Statement Of Sen. Patrick Leahy,
Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee,
On Judicial Nominations
June 28, 2007
The Senate continues to make progress today with
the confirmation of three more lifetime appointments to the federal
bench, Benjamin Hale Settle to the District Court for the Western
District of Washington, Richard Joseph Sullivan to the District Court
for the Southern District of New York, and Joseph S. Van Bokkelen to the
District Court for the Northern District of Indiana. The nominations of
Mr. Settle and Mr. Sullivan are for vacancies deemed by the
Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts to be judicial emergencies.
All three nominees have the support of their home-state Senators. I
thank Senators Murray, Cantwell, Clinton, Schumer, Lugar and Bayh for
working with us and with the President on the nomination.
These three judges will bring this year’s judicial
confirmations total to 21. It is before the July 4th recess,
and we have already confirmed many more judges than were confirmed
during the entire 1996 session when President Clinton’s nominees were
being reviewed by a Republican Senate majority. That was the session in
which not a single circuit court nominee was confirmed. We have already
confirmed three circuit court judges in the early months of this
session. As I have previously noted, that also puts us well ahead of
the pace established by the Republican majority in 1999.
As the Judiciary Committee Chairman, I have always
treated this President’s judicial nominees more fairly than Republicans
treated President Clinton’s. With these confirmations, the Senate will
have confirmed 121 judges while I have served as Judiciary Chairman. It
is a little known and wholly unappreciated fact that during the more
than six years of the Bush Presidency, more circuit court judges, more
district court judges, and more total judges have been confirmed while I
served as Judiciary Chairman than during the longer tenures of either of
the two Republican Chairmen working with Republican Senate majorities.
The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts lists
48 judicial vacancies after these nominations are confirmed, yet the
President has sent us only 26 nominations for these vacancies. Twenty
two of these vacancies –almost half – have no nominee. Of the 15
vacancies deemed by the Administrative Office to be judicial
emergencies, the President has yet to send us nominees for six of them.
That means more than a third of the judicial emergency vacancies are
without a nominee.
Of the 13 circuit court vacancies, more than half
are without a nominee. If the President had worked with the Senators
from Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland, California, Michigan, and the
other states with the remaining circuit vacancies, we could be in
position to make even more progress.
As it is, we have cut the circuit vacancies in
half, from 26 to 13. Contrast that with the way the Republican-led
Senate’s lack of action on President Clinton’s moderate and qualified
nominees resulted in circuit court vacancies increasing from 17 to 26.
During most of the Clinton years, the Republican-led Senate engaged in
strenuous efforts to keep circuit judgeships vacant in anticipation of a
Republican President. To a great extent they succeeded.
The Judiciary Committee has been working hard to
make progress on those nominations the President has sent to us. Of
course, when he sends us well-qualified, consensus nominees with the
support of his home-state Senators like those before us today, we can
have success.
Mr. Settle is a partner
and co-founder of the Shelton, Washington, law firm of Settle & Johnson,
PLLC, where he has worked for 30 years. He also served seven years as a
prosecutor and defense counsel in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General
Corps.
Mr. Sullivan is General Counsel to Marsh & McLennan
Companies, Inc., where he has worked since 2005. Before that, he worked
as a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York and in
private practice at the Wall Street law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen,
& Katz.
Mr. Van Bokkelen is the U.S. Attorney for the
Northern District of Indiana, where he has served since 2001. He has
worked in private practice for the law firms of Goodman, Ball, Van
Bokkelen & Leonard and Wilson, Donnesberger, Van Bokkelen & Reid. He
previously served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney and as an Assistant
Attorney General in the Indiana Attorney General’s office.
I congratulate the nominees and their families on
their confirmation today.
# # # # #
