Statement Of Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.)
Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee,
On Judicial And Executive Nominations
Executive Business Meeting
November 15, 2007
Today the Committee will reach a
significant landmark in our progress on the consideration of
nominations for lifetime appointments to the Federal bench. We will
report out four judicial nominations on our agenda today. With the
nominations of Joseph N. Laplante for the District of New
Hampshire, Reed Charles O’Connor for the Northern District of Texas,
Thomas D. Schroeder for the Middle District of North Carolina, and
Amul R. Thapar for the Eastern District of Kentucky, the Committee
will have reported 40 judicial nominations this year.
The Committee has worked hard all year to expeditiously consider the
President’s nominations. I thank the
home-state Senators – Senators Gregg, Sununu, Hutchison, Cornyn,
Dole, Burr, McConnell and Bunning – for their consideration of these
nominees. I especially want to thank Senator Whitehouse for
chairing the hearing on these nominations.
I am glad we were able to accommodate the
request of Senator Specter, our ranking member, to promptly consider
the nomination of Mr. Thapar. The National Asian Pacific American
Bar Association wrote to us in support of his nomination, which is
the first of a South Asian American to be an Article III judge. If
confirmed, he would become only the seventh Asian Pacific American
Article III judge in our Nation’s history.
The 40 nominations we will have reported after today, one week
before the Thanksgiving recess, exceeds the totals reported in all
of 2004 and 2005, when a Republican-led Judiciary Committee was
considering this President’s nominees; all of 1989; all of 1993,
when a Democratic-led Senate was
considering President Clinton’s nominees; all of 2000, when a
Republican-led Judiciary Committee was considering President
Clinton’s nominees; and all of 1996, when
the Republican-led Senate did not confirm a single one of President
Clinton’s circuit nominees.
Of these 40 nominations, six have been for
seats on federal appellate courts, far exceeding the total reached
during the entire 1996 session during which a Republican-led Senate
did not confirm a single one of President Clinton’s circuit
nominees.
We continue to make similar progress in the full Senate. Earlier
this week the Senate confirmed the nomination of Robert Dow to the
Northern District of Illinois, the 35th nomination for a
lifetime appointment to the Federal bench this session alone. And
we are poised to make even more progress. The Senate could easily
confirm one more judicial nomination previously reported by this
Committee that is now pending on the executive calendar, that
of John Daniel Tinder to the Court of
Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. With those two nominations,
along with the four nominations we report out today, the Senate is
positioned to confirm 40 nominations by Thanksgiving, easily
exceeding the totals of the each of the last three
years when a Republican-led Senate was
considering this President’s nominees.
This Committee has treated President Bush’s nominations fairly.
Those who urge that we expedite the nomination of Judge Catharina
Haynes to the Fifth Circuit fail to mention that the Senate has
already confirmed two Fifth Circuit nominations this year, those of
Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod and Judge Leslie Southwick.
I wish that President Clinton’s nominations to that same court had
fared as well with a Republican Congress. When President Bush came
into office in 2001, not a single Fifth Circuit nominee had been
confirmed in six years, Republicans having blocked consideration of
three qualified nominees to that court among the 60 judicial
nominations that were pocket filibustered.
Those who urge us to expedite the nomination of Judge Haynes – a
nominee from Texas – fail to mention that we have already confirmed
five of President Bush’s nominees to the Fifth Circuit, three of
whom were from Texas, and we have another nomination on today’s
agenda for the Northern District of Texas.
Compare that record to the fate of many of President Clinton’s
judicial nominees from Texas, who were blocked and delayed by the
Republican majority, including Enrique Moreno, nominated to the
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, but who never got a hearing, never
got a vote; Judge Jorge Rangel, nominated to the Fifth Circuit Court
of Appeals, but who never got a hearing, never got a vote; and Judge
Hilda Tagle to the District Court, whose confirmation was delayed
for nearly two years for no good reason.
We continue to make significant progress on ALL circuit court
nominations. When the Senate confirms the
Tinder nomination now pending on the Senate’s Executive calendar, we
will have confirmed six circuit court nominees, matching the total
circuit court confirmations for all of 2001.
