Insufficient Progress on Judicial Confirmations



Washington, D.C.—U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor Thursday regarding insufficient progress in confirming judicial nominees:



“It’s been 108 days since this Senate confirmed a federal judge of any kind. It last did so the week before Christmas, on December 18, 2007.



“Since then, the Senate has made precious little progress on judicial nominations.



“It has not confirmed any federal judicial nominees this year, and the Judiciary Committee has held only one hearing on one circuit court nominee since last September.



“Today we will finally be able to confirm some judicial nominees. That is obviously good news. But after we confirm the judicial nominees on the calendar that may be it for a while, due to the glacial pace at which the Judiciary Committee is proceeding.



“It’s not as if the Committee has been otherwise occupied. This is another week in which the Committee could have held a hearing, for example, on the qualified nominees to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, but it again chose not to do so.



“These nominees meet the Chairman’s own criteria for prompt consideration. Nevertheless, they have been inexplicably languishing in the Committee for hundreds of days without a hearing while the Fourth Circuit is one-third vacant.



“We were told that having the support of home-state senators ‘means a great deal and points toward the kind of qualified consensus nominee that can be quickly confirmed.’



“Well, Steven Matthews of South Carolina has the strong support of both his home-state senators—one of whom, by the way, sits on the committee of jurisdiction. But he has been waiting 217 days for a hearing.



“And Judge Robert Conrad of North Carolina—whom the Senate has already unanimously confirmed to two federal positions, most recently to a life-time position on the district court—has the strong support of both of his home-state senators. Yet he has been waiting for 268 days.



“Now, my Democratic colleagues are quick to point to the lack of home-state support as a reason not to give someone a hearing.



“But it’s beginning to look like this criterion is being selectively applied: it’s readily used as a reason not to move a nominee—coincidentally, when the nominee is from a state with a Democratic Senator—but it’s ignored when the nominee has the support of two Republican Senators. At least, that’s been the case to date with Fourth Circuit nominees.



“For example, Rod Rosenstein is the U.S. Attorney in Maryland. He has been nominated to the Fourth Circuit.



“By all accounts Mr. Rosenstein is a fine lawyer and public servant. His peers at the American Bar Association certainly think so. They gave him the ABA’s highest rating, unanimously well-qualified.



“The Washington Post also thinks Mr. Rosenstein is an outstanding nominee. In an editorial entitled, ‘A Worthy Nominee,’ the Post noted that Mr. Rosenstein ‘has earned plaudits for his crackdown on gang violence and public corruption,’ and that one of his supporters is the head of the Criminal Division during the Clinton Administration, Jo Ann Davis, who called him a ‘perfect’ candidate for a judgeship—‘smart savvy and as straight an arrow as I have encountered.’



“The Post bemoaned the fact that Mr. Rosenstein does not, for some reason, have the support of his home-state senators. And out of deference to them, the Committee won’t process Mr. Rosenstein’s nomination.



“But Mr. Mathews and Judge Conrad do enjoy the strong support of their home-state senators, and yet these nominees can’t get a hearing. So it doesn’t seem that the same sort of deference is being paid to the Carolina senators.



“Now, I do understand that the Committee intends to give a hearing to a Fourth Circuit nominee from Virginia because the junior senator from Virginia, a Democrat—in addition to the senior senator from Virginia, a Republican—supports this nominee.



“It’s great that the Committee may actually, at some point, move a circuit court nominee, especially one to a circuit that is 33 percent vacant. But why is this nominee leap-frogging over two other nominees to that same circuit, both of whom enjoy the strong support of their home-state senators and both of whom have been pending for hundreds of days longer than this nominee from Virginia?



“It looks like if a Democratic senator in the Fourth Circuit opposes a nominee, then the Committee will not move the nominee.



“And that if a Democratic senator in the Fourth Circuit supports a nominee, then the Committee will move the nominee.



“But if two Republican senators in the Fourth Circuit—or, in this case, four Republican senators in that circuit—support two nominees, that doesn’t seem to mean anything.



“We need to treat all the senators who represent the Fourth Circuit consistently and fairly. We can do that by holding a joint hearing for Mr. Mathews and Judge Conrad. Doing so will make up for lost time and will afford the Carolina senators the respect to which they are entitled.”



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