[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 98 (Friday, June 28, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7342-S7343]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         THE EXECUTIVE CALENDAR

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, regrettably, we are not going to be able 
to confirm a number of judges that I had hoped would be confirmed this 
afternoon. We were presented with a list of 10. Somebody on the other 
side objected to one of those 10. But hours after our last vote, after 
everybody had left and were on airplanes and in places where they could 
not be contacted, we were not in the position to be able to contact a 
number of Senators who also had judges. There are 23 judges that are 
currently on the calendar; 23 nominations. There are 68 vacancies.
  Not one judge has been confirmed in this session of Congress--not 
one. This to our knowledge is unprecedented. So late in the day, after 
we cooperated all day long--yesterday, today--working as diligently as 
we could to accommodate the other side in getting the legislation to 
the point where we were able to call now for third reading and then a 
final vote next week, we find that on our list of judges to be 
considered we could not even get up 10--not 10 out of the 23. Those 
nine we did call up were given to us about an hour ago, after everybody 
was gone.

[[Page S7343]]

  Mr. President, I have to say this is increasingly a matter that is of 
great concern to our colleagues and will be a factor in our cooperation 
as we consider other issues in the coming weeks.
  We have to resolve this matter. It is just unacceptable that that 
number of judges would not be given their opportunity to be considered. 
Careers, families, futures are all at stake here. They are all on the 
line. It is one thing to deal with a bill--I understand that--but to 
deal with somebody's life, to deal with somebody's future and career 
and to deal with it so cavalierly is unacceptable.
  So we are going to have to deal with this when we get back, and I 
must say it is going to be a long, hot summer if we cannot deal with it 
more successfully than we have so far. I am disappointed, very 
disappointed that we could not even do those 23 on the calendar today. 
But I look forward to working with the majority leader with an 
expectation we will when we get back.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, just a comment to follow up on the 
minority leader's comment on the judges, as the minority leader is 
aware, we have a new leadership team on this side. And to say the 
least, we have had our hands full the last couple weeks--not even 2 
weeks yet, I think. We have made some progress, but it has not been 
easy. We made progress as I mentioned earlier, and I complimented the 
minority leader for his assistance in making this happen. We finally 
were able to bring to closure the Department of Defense authorization 
bill. After long, difficult negotiations, it looks as if we are on our 
way towards finalizing action on the minimum wage.
  Some of us are very frustrated on this side, though, that Members on 
the Democrat side of the aisle have objected to appointing conferees on 
the health bill. That is unprecedented. It is 40-some-odd days, I think 
about 45 days since we requested conferees be appointed. We would like 
to have that resolved.
  And so my point being, there are frustrations maybe on both sides. 
This side was prepared and willing to move on several judges, and I am 
sure that this will still be pending when we return early in July. I 
will look forward to working with the minority leader to see if we 
cannot come up to a successful resolution.
  The new leadership team, though, I will tell you, because we spent so 
much time in working on the DOD authorization bill, working on the 
health bill, working on the minimum wage agreement, which included the 
TEAM Act and other provisions, we really have not had time to focus on 
these nominations.
  So I just mention that.

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