Prayer
PRAYER
Mr. SPECTER. While the Senator from New York is on the Senate floor, I ask him to respond to a question, and that is, Does he consider this Senator a far-right extremist militant?
Mr. SCHUMER. Is this on the time of the Senator from Pennsylvania?
Mr. SPECTER. Yes.
Mr. SCHUMER. Please repeat.
Mr. SPECTER. It was argued a few moments ago with a chart, 168 to 4 that only "a far-right extremist militant" would say that was an insufficient record.
So my question to the Senator from New York is, Do you consider ARLEN SPECTER a far right extremist militant?
Mr. SCHUMER. I do not, in answering his question. But sometimes he has occasional lapses in his very fine judgment. And this is obviously one of those.
Mr. SPECTER. Well, I do not know how the Senator from New York can say there is a defect in judgment when I have not asserted anything yet. All I asked, Mr. President, was a question as to whether he considered ARLEN SPECTER a far right extremist militant. And he said, no, but sometimes there are lapses in my judgment.
I will ask a followup question to the Senator from New York. In the absence of any assertion or statement of judgment, where are the lapses in my judgment at the moment?
Mr. SCHUMER. I will say to my colleague, I heard him speak on this before, and when it comes to the issue of judicial nominees, where my colleague has usually quite good judgment, in recent months he is sort of edging way over to the right side, for reasons I am not sure of. But his normally sound and moderate judgment, in my judgment, when some of these nominees came up, has abandoned him, at least in this moment.
I say to my colleague, any nominee who believes that Lochner-and my colleague is very erudite, so I do not even have to describe to him what it is-who says that Lochner was correctly decided does not belong on the bench, in anyone's book, and, my guess is, really in his heart of hearts, does not belong on the bench in the book of the Senator from Pennsylvania. I know he will dispute that, but seeing his record, I have admired his record. And a judge who believes that property rights, that zoning is taking-
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. BUNNING). The Senator from Pennsylvania has the floor.
Mr. SCHUMER. I was responding to the question.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I do thank you for your intervention. I had not wanted to interrupt the Senator from New York by calling for regular order, which would be in order when the comments go beyond-far beyond the scope of the question. But I thank the Chair for his intervention.
I would ask the Senator from New York another question, and ask him to be as restrained in time as he can be because we only have a half an hour, for I was concerned the last answer might use up the entire half hour.
When the Senator from New York made the comment that he questions my judgment, did he disagree with my judgment when President Clinton nominated Berzon to be a Court of Appeals judge for the Ninth Circuit and I joined with Democrats to get her confirmed?
Mr. SCHUMER. As I said-and I will try to be brief; and I know neither the Senator from Pennsylvania nor I is known for brevity on the floor-
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, that calls for a yes or no answer.
Mr. SCHUMER. As I said, normally I think the judgment of my colleague is a good one. Berzon, in my judgment, the nomination of Judge Berzon, she was quite far to the left. But I spoke about this last night. I believe, at least, because President Clinton, by and large-
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SPECTER. We have quite a number of people here who are already prepared to speak, and we will go on in regular order. But I asked the Senator from New York those questions because I think his assertion, when you hold up the chart with 168 to 4 and then say that only a far right extremist militant would question that, is grossly in error. I sought to illustrate it by asking the question as to whether ARLEN SPECTER fits that bill of a far right extremist militant.
The reality is that the 168 to 4 does not tell the picture. It is a misconstruction. Beyond the 4 who have been rejected by the filibuster by the Democrats, there are 5 others who are currently being filibustered; there are 14 others pending where the filibuster is imminent. President Bush has had only 63 percent of his appellate judges confirmed, whereas in similar circumstance for the past three Presidencies, there have been 91 percent confirmed.
So the chart, which has been seen more often than the most activist commercials, simply is misleading. These filibusters have gone very deeply into the heart of the nomination power of the President. The tradition has always been that the President gets substantial latitude in selecting judicial nominees. And where you have a challenge in ideology, the Democrats have, in this proceeding, gone to a new level in filibustering circuit judges. It simply has never been done before.
Last night, the Senator from Illinois made a comment that all the Republicans were doing here was theater. And I spoke shortly thereafter, and I agreed with him that this is theater. But it happens to be factual theater, and the theater is being utilized for a very important purpose; that is, to acquaint the American people with what is happening in the Senate on the politicization of judicial nominees.
I outlined in some detail yesterday, and will summarize it only briefly, the business of it being difficult when the party in the White House is different from the party in the Senate, which is what happened during the last 2 years of President Reagan's administration, and all of the administration of President George Herbert Walker Bush, where the percentages were very low. Then, in the first 2 years of President Clinton's administration, the percentages were high because he had a Senate controlled by his own party. And when President Clinton made nominations in the last 6 years, the percentages again were low. So the fault has been attributable to both parties when one party controlled the White House and the other party controlled the Senate.
