Executive Session

EXECUTIVE SESSION

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I thank my colleague and I appreciate his leadership on the floor. This is an exceptional nominee for the court.

I rise to voice my strong support for the nomination of Jerome A. Holmes of Oklahoma to be a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. With this nomination, we see an all-too-familiar pattern. Mr. Holmes is a highly qualified nominee, a man of integrity and character who knows the proper role of a judge, someone who is praised by those who know him and attacked by some who do not.

Let me review each element of this familiar pattern in turn.

First, Mr. Holmes is a highly qualified nominee. After receiving his law degree from Georgetown University in 1988, where he was editor in chief of the Georgetown Immigration Law Journal, Mr. Holmes returned to Oklahoma and began an impressive legal career. He clerked first for U.S. District Judge Wayne Alley of the Western District of Oklahoma, and then for U.S. Circuit Judge William Holloway of the Tenth Circuit. Both judges have since taken senior status, and I can only imagine how proud they must be to see their former clerk now nominated to the Federal bench himself. And in the case of Judge Holloway, I truly hope that Mr. Holmes will soon have the privilege of calling his former boss a colleague.

After 3 years of private practice with the highly regarded law firm of Steptoe & Johnson, Mr. Holmes entered public service. While an Assistant United States Attorney serving the Western District of Oklahoma, Mr. Holmes prosecuted a wide range of cases and was that office's anti-terrorism coordinator. No doubt among his most vivid memories from that time was his experience on the prosecution team regarding the Oklahoma City bombing. Somehow, Mr. Holmes also completed a master's degree in public administration from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Currently, after more than a decade as a prosecutor, Mr. Holmes is back in private practice as a director of Crowe & Dunlevy, a prominent law firm in Oklahoma City, where he chairs the firm's diversity. committee. He has also served as Vice President of the Oklahoma Bar Association. This is an exceptional man.

Second, Mr. Holmes is a man of integrity and character. We hear now and then about the need for judges who are well-rounded individuals, who are good people as well a good lawyers. Well, during his years in private practice and public service, Mr. Holmes has also served his community. In addition to chairing the Oklahoma City Rescue Mission, Mr. Holmes has been a director of the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation and a trustee of the Oklahoma City National Memorial Foundation.

Third, Mr. Holmes understands the proper role of judge in our system of Government. He has testified under oath that he knows judges must separate their personal views from what the law requires. He has repeatedly affirmed his commitment to follow applicable Supreme Court precedent in cases that will come before him. This means, as he put it in answers to questions following his hearing, an even-handed application of legal principles in all areas.

Fourth, Mr. Holmes is praised and supported by those who know him. This includes Democrats in Oklahoma. Daniel Webber, appointed by President Bill Clinton to be U.S. Attorney in Oklahoma, has written the Judiciary Committee in support of Mr. Holmes' nomination. He has known this nominee for more than a decade and urged confirmation based on Mr. Holmes' intellect, experience, and character. Reaffirming that the nominee before us today knows the proper role of a judge, Mr. Webber wrote us that Mr. Holmes is ``respectful of the role of the courts. ..... When Jerome states under oath that he will put his personal views aside and follow the law, I believe he will do just that.''

Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry, a Democrat, also wrote the Judiciary Committee to support this nomination. Governor Henry said that Mr. Holmes is ``a highly qualified candidate, a superb lawyer, with a reputation for fairness, ethics and integrity. In short, I do not think you could have a candidate more highly qualified and regarded than Jerome Holmes.'' A superb lawyer with a reputation for fairness, ethics, and integrity. It seems to me that is exactly the formula we should consistently be looking for in nominees to the Federal bench.

So far, so good. The fifth element of this familiar pattern, however, is that Mr. Holmes is being attacked and opposed by some who do not know him. Mind you, they have not suggested that Mr. Holmes is not qualified to sit on the Federal appellate bench. They have not disputed his character or integrity. Nor have they offered anything to cast doubt on what seems to be universal acclaim from those who know Mr. Holmes and have worked with him. In yet another familiar element of this pattern, Mr. Holmes' critics find fault not with his experience, his qualifications, his integrity, or his character, but his politics.