We will also have exceeded the circuit
court totals achieved in all of 2004 when a Republican-led Senate
was considering this President’s circuit nominees; all of 1989; all
of 1983, when a Republican-led Senate was considering President
Reagan’s nominees; all of 1993 when a Democratic-led Senate was
considering President Clinton’s nominees; and, of course, the entire
1996 session during which a Republican-led Senate did not confirm a
single one of President Clinton’s circuit nominees the entire
session.
Yet despite all of our efforts to promptly consider and report
judicial nominees, some on the other side continue to complain. If
they were candid they would concede that we Democrats – we
Democrats – have confirmed more of President Bush’s nominees for
any given period of time while we have been in charge than the
Republicans did. We have had three different leaderships in this
Committee during the time President Bush has been in office. Yet,
it is a little known fact that during the Bush Presidency, more
circuit judges, more district judges -- more total judges --
were confirmed in the first 24 months that I served as Judiciary
Chairman than during the 2-year tenures of either of the two
Republican Chairmen working with Republican Senate majorities.
Indeed, I recall the generous treatment Democrats gave the circuit
court nominees of Presidents Reagan and Bush in the Presidential
election years of 1988 and 1992. In those two elections, the
Democratic-controlled Senate averaged nine circuit court
confirmations. Regrettably, the Republican Senate reversed that
course in the treatment of President Clinton’s circuit court
nominations, confirming an average of only four in the Presidential
election years of 1996 and 2000, and none in the entire 1996
session.
We have placed a priority on working to
restore integrity and independence to the Justice Department. Last
week, we reported out of Committee the nomination of Michael J.
Sullivan to be Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms
and Explosives. The nomination of Ronald Jay Tenpas will be on the
agenda of our next business meeting. Of course, we still
await nominations for the Deputy Attorney General, the Associate
Attorney General, a number of Assistant Attorney General positions
and, importantly, 21 U.S. Attorney positions around the country —
over one-fifth of all U.S. Attorney positions. When we receive
those nominations, they will go to the top of our priority list.
Despite criticism from this Administration, we continue to make
progress on judicial vacancies when the White House will work with
us. Twenty-six of these vacancies – more than half – have no
nominee. Of the 17 vacancies deemed by the Administrative Office to
be judicial emergencies, the President has yet to send us nominees
for nine of them, more than half of them. Of the 14 circuit court
vacancies, six – nearly half – are without a nominee. If the
President had worked with the Senators from Michigan, Rhode Island,
Maryland, California, New Jersey, and Virginia, we could be in
position to make even more progress.
I recall at the end of last Congress Senator Specter decrying the
nominations then stalled on the Senate floor due to Republican
holds. He said:
A good number of these nominees are also in districts where there
are judicial emergencies. I think that from time to time we in the
Senate, where we have the responsibility for confirmation, don't
really take seriously enough the impact of judicial vacancies. The
courts are busy. The Third Circuit, my circuit, is overwhelmed.
District Court Judge Jordan ought to be confirmed. My colleagues
have told me about the problems posed by vacancies in their states.
If these other 13 districts nominees are not confirmed today, they
will languish until who knows--January turns into February and
February in March. We always find a reason around here not to do
something. That applies most emphatically to the judges.
I took Senator Specter’s advice very seriously, as I always do, and
we have found a way this year to make progress on those nominations
that once languished on the floor and many more as well. We will
continue to proceed promptly and efficiently to confirm nominations
to fill vacancies and improve the administration of justice in the
country.
One of the signs of this progress is that we have helped cut the
number of circuit vacancies from a high water mark of 32 in the
early days of this Administration to as low as 13 this year.
Contrast that with the Republican-led Senate’s lack of action on
President Clinton’s moderate and qualified nominees that resulted in
increasing circuit vacancies during the Clinton years from 17 when
he was inaugurated to 26 when he left office. During those years,
the Republican-led Senate engaged in strenuous and successful
efforts under the radar to keep circuit judgeships vacant in
anticipation of a Republican President. We have reversed that
course.
I would rather see us work together as we have today in the
selection of nominees so that we can confirm judges rather than
fight about them.
