Senate Confirms Two Judicial
Nominations
WASHINGTON (Wednesday, July 23,
2008) – Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.)
praised the Senate Democratic majority’s work in confirming
judicial appointments Tuesday night, as the Senate reached a
milestone with the confirmation of two nominees for lifetime
appointments to the federal bench. In just three and a half
years, Democrats have now matched the total number of President
Bush’s judicial appointments confirmed by Republicans in the
more than four years in which they held the majority.
With Tuesday’s confirmation of
Cathy Seibel for the Southern District of New York and Glenn
Suddaby for the Northern District of New York, the Senate has
now confirmed 58 judicial nominees in the 110th
Congress, and 316 total Bush nominees. Democrats have worked
quickly to confirm the President’s nominees, and vacancies are
at the lowest level in more than a decade. Vacancies nationwide
are less than half what they were at the start of the Bush
administration, and circuit court vacancies have been reduced by
more than two-thirds, from 32 to just 10. Circuit vacancies
have been reduced in nine of the 13 federal circuits.
“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,” said
Leahy. “I have always said that we would treat this President’s
nominees more fairly than Republicans treated President
Clinton’s. And we have. We have matched the confirmation record
that Republicans achieved for a President from their own party.”
Judicial vacancies have fallen
from 9.9 percent at the start of the Bush administration to less
than 4.5 percent today. The Administrative Office of the Courts
listed 60 vacancies on July 23, 2000, including 20 circuit
vacancies, while today there are just 39 judicial vacancies, and
only 10 circuit vacancies.
For more information on judicial
nominations,
click here.
# # # # #
Statement Of Senator Patrick
Leahy,
Chairman, Senate Judiciary
Committee,
On Judicial Nominations
July 22, 2008
Today the Senate is poised to
confirm two more nominations for lifetime appointments to the
Federal bench: Cathy Seibel
for the Southern District of New York and Glenn T. Suddaby for
the Northern District of New York. These nominees each have the
support of the New York Senators, who worked with the White
House to identify a slate of consensus nominees. I thank both
Senators Schumer and Senator Clinton for their work in
connection with these nominees.
When these nominees
are confirmed, that will bring the number of judicial nominees
confirmed by the Senate during the slightly more than three
years I have served as the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee
to 158. Coincidentally, the number of President Bush’s judicial
nominees confirmed by the Senate during the almost four and
one-half years of Republican control totaled 158.
I have always said
that we would treat this President’s nominees more fairly than
Republicans treated President Clinton’s. And we have. Indeed,
we have matched the confirmation record that Republicans
achieved for a President from their own party. We have not
pocket filibustered more than 60 of this President’s nominees.
We are not going to return 17 circuit court nominees without
action to this President as the Republican-led Senate did to
President Clinton. We have not doubled the judicial vacancies
and forced them above 100 nationwide, nor have we doubled the
number of circuit court vacancies. To the contrary, we have cut
judicial vacancies by more than half, and reduced
circuit court vacancies by more than two-thirds from a high
point of 32, to a low of just nine throughout all 13 Federal
circuits.
The 100 nominations we confirmed
in only 17 months in 2001 and 2002, while working with a most
uncooperative White House, reduced the vacancies by 45 percent
by the end of 2002. With 40 additional confirmations last year,
and another 18 this year, the Senate under Democratic leadership
has now confirmed 158 lifetime appointments to the Federal bench
nominated by President Bush. Nearly
half of the judicial nominees the Senate has confirmed while I
have served as the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee have
filled vacancies classified by the Administrative Office of the
Courts as judicial emergency vacancies. Eighteen of the 27
circuit court nominees confirmed while I have chaired the
Committee filled judicial emergency vacancies, including nine of
the 10 circuit court nominees confirmed this Congress. This is
another aspect of the problem created by Republicans that we
have worked hard to improve. When President Bush took office
there were 28 judicial emergency vacancies. Those have been
reduced by more than half.
In the two full years that
preceded my returning as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee in
2007, with a Republican chairman and a Republican Senate
majority working to confirm the judicial nominees of a
Republican President, 54 nominations were confirmed. After the
two confirmations today, we will reach 58 judicial confirmations
for this Congress. Truth be told, President Bush’s judicial
nominees have been confirmed faster by the Democratic majority
than by the previous Republican majority of the Senate.
Judicial vacancies
have been reduced from 10 percent as we made the transition to
the Bush administration to 4.5 percent today. I wish we could
say the same about unemployment, the cost of gasoline, food
prices, health care costs, about inflation and the national
debt, but all those indicators have been moving in the wrong
direction, as is consumer confidence and the percentage of
Americans who see the country as on the wrong track.
Republican critics ignore the
progress we have made on judicial vacancies. They also ignore
the crisis that they had created by not considering circuit
nominees in 1996, 1997 and 1998. They ignore the fact that they
refused to confirm a single circuit nominee during the entire
1996 session. They ignore the fact that they returned 17
circuit court nominees without action to the White House in
2000. They ignore the public criticism of Chief Justice
Rehnquist to their actions during those years. They ignore the
fact that they were responsible for more than doubling circuit
court vacancies during their pocket filibusters of Clinton
nominees or that we have reduced those circuit court vacancies
by more than two thirds.
In fact, as the presidential
elections in 2000 drew closer, and when the judicial vacancy
rate stood at 7.2 percent, then-Judiciary Committee Chairman
Orrin Hatch declared that “There is and has been no judicial
vacancy crisis,” and that 7.2 percent was a “rather low
percentage of vacancies that shows the judiciary is not
suffering from an overwhelming number of vacancies.” As a
result of Republican inaction, the vacancy rate continued to
rise, reaching 10 percent when the Democrats took over the
Senate majority in 2001.
Democrats have reversed course.
We have cut circuit court vacancies by more than two-thirds,
from a high of 32. With the confirmation of two nominees today,
the judicial vacancy rate will be just 4.5 percent.
I have yet to hear praise from a
single Republican for our work in lowering vacancies. I also
have yet to hear in the Republican talking points any
explanation for their actions during the 1996 congressional
session, when the Republican Senate majority refused to allow
the Senate to confirm even one circuit court judge. I have yet
to hear explanations for why they did not proceed with the
nominations of Bonnie Campbell, Allen Snyder and so many others.
I hope the American people will
not witness another week in which Senate Republicans attempt to
make a partisan, election-year issue out of the confirmation of
judicial nominations. This is the one area where the numbers
have actually improved during the Bush presidency while the life
of hardworking Americans has only gotten more difficult. The
Treasury Secretary has been quite sobering about the financial
difficulties still ahead. Inflation is now on the rise, jobs are
being lost, gas prices have skyrocketed, food prices have
soared, health care is unaffordable and yet Republicans want
come to the floor to pick a partisan fight about the pace of
judicial confirmations while the Senate proceeds to confirm two
more judges.
Americans have seen the
unemployment rate rise to 5.5 percent and trillions of dollars
in budget surplus have turned into trillions of dollars of
debt. Last week General Motors announced layoffs. The annual
budget deficit is in the hundreds of millions of dollars, the
dollar has lost half its value, and the costs of the Iraq war
and interest on the national debt amounts to $1.5 billion a day.
When President Bush took office,
the price of gas was $1.42 a gallon. Today, it is over $4.00 a
gallon. The housing crisis and mortgage crisis threatens the
economy. The stock market dropped 2,000 points in the first six
months of the year and went under 11,000.
Hardworking Americans trying to do
the best they can for their families are more concerned about
critical issues they face in their lives each day. They are
concerned about affording to heat their homes this winter. They
are concerned about gas prices that have skyrocketed so high
they do not know how they will afford to drive to work. They
are concerned about the steepest decline in home values in two
decades. More and more Americans are affected by rising
unemployment, with job losses for the first six consecutive
months of this year tallying over 438,000. Americans are
worried about soaring health care costs, rising health insurance
costs, the rising costs of education and rising food prices.
The partisan, election-year rhetoric over judicial nominations,
at a time when judicial vacancies have been significantly
reduced, is a reflection of misplaced priorities.
Our progress today in confirming
two more nominations for lifetime appointments shows that when
the President works with home state Senators to identify
consensus, well-qualified nominees, we can make progress, even
this late in an election year. I congratulate the nominees and
their families on their confirmations today.
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. I will
continue in this Congress, and 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.
Last week the Senate Judiciary
Committee was scheduled to consider a number of bipartisan
measures. Several are important items on which Republicans had
already delayed consideration since June. They include the
bipartisan bill to reauthorize the Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention Act, a bipartisan OPEN FOIA bill and the
bipartisan William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection
Reauthorization Act.
In addition, we had before us the
Fairness in Nursing Home Arbitration Act, the Fugitive
Information Networked Database Act, the Methamphetamine
Production Prevention Act and the National Guard and Reservists
Debt Relief Act.
I had hoped that last week we
would be able to report these measures. A few words about one
of them -- the legislation
to reauthorize the William
Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Act. This bill would
strengthen our efforts to stop the abhorrent practice of human
trafficking around the world. Our bill enhances protections for
victims of these terrible crimes. Human trafficking is a
modern-day form of slavery, involving victims who are forced,
defrauded or coerced into sexual or labor exploitation. These
practices continue to victimize hundreds of thousands around the
world, mostly women and children, and we must do all that we can
to be more effective in confronting this continuing problem. I
thank Senator Biden for his leadership. Unfortunately,
Republican partisan antics have gotten in the way of progress on
this front and delayed the Judiciary Committee and the Senate
from acting on this measure.
Rather than meet and
work on the human trafficking bill and the others, a number of
the Republican Senators who serve on the Judiciary Committee
came to the Senate floor while Republicans objected to the
Committee meeting. That was too bad. It set back our
legislative agenda.
Republicans
previously boycotted business meetings for the month of February
when we were trying to report judicial nominations. That only
slowed our progress. Then, when we tried to expedite
consideration of two circuit court nominations in May, they
objected. Those judicial nominations were finally confirmed
late in June.
I look forward to a
time when Senators from the other side of the aisle return to
work with us on the important legislative business of the
Judiciary Committee and the Senate. It would be refreshing if
they recognized the progress we have made on filling judicial
vacancies.
When they do, when
they show cooperation, when we are able to make progress on our
legislative agenda, at that point I will be able to turn my
attention from concentrating on that legislative agenda and
consider, along with the Majority Leader, whether there are
additional judicial nominees we might be able to consider and
confirm this year. It will be difficult to do so, especially in
connection with nominees recently received for whom we do not
have an ABA peer review rating at this time.
Let me give you some
flavor of how petty the obstructionism from Republicans has
become. I introduced at the request of the Chief Justice a bill
to extend authorization for the Supreme Court police to remain
in operation, S.3296. I have been trying to clear this measure
for passage since June 19. Although our Ranking Republican on
the Committee cosponsored, he has not been able to clear it on
his side of the aisle.
I have been seeking
for months to find a way to extend the EB-5 investor visa pilot
program that brings benefits not only to Vermont but to
Pennsylvania and Iowa, and elsewhere. Authority for this
worthwhile program that leads to investments here in the United
States expires in September. My efforts to clear H.R. 5569, a
bill to extend the program for five years, have been stymied by
Republicans who insist on using this bill as a vehicle for other
immigration-related matters and have ensnarled it in a series of
competing concerns.
More broadly, the Judiciary
Committee has worked throughout this Congress to advance the
priorities of Americans. We have reported legislation to
support local law enforcement to make our cities and towns safe
from crime that has now gone back up after consistent declines
in the 1990s, like the COPS Improvements Act, S.368, and my bill
to extend the Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Act, S.2511.
We have reported legislation to combat fraud and corruption,
like the War Profiteering Prevention Act, S.119, and the Public
Corruption Prosecution Improvements Act, S.1946. We have
reported legislation to protect the civil rights and voting
rights of Americans, like the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights
Crime Act, S.535, and Senator Obama’s Deceptive Practices and
Voter Intimidation Prevention Act of 2007, S.453. We have
reported legislation to protect Americans’ data privacy like my
Personal Data Privacy and Security Act, S.495. We have reported
measures to provide the Federal judiciary with increased
resources both in terms of salary restoration and additional
judgeships, S.1638 and S.2774. We have reported intellectual
property measures like the Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act,
S.2913. And, of course, we have reported the bill to confront
the OPEC cartel, NOPEC, S.879. I look forward to a time when
Republicans work with us on these matters instead of obstructing
us at every turn.
Legislation with
broad bipartisan support that I have managed to move through the
Judiciary Committee has then been stalled on the Senate floor by
the obstruction of a few Republicans. Of the bills that have
been reported from the Judiciary Committee this Congress,
Republicans have blocked legislation to support runaway and
homeless young people, S.2982; to help law enforcement cope with
mentally-ill offenders, S.2304; to support the investigation and
prosecution of Civil Rights Era murders left unsolved for too
long, S.535; and to protect our children from the scourges of
drugs, child pornography, and child exploitation, such as
S.1210, S.1738 and S.2344. I joined the Majority Leader in
introducing a measure yesterday that combines some of these
Committee-approved and House-passed bipartisan measures into one
bill, S.3297. These should have been consent items and already
been considered and passed by the Senate.
The list goes on. I
say, again, Republican obstructionists have blocked legislation
to ensure that law enforcement officers can obtain bulletproof
vests, to give much needed resources to state and local law
enforcement, to break the grip of the OPEC cartel on oil prices,
to prohibit war profiteering, to train prosecutors, and to teach
children to use the internet safely, just to reiterate a few
examples. And that is just legislation reported by the
Judiciary Committee. Every Committee in the Senate has seen
simple legislation intended to help the American people in
difficult times stymied by Republican obstruction.
Republicans have become masters of
true obstruction, boycotting business meetings of the Judiciary
Committee and cutting short important hearings, including a
hearing at which two courageous women from Pennsylvania were
testifying about severe injuries they suffered to help us
understand the plight of hardworking Americans whose legitimate
grievances have been rejected by a pro-business Supreme Court.
When Republicans obstructed a meeting last week where we could
have made progress on reducing youth violence, protecting women
and children from human trafficking, and helping those who serve
our country to cope with unmanageable debt, that was just the
latest example of a pattern that has become all too familiar.
Sadly, we have seen Republican
obstructionism since the beginning of this Congress, with
Republicans using filibuster after filibuster to thwart the will
of the majority of the Senate from doing the business of the
American people. Republican filibusters prevented Senate
majorities from passing the climate change bill; the Employee
Free Choice Act; the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act; the DC Voting
Rights Act; the Renewable Fuels, Consumer Protection, and Energy
Efficiency Act of 2007; the Renewable Energy and Job Creation
Act of 2008; the Medicare Improvements for Patients and
Providers Act of 2008; and the Consumer-First Energy Act.
These are critical pieces of
legislation to address urgent priorities, like the energy
crisis, the environment, voting rights, health care, and fair
wages for working men and women. All of them had the support of
the majority of the Senate. And all were blocked by a minority
of Republican Senators bent on preventing us from making
progress. Republicans have now filibustered more than 80 pieces
of legislation in this Congress. We can only imagine what we
could have accomplished in this Congress with cooperation rather
than obstruction.
This long list of priorities
unaddressed because of the Republicans in Congress would be even
longer if we were to include the many important bills President
Bush has vetoed since the beginning of this Congress. This list
includes legislation to fund stem cell research to fight
debilitating and deadly diseases, to extend and expand the
successful State Children's Health Insurance Program that would
have provided health insurance to more of the millions of
American children without it, to set a timetable for bringing
American troops home from the disastrous war in Iraq, and to ban
waterboarding and help restore America as a beacon for the rule
of law.
The American people are going
through increasingly difficult times, and their Congress should
be working to make their lives better. Time is running short in
this Congress. It is past time for Republicans to stop their
foot stomping and work with us to get things done. That is what
I have been trying to do throughout this Congress. I hope,
despite their recent antics, that Republicans will reconsider
and join with me to make progress on legislative matters of
concern to the American people.
# # # # #