In particular, the critics take issue with Mr. Holmes' opposition to Government-imposed racial preference policies. Let me emphasize what I mentioned a few minutes ago, that Mr. Holmes helped create and chairs his law firm's diversity committee. In the private arena, he works to recruit and retain qualified lawyers of various racial and ethnic backgrounds. He also believes that race-based policies were once necessary to address the effects of past discrimination. Mr. Holmes would be the first African-American judge on the Tenth Circuit. At the same time, like two-thirds of Americans, Mr. Holmes opposes current programs that condition admission to public universities on race, not to address past discrimination but to create future diversity.

My liberal friends can, of course, disagree with Mr. Holmes on this issue. But by suggesting that his opinion on this issue somehow disqualifies him from serving on the Federal bench, they are treading on very dangerous ground. Mr. Holmes is hardly the first judicial nominee to have taken a clearly defined stand on a controversial issue. I could chronicle some of the more prominent examples, judges overwhelmingly confirmed by this body. Are my liberal friends saying that we should instead be looking to be judicial nominees individuals who have no opinions on issues of the day, who have done nothing, said nothing, and thought nothing? Or are they suggesting that if nominees have thought about and have opinions on controversial issues, only liberal opinions are acceptable?

The issue is not whether a nominee is liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, but whether he is committed to basing his judicial decisions on the law. The evidence from him and those who know him is that Mr. Holmes will do just that, and there is not a shred of evidence to the contrary.

Not only that, but Mr. Holmes' supporters--again, those who know him best--also stress his willingness to listen and to respect those with differing views. Oklahoma County Commissioner Jim Roth, another Democrat, wrote the Judiciary Committee calling Mr. Holmes ``a principled leader who demonstrates mutual respect for all people. In particular, he is respectful of views that differ from his own and he enjoys tremendous bipartisan support and respect.'' That is from a Democrat. How can you ask for a better statement from anybody?

Specifically on the issue that has so captivated Mr. Holmes' critics, Pastor George Young, Sr., who supports affirmative action, writes that ``Mr. Holmes has displayed a level of integrity in all his dealings that I have been aware and has shown in out personal conversation willingness to listen and respect differing views.''

Perhaps my liberal friends are taking out their litmus paper to judge Mr. Holmes' personal views because they believe that is precisely what should drive judicial decisions. Mr. President, I reject that notion out of hand and I invite those who take such an ideological, politicized view of what judges do to try and sell that to the American people.

Mr. President, personal views or political positions are the wrong standard for evaluating judicial nominees. It distorts the fundamental difference between advocates and judges, between opinion and law. And it misleads the American people about what judges do and the important place they occupy in our system of Government. I am convinced that Mr. Holmes understands far better than his critics that judges must be neutral arbiters, that they must follow the law, that they must set aside personal views or opinions. I am convinced that Mr. Holmes will do just that on the Tenth Circuit.

Mr. President, we have been here before. Nominees of obvious qualification and experience, unquestioned integrity and character, and solid bipartisan support, are nonetheless attacked and maligned because of their personal views or political opinions. It has happened before and, sadly, I expect it will happen in the future. The proper standard, however, looks at qualifications, integrity, and commitment to the proper role of judges in our system of Government. Judged by this proper standard, Mr. Holmes will be a fine member of the court he once served as a law clerk.

Let me close with the words of one of the judges Mr. Holmes served as a law clerk. Judge William Holloway was appointed to the Tenth Circuit in 1968 by President Lyndon Johnson. He wrote the Judiciary Committee that Mr. Holmes ``performed his work for our court as my clerk with complete impartiality and compassion for the people whose cases were before the court. I am convinced he will give extraordinarily fine service as a fair minded and industrious judge.''

Excellence, fairness, integrity, impartiality, compassion, and a willingness to listen. That is what the evidence shows, Mr. President. Jerome Holmes is a fine lawyer and a good man. He will make a great judge.

I yield the floor.

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