties are at great risk from judges who show restraint. Our liberties are at risk from those who impose their political views from the bench.

I think Justice Holmes has demonstrated a career of commitment to the law. He has won the respect of both of the Democratic Senators from Arkansas. He has won the respect of the Supreme Court of Arkansas. He has won the respect of the American Bar Association, fellow women lawyers who worked with him, year after year after year. He is the kind of person we want on the bench, a person who truly believes in something more than making a dollar, who has represented the poor and dispossessed, who has spoken out on issues that are important to him, who is active in his church. That is what we need more of on the bench. I urge the Senate to confirm Leon Holmes.

I yield the floor.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. FITZGERALD). Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I want to respond to a few of the comments that have been made earlier today.
One of the complaints that has been made is that Leon Holmes, in a letter, said pregnancies from rape were as rare as snowstorms in Miami. I think there is a literary device called exaggeration for effect. I am sure he did not intend that literally. As a matter of fact, some of the studies at that time showed pregnancies as a result of rape to be very rare indeed. I think since then numbers have come out to show a larger number have resulted from rape.

Mr. Holmes apologized, not recently but a number of years ago, for that statement and, in fact, has written a nice letter in which he dealt with that explicitly and said that was not appropriate and noted he had matured over the years. I point out he wrote that letter before he became a lawyer in the early 1980s, or earlier, as a young man debating as a free American citizen an issue that was important to him.

So that is what he said. That is how that came about. He has apologized for it. I do not think it was malicious. I do not think he intended anything bad by it. I think he was trying to make the point that based on the evidence he had at the time not that many abortions occurred as a result of rape. But he has admitted that was wrong and he should not have used that kind of language. He has apologized to everybody he can apologize to. But it will not make much difference, I am sure, to some people.

I see the chairman of the Judiciary Committee in the Chamber, Senator Hatch.

I remember we had a young man who had gone off to college, I guess in his early twenties, and had used a college credit card to purchase illegal property for himself, and they found it in the dorm room. He went off to the Army and did well and went to law school and did well, and we considered that and sat down, and we felt this was not disqualifying.

So they say that as a young man he made this one statement and this is going to disqualify him from sitting on the bench? It was 24 years ago. Well, as if there is something bad about this man, his comment was on the only thing he has politically ever really been engaged with-the pro-life issue. His pro-life views are his religious belief. It is consistent with his church's belief. It is his personal belief. He believes it is a bad thing to abort human life. And he has been active out there as a private citizen-not as a judge, as a private citizen-advocating. But the complaints they had about him on this issue were over 20 years ago before he even got his law degree. So I think they are not persuasive in this debate.

He has also been attacked about the question of "natural law." And he answered the questions of the Senate Judiciary Committee, by Democratic members, about when they asked him about it. He said:

In my scholarly capacity, I wrote in my "Comment on Shankman" that there are no other provisions that open the door to natural law.

He was asked whether he said that you couldn't alter the Constitution on a natural law basis on a specific case. I believe one of the members of the committee asked him, what about any other case? And he said no.

He was asked another question:

During his Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Clarence Thomas testified that he did not "see a role for the use of natural law in constitutional adjudication." Do you disagree or agree? Please explain why or why not?

Mr. Holmes replied:

As I have stated above, I do not believe that the courts are empowered by the Constitution to appeal to natural law as a basis for their decisions. The courts are given whatever authority they have by the Constitution. The Constitution does not authorize the courts to use natural law as a basis for overruling acts of Congress or acts of state legislatures.

The comment that he believes natural law overrides the Constitution is contrary to his personal religious views but proves that he will be a fair judge.

He was attacked viciously for the article he and his wife wrote about marriage. I will just note that he and his wife together were quoting the Pauline doctrine of marriage out of the book of Ephesians in the New Testament. It was written in a Catholic magazine for Catholic readership. It assumed certain background knowledge by the readers of the article on Catholic doctrine. It did not attempt to explicate Catholic theology for readers of other faiths who would lack that background and have difficulty understanding. Moreover, the main thrust of the article was to explain why gender-neutral language was inappropriate in the liturgy of a church. It did not focus on Catholic doctrine on marriage.

In a letter to Senator BLANCHE LINCOLN, a fine Senator from Arkansas who supports him and a Democratic Senator, he wrote this in explaining what he and his wife meant:

The Catholic faith is pervaded with the view that the visible things symbolize aspects of the spiritual realm. This pervasive element of the faith is manifest in the teaching that the marital relationship symbolizes the relationship between Christ and the Church. My wife and I believe that this teaching ennobles and dignifies marriage and both partners in it. We do not believe that this teaching demeans either the husband or the wife but that it elevates both. It involves a mutual self-giving and self-forgetting, a reciprocal gift of self. This teaching is not inconsistent with the equality of all persons, male and female, and, in fact, in that column we say: "[a]ll of us, male and female, are equally sons of God and therefore brothers of one another." This aspect of my faith-the teaching that male and female have equal dignity and are equal in the sight of God-has been manifest, I believe in my dealings with my female colleagues in our firm and in the profession as a whole.

Indeed, many of them support him quite strongly. I reserve the remainder of the time and yield the floor.