Senate Confirms 205th
Bush Judge
Crotty A Consensus
Choice
WASHINGTON (Monday, April 11) – The Senate on
Monday evening unanimously confirmed Paul Crotty to be a U.S. District
Court Judge for the Southern District of New York. Mr. Crotty’s
confirmation marks the 205th judicial nominee of President
Bush’s to be confirmed by the Senate. Sen. Patrick Leahy, (D-Vt.), the
ranking Democratic member of the Judiciary Committee, described Mr.
Crotty as a consensus nominee and an example of how the judicial
nominations process can work smoothly and successfully when there is
meaningful bipartisan consultation. Leahy’s statement is below.
Statement Of Senator Patrick
Leahy,
On The Nomination Of Paul Crotty,
To Be United States District Court Judge,
For The Southern District Of New York,
April 11, 2005
I am pleased to see
the Senate finally be able to vote on the nomination of Paul Crotty to
be a U.S. District Court Judge for the Southern District of New York.
The seat to which Mr. Crotty has been nominated has been unnecessarily
vacant for months, and Democrats have been asking for months now, since
last year, for this nominee to be considered, debated, voted on and
confirmed.
As I have noted in
earlier statements in the Judiciary Committee, among this President’s
renominations there are two noncontroversial judicial nominations on
which we should have been able to make immediate progress. I have often
spoken of the President’s nomination of Mr. Crotty to the District Court
for the Southern District of New York and the nomination of Michael
Seabright to the District Court of Hawaii. All Democrats on the
Judiciary Committee have been prepared to vote favorably on these
nominations for some time. We were prepared to report them last year but
they were not listed by the then-Chairman on a Committee agenda. I thank
Chairman Specter to including them at our meeting on March 17.
Last week, I noted
that both these consensus nominations were continuing to languish
without action on the Senate Calendar and that the Senate Republican
leadership was refusing to work with us to schedule them for action. I
thank the Senate Republican leadership for being willing to turn to the
Crotty nomination this evening. I hope that they will not make Mr.
Seabright, the people of Hawaii and the Hawaii District Court wait much
longer before we are allowed to consider, debate and confirm Michael
Seabright, as well.
Once confirmed, Mr.
Crotty will be the 205th of 215 nominees brought before the
full Senate for a vote to be confirmed. That means that 829 of the 875
authorized judgeships in the federal judiciary, or 95 percent, will be
filled. As late as it is in the year, we are still ahead of the pace
the Republican majority set in 1999, when President Clinton was in the
White House. That year, the Senate Republican leadership did not allow
the Senate to consider the first judicial nominee until April 15.
Of the 46 judicial
vacancies now existing, President Bush has not even sent nominees for 28
of those vacancies, more than half. I have been encouraging the Bush
Administration to work with Senators to identify qualified and consensus
judicial nominees and do so, again, today.
It is now the second
week in April, we are more than one-quarter through the year and so far
the President has sent only one new nominee for a federal court vacancy
all year – only one. Instead of sending back divisive nominees, would
it not be better for the country, the courts, the American people, the
Senate and the Administration if the White House would work with us to
identify, and for the President to nominate, more consensus nominees
like Paul Crotty who can be confirmed quickly with strong, bipartisan
votes?
I commend the Senators
from New York for their ability and efforts in connection with
Mr. Crotty’s nomination. Their support is very helpful and indicative
of the type of bipartisan efforts Senate Democrats have made with this
President and remain willing to make. We can work together to fill
judicial vacancies with qualified, consensus nominees. The vast
majority of the more than 200 judges confirmed during the last three and
one-half years were confirmed with bipartisan support. The truth is
that in President Bush’s first term, the 204 judges confirmed were more
than were confirmed in either of President Clinton two terms, more than
during the term of this President’s father, and more than in Ronald
Reagan’s first term when he was being assisted by a Republican majority
in the Senate. By last December, we had reduced judicial vacancies from
the 110 vacancies I inherited in the summer of 2001 to the lowest level,
lowest rate and lowest number in decades, since Ronald Reagan was in
office.
There should be no
misunderstanding, Mr. Crotty has strong Republican ties. He worked as
Corporation Counsel for then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and served in
New York City government in a variety of posts over the years.
After the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, Mr. Crotty played a
major role in coordinating Verizon's work in restoring telephone service
to the New York Stock Exchange, Federal, State and local agencies and
large business customers. He continues to play a significant role in
Verizon's revitalization of its telephone network in Lower Manhattan.