But what has happened here more recently has been a new low. It has been a new low because for the first time there has been a filibuster of a circuit judge, which had never happened in the preceding 216 years of the Republic. And what we are doing here in this marathon-aptly named; it is not a filibuster, it is a marathon-is to call the attention of the American people to what has happened.
I related the filibuster sequence back in 1987, which is worth repeating, because it illustrates the point about how these proceedings are effective in telling the American people what is going on.
In 1987, there was a filibuster by Republicans on campaign finance reform. Senator Byrd was the leader of the Democrats. At about 2 a.m.-one early morning-Senator Dole, the Republican leader, called us all back into the cloakroom, a few feet to the rear of where I stand now, and said he would request that no Republican Senator go to the floor, so as to compel the Democrats to maintain a quorum-51 Senators-because in the absence of a quorum on the floor, any Senator may suggest the absence of a quorum and then there is no further business to be transacted.
Senator Byrd then responded with a motion to arrest absent Senators, and the Sergeant at Arms, Henry Giugni, was armed with the warrants of arrest. The Sergeant at Arms started to patrol the halls, and the first Senator he found was Senator Lowell Weicker. Sergeant at Arms Henry Giugni was about 5 feet 6 inches and 150 pounds. Senator Lowell Weicker was 6 feet 4 inches and 240 pounds-in fact, still is 6 feet 4 inches and 240 pounds. The Sergeant at Arms decided not to arrest Senator Weicker, which I think was a wise decision.
I note the Senator from Connecticut, Mr. Dodd, smiling. He was Senator Weicker's colleague at the time from Connecticut and I think would confirm the wisdom of not arresting Senator Weicker.
So then the Sergeant at Arms started to knock on Senate doors. It is interesting how, when you tell a story, there is so much more attention paid to what is going on. People are snoozing here generally during this marathon.
At any rate, Henry Giugni went to knock on doors, and he knocked on Senator Packwood's door, and Senator Packwood
foolishly answered the door. Then Senator Packwood was carried, feet first, in through that door. I was in the Chamber at the time. They carried him feet first.
This is a true story. You do not get many true stories out of Washington, but this is a true story. Even the pages think it is funny. It was really funny that night. It attracted a lot of attention. And that is what we seek to do here today, is to attract attention, because if the American people focus on what is going on with this filibuster, of the politicization of the judges, we think we can end it. And we are trying to make C-SPAN the channel of choice, to replace Jay Leno in the late hours.
There are many people who are surfing as we speak. It is amazing how many people will even watch C-SPAN or get to C-SPAN inadvertently in surfing. And I would urge them to continue to listen because what is happening here is substantively important, and I think even more interesting than the soaps, or at least stay tuned for the next 20 minutes, until after Senator Smith and Senator Sununu have had an opportunity to speak.
I want to cover one other subject very briefly before yielding to my colleagues, and that is the subject of the quality of the nominees who have been filibustered. I will cite only one in the interest of time, and that is Miguel Estrada.
This is a young man who was born in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. He came to the United States as a teenager. Really, it is the great American story. He went to Columbia, where he was Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude, and that is a considerable achievement. He then went to the Harvard Law School where he was magna cum laude and on the Harvard Law Review.
That is a unique achievement.
He then was a law clerk to two distinguished Federal judges, one of whom was on the Supreme Court of the United States. He then had a distinguished career as a practicing lawyer. Then he went to the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York. And I can tell you from my own experience as an assistant DA, that is a very valuable experience. Then he was an Assistant Solicitor General and had really a remarkable record.
He was rejected by the Democrats on a filibuster and ultimately withdrew, and it was really because he was potentially a Supreme Court nominee. And the reasons given: the reasons were that he was a stealth candidate. But any fair analysis of his responses to other nominees' would demonstrate that he answered the questions at least up to the standard level, and then the Democrats objected to his nomination because he refused-the administration refused to turn over memoranda he had written as an Assistant Solicitor General. But if those memoranda are to be turned over under that circumstance, every lawyer who is an Assistant Solicitor General or an assistant DA or in any legal position would be chilled by the prospect of having such memoranda disclosed at some time in the future when that individual was subject to the confirmation process.
Now, it is my hope that these proceedings will produce something useful by way of focusing the attention of the American people.
I was on a radio program in Fargo, ND, for about 25 minutes earlier this morning, and these ideas have been spread across the country. It is my hope that the American people will communicate with the Senators on both sides of the aisle, both Republicans and Democrats. I think when the American people focus on this issue, there will be great pressure to change, to take politics out of the selection of Federal judges.
I now yield to my distinguished colleague from Oregon, Senator Smith.
I ask the Senator, how much time would you like?
Mr. SMITH. Ten minutes.
Mr. SPECTER. Done.