[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 116 (Thursday, August 1, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9418-S9420]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          JUDICIAL NOMINATIONS

  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I wonder if the majority leader would help 
us out a bit with this question. It was my understanding that, early in 
July, the majority leader had indicated an intention to work through 
all of the judges on the calendar, and that if there was an objection, 
the objection would be required to be stated, and then the majority 
leader would attempt to move to the confirmation of each of the judges 
on this calendar. I am particularly interested in a court of appeals 
judge, Eric Clay, from Michigan, who has the support of both Senators 
from Michigan. I know the majority leader has spoken to my colleague, 
Senator Abraham, and me about Mr. Clay.
  My question is this: Is it still the hope of the majority leader to 
call each of the names of the judges that are on the calendar and see 
if there is an objection, and if there is