In 2002, Mr. Crotty led Verizon's efforts in a complex administrative
proceeding to gain the New York Public Service Commission's
authorization to rebalance retail revenues in light of the increasing
competition in New York's communication market.
Mr. Crotty has also
given generously of his time and currently serves on the Boards of the
Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, Tri-State United Way, where he
is also the Corporate Secretary, Polytechnic University, Council of
Governing Boards, St. Vincent's Hospital-Manhattan, New York State
Business Development Corporation, Regional Plan Association, and the New
York Urban League. He has served on the Executive Committee of the
Association of the Bar of the City of New York since 2001. In
addition Mr. Crotty serves on the Advisory Boards of the New York Law
School and the C.U.N.Y. Irish Studies program.
Senate Democrats have
long supported and requested action on this nomination. We will be
delighted that the New York Senators will be able to call Mr. Crotty
tonight and tell him that after five months of unnecessary delay the
Senate finally did consider his nomination and granted consent
overwhelmingly. I add my congratulations to Mr. Crotty and his family.
I have been urging
this President and Senate Republicans for years to work with all
Senators and engage in genuine, bipartisan consultation. That process
leads to the nomination, confirmation and appointment of consensus
nominees with reputations for fairness. The Crotty nomination, the
bipartisan support of his home-state Senators and the Senate’s act of
granting its consent tonight with a strong bipartisan vote is a perfect
example of what I have been urging.
I have noted that
there are currently 28 judicial vacancies for which the President has
delayed sending a nominee. In fact, he has sent the Senate only one new
judicial nominee all year. I wish he would work with all Senators to
fill those remaining vacancies rather than through his inaction and
unnecessarily confrontational approach manufacture longstanding
vacancies. It is as if the President and his most partisan supporters
want to create a crisis. Last week we heard some extremists call for
mass impeachments of judges, court-stripping and punishing judges by
reducing court budgets. Rather than promote crisis and confrontation, I
urge that this President do what most others have and work with us to
identify outstanding consensus nominees. It ill serves the country, the
courts and most importantly the American people for this Administration
and the Senate Republican leadership to continue down the road to
conflict. The Crotty nomination shows how unnecessary that conflict
really is. Let us join together to debate and confirm these consensus
nominees to these important lifetime posts on the federal judiciary.
It is the federal
judiciary that is called upon to rein in the political branches when
their actions contravene the Constitution limits on governmental
authority and restrict individual rights. It is the federal judiciary
that has stood up to the overreaching of this Administration in the
aftermath of the September 11 attacks. It is more and more the federal
judiciary that is being called upon to protect Americans’ rights and
liberties, our environment and to uphold the rule of law as the
political branches under the control of one party have overreached.
Federal judges should protect the rights of all Americans, not be
selected to advance a partisan or personal agenda. Once the judiciary
is filled with partisans beholden to the Administration and willing to
reinterpret the Constitution in line with the Administration’s demands,
who will be left to protect American values and the rights of the
American people? The Constitution establishes the Senate as a check and
a balance on the choices of a powerful President who might seek to make
the federal judiciary an extension of his Administration or a
wholly-owned subsidiary of any political party.
Today, Republicans are
threatening to take away one of the few remaining checks on the power of
the Executive branch by their use of what has become knows as the
nuclear option. This assault on our tradition of checks and balances
and on the protection of minority rights in the Senate and in our
democracy should be abandoned.
Eliminating the
filibuster by the nuclear option would destroy the Constitution’s design
of the Senate as an effective check on the Executive. The elimination
of the filibuster would reduce any incentive for a President to consult
with home-state Senators or seek the advice of the Senate on lifetime
appointments to the federal judiciary. It is a leap not only toward
one-party rule but to an unchecked executive.
Rather than blowing up
the Senate, let us honor the constitutional design of our system of
checks and balances and work together to fill judicial vacancies with
consensus nominees. The nuclear option is unnecessary. What is needed
is a return to consultation and for the White House to recognize and
respect the role of the Senate appointments process.
The American people
have begun to see this threatened partisan power grab for what it is and
to realize that the threat and the potential harm are aimed at our
democracy, at an independent and strong federal judiciary and,
ultimately, at their rights and freedoms. Tonight’s confirmation is a
civics lesson that shows that the Republican’s threatened use of the
nuclear option is unnecessary and unwise.
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