Judiciary Committee Holds Hearing
For Circuit Nominees
WASHINGTON
(Wednesday, May 7, 2008) – Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman
Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) held a
hearing today on three judicial nominations from Michigan,
including two nominees to fill the final vacancies on the Sixth
Circuit Court of Appeals. It was the seventh
nominations hearing of 2008, and the fifth for judicial
nominations.
Last week, the Committee held a hearing on the nomination of
Steven Agee to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, as well as
two district court nominations. The Judiciary Committee today
also heard from a nominee to fill a seat in the eastern district
of Michigan.
In April,
Leahy
announced a breakthrough in solving the longstanding impasse
on the Sixth Circuit. In an agreement reached between Michigan
Senators Carl Levin (D) and Debbie Stabenow (D) and the
administration, the White House withdrew Stephen Murphy’s
nomination for a seat on the Sixth Circuit bench, renominating
him for a seat on the district court, and instead nominating
Judge Helene White for the appellate seat. White was a
three-time nominee for the Sixth Circuit under President
Clinton, but the then Republican-led Senate failed to hold a
hearing on her nomination. The deal cleared the way for the
Judiciary Committee to consider the White and Murphy
nominations, as well as the Sixth Circuit Court nomination of
Raymond Kethledge. If White and Kethledge are confirmed by the
Senate, vacancies on the Sixth Circuit would be reduced from
four that existed at the start of the Bush administration to
zero.
Leahy’s
statement from Wednesday’s hearing follows. Watch
Leahy's opening statement below.
Statement Of Sen. Patrick Leahy
(D-Vt.),
Chariman, Senate Judiciary
Committee,
Hearing On Judicial Nominations
May 7, 2008
I have been speaking during the
last several weeks about the progress we have made and are
making in repairing the terrible damage done to the confirmation
process and about our progress in reducing judicial vacancies.
The American people do not want
judicial nominations rooted in partisan politics. They want
federal judges who understand the importance of an independent
judiciary. Our independent courts are a source of America’s
strength, endurance and stability. Our judicial system has been
the envy of the world. The American people expect the Federal
courts to be impartial forums where justice is dispensed without
favor to the right or the left or to any political party or
faction. The only lifetime appointments in our government,
these nominations matter a great deal. The Federal judiciary is
the one arm of our government that should never be political or
politicized, regardless of who sits in the White House.
Today we witness a demonstration
of the progress about which I have been speaking and for which I
have been working. Today’s hearing moves us closer to
confirming President Bush’s nominations to the last two
vacancies on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. This completes
the task I began when I became Chairman in the summer of 2001,
when the Sixth Circuit was in turmoil and nominations had been
road blocked for years. At that point there were four vacancies
on the Sixth Circuit. When I scheduled a hearing and vote for
Judge Julia Smith Gibbons, and then for Judge John Marshall
Rogers, we were able to break an impasse that had lasted for
five years. Confirmation of Judge White and Mr. Kethledge would
complete the process by filling the two remaining vacancies on
the Sixth Circuit.
I continue in this Congress, and I
will continue with a new President in the next Congress, to work
with Senators from both sides of the aisle to ensure that the
Federal judiciary remains independent, and able to provide
justice to all Americans, without fear or favor.
The Michigan vacancies on the
Sixth Circuit have proven a great challenge. I want to commend
Senator Levin and Senator Stabenow for working to end the
impasse. I have urged the President to work with the Michigan
Senators and, after seven years, he finally has. Last month our
extensive efforts culminated in a significant development that
can lead to filling the last two vacancies on the Sixth Circuit,
both vacant so long they have been classified as judicial
emergencies.
This accomplishment stands in
sharp contrast to the actions of Senate Republicans who refused
to consider any of the highly-qualified nominations to the Sixth
Circuit Court of Appeals during the last three years of the
Clinton administration. Those nominees included Judge White;
Kathleen McCree Lewis, an accomplished attorney and the daughter
of former Solicitor General of the United States
and former Sixth Circuit Judge Wade McCree; and Professor Kent
Markus, who was supported by his home state Senators, both
Republicans.
Accordingly, I am delighted to
welcome Judge Helene White to the Committee. Judge White has
served on the Michigan Court of Appeals during the
past 15 years, having been elected by the people of Michigan in
1992. Before that she served for a dozen years on the Wayne
County Circuit Court, a court of general trial jurisdiction, the
Common Pleas Court for the City of Detroit and the 36th
District Court of Michigan. She is described on the Bush White
House website as “an experienced and highly qualified judge, who
is known for her intellect, work ethic, and demeanor.” I could
not agree more. In addition, she has been active as a member of
the legal community and of community organizations including
COTS (Coalition on Temporary Shelter), JVS (Jewish vocational
services), and the Metropolitan Detroit Young Women’s Christian
Association.
She was first nominated by
President Clinton to a vacancy on the Sixth Circuit in January
1997, more than 11 years ago, but the Republican-led Senate
refused to act on her nomination. She waited in vain for 1,454
days for a hearing, before President Bush withdrew her
nomination in March 2001. Hers was one of the scores of
qualified judicial nominees pocket filibustered. Last month,
President Bush reconsidered, and renominated her.
Our second Sixth Circuit nominee
is Raymond M. Kethledge. Mr. Kethledge is a young man who has
spent eight years in legal practice in Michigan beginning as a
associate in the litigation department of Honigan Miller
Schwartz and Cohn, later as a partner at the boutique litigation
firm of Feeney Kellett Weinner and Bush and, since the summer of
2003, as a founding member of his own firm, that of Bush
Seyferth Kethledge and Paige. He also spent a year as an
in-house counsel at Ford Motor Company in their general
counsel’s office. I am glad to see that he has performed pro
bono legal services, something I have always thought lawyers
should do.
Our third nomination for
consideration today is the President’s recent nomination of
Stephen Joseph Murphy III to be a
United States District Judge for the Eastern District of
Michigan. That vacancy is also classified as a judicial
emergency.
When on April 15 he announced the
renomination of Judge White, I commended the President. Since
then I have sought to expedite consideration of these Michigan
nominees in recognition of the breakthrough represented by the
agreement reached between the President and the Michigan
Senators. The Michigan Senators have always been interested in
a bipartisan solution to judicial vacancies on the Sixth Circuit
and had previously proposed a bipartisan commission as a way to
reach consensus in Michigan. Today, I thank and commend the
Senators from Michigan and, again, thank the President
for finally working with them and
us.
In light of that cooperation, we
have taken extraordinary steps to expedite this hearing. I thank
all members of the Committee for their cooperation. I recently
received a letter from Senator McConnell and Senator Specter in
which they note the importance of our receiving updated ABA peer
reviews for these new nominations. I agree that those are
important. The ABA Standing Committee has been working
diligently to provide reviews on the recent nomination of
Justice Steven Agee to the Fourth Circuit as well as other
nominations. They have been very helpful, and we appreciate
their efforts. Given the ABA ratings we have received in
connection with the prior nominations of Judge White and Mr.
Murphy, I expect the new ratings will not present a concern
about qualifications. As I have assured Senators McConnell and
Specter, I will seek to ensure that we proceed in an orderly
fashion, that all Senators have a fair opportunity to question
the nominees and that we have all the materials we need in order
fairly to consider these nominations.
I am sure there are some who
prefer partisan fights designed to energize a political base
during an election year, but I do not. The Republican Senate
majority during the last five years of the Clinton
administration more than doubled vacancies on our nation’s
circuit courts, as they rose from 12 to 26. Those circuit
vacancies grew to 32 during the transition to the Bush
administration. We have been able to reverse that trend and
reduce circuit vacancies by almost two-thirds. Today there are
fewer circuit court vacancies than at any time since the 1996
session. In fact, our work has led to a reduction in vacancies
in nearly every circuit. We are heading toward reducing circuit
court vacancies to single digits for the first time in decades.
With these nominations, we are also poised to add the Sixth
Circuit to the other five circuits without a single vacancy,
thanks to our efforts.
I am determined to prioritize
progress, not politics, and focus the Committee on those
nominations on which we can make progress and, in particular, on
those in which the White House has finally begun to work with
the Senate. The alternative is to risk becoming embroiled in
contentious debates for months and thereby foreclose the
opportunity to make progress where we can. Last year a
controversial Bush judicial nomination took five and one-half
months of debate after a hearing before Senate action was
possible. We also saw what happened during the last several
months of the last Congress. There were many hearings on many
controversial nominations. That resulted in a great deal of
effort and conflict, but not in as many confirmations as might
have been achieved. I prefer to make progress where we can and
to work together to do so.
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