Leahy Chairs Rare,
Late-Year Nominations Hearing
WASHINGTON (Tuesday,
September 23, 2008) – Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick
Leahy (D-Vt.) chaired a confirmation hearing for five judicial
nominations Tuesday afternoon. Such a hearing is rarely held
so late in a presidential election year. It is the second
confirmation hearing Leahy has chaired this month. On
September 9, the Judiciary Committee heard from five nominees to
fill district court vacancies in Utah, California, Florida and
Colorado.
Leahy scheduled the
nominations hearing late Friday for nominees from Virginia,
Pennsylvania, and Kansas. Leahy has listed nine judicial and
executive nominations on the Judiciary Committee’s agenda for an
executive business meeting on Thursday, including five
nominations to fill district court vacancies, and nominees for
Solicitor General of the United States, two U.S. Marshals, and one
U.S. Attorney.
Under Leahy’s
chairmanship, judicial vacancies have dropped to just 44 nationwide.
Circuit court vacancies are at the lowest levels in decades.
During the Bush administration, more than 315 nominations have been
confirmed to fill seats on the federal bench.
Leahy’s prepared
statement follows. Listen to the hearing
live online by visiting the new Senate Judiciary Committee
website.
For
additional press materials,
click here.
Opening
Statement Of Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.),
Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee,
Hearing
On Nominations
September 23, 2008
I am holding this exceptional hearing late in a
presidential election year as an accommodation to Senator Specter,
the Ranking Republican Member of our Committee and a former
Chairman. The Thurmond Rule, established and followed by
Republicans when there is a Democratic President in the White House,
calls for Senate consideration of judicial nominations to stop in
the last several months before a presidential election in order to
await the outcome of the election. Senator Hatch followed that
practice in both 1996 and 2000 when he chaired the Judiciary
Committee. In fact, in 1996, no one nominated after June 6 was
considered and there were no judicial confirmations after the August
recess. In 2000, there were no hearings after July 25.
I have said throughout my chairmanship that I
would treat President Bush’s nominees better than Republicans
treated President Clinton’s, and I have done so. This hearing
is another example of that. It is the second hearing I have
held for judicial nominees in September of this presidential
election year. I have already included the five judicial
nominees from Utah, California, Florida and Colorado who
participated in our September 9 hearing on the Committee’s agenda
for consideration at our business meeting later this week.
Today we hear from five additional nominees for lifetime appointment
to the Federal bench in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Kansas.
I have consistently said that by this stage of the
year I will be working with the Majority Leader, as well as our
Republican counterparts, in order to be able to proceed on consensus
nominations. At this late date of a presidential election
year, progress on judicial nominees requires consensus and the
cooperation of all Senators. I want to thank the Majority
Leader, with whom I have consulted, for his willingness to have us
proceed with these nominations.
Three of the nominees are included at Senator
Specter’s request. C. Darnell Jones II, Mitchell S. Goldberg, and
Joel H. Slomsky all also have the support of Senator Casey.
President Bush did not get around to nominating these men until just
before the August recess. At the time I set this hearing last
week, we still had not received ABA ratings based on peer reviews of
all of them. We are expediting these proceedings as a courtesy
to Senator Specter and waiving the one-week notice required by
Senate Rules and the rules and practices of our Committee.
I am also happy to accommodate the request of the
senior Senator from Virginia that we include the nomination of
Anthony J. Trenga to a judicial vacancy in Virginia. Senator
Warner is one of our most distinguished members and he is retiring
at the end of this Congress. Senator Webb has worked will
Senator Warner on nominations and supports this nomination, as well.
The final nominee is Eric Melgren of Kansas.
I am accommodating the request of Senator Brownback by including
this nomination. I do so despite the Senator’s rather constant
criticism of my efforts, including his complaining when the
Committee worked to provide consideration of long-delayed judicial
nominations for Michigan earlier this year, and his having
personally delayed Senate consideration of Judge Janet Neff along
with a dozen other judicial nominees at the end of the last Congress
when the Committee was chaired by Senator Specter.
We have already confirmed more judicial
nominations in the 20 months of this Congress than were confirmed
during the previous two years when a Republican Senate majority and
Republican chairman of this Committee did not have to worry about
the Thurmond Rule and an abbreviated session due to a presidential
election. Indeed, in the 37 months I have served as Judiciary
chairman, the Senate has already confirmed 158 of President Bush’s
judicial nominees, the same number of President Bush’s nominees
confirmed in the more than four years the Senate Republicans were in
charge. We have cut the judicial vacancies I encountered
in the summer of 2001 more than in half. In the prior six
years of Senate Republican majority control during the Clinton
administration, the pocket filibusters and obstruction of moderate,
qualified nominees forced circuit court vacancies to more than
double. By contrast, we have cut circuit court vacancies by
two-thirds.
We proceed with this hearing at a time when the
country is confronting the worst financial crisis we have
experienced since the Great Depression, one that has exposed the
American taxpayers to trillions in losses. Homeowners and
investors are close to panic. The American economy has
experienced job losses every month this year and they now total more
than 650,000. Even the Republican candidate for President
admits that the economy is in recession. We are working with
Chairman Dodd and the Senate leadership on those overriding issues
and this Committee has reported a number of legislative relief
efforts that can help. In addition, just as I held a judicial
confirmation hearing two days after the attacks of September 11, I
also proceed this afternoon.
Despite our efforts to
step away from the tit for tat of the nomination battles of the
past, I have yet to hear praise from a single Republican for our
fair consideration of this President’s nominees. Despite our
success in dramatically lowering judicial vacancies by approving the
nominees of a President from the other party, those efforts have yet
to be acknowledged. Yet despite the persistent difficulties we
have had this Congress at gaining Republican cooperation to consider
important matters in Committee and in the Senate, including bills
with bipartisan support, we proceed with this hearing today.
I intend to 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,
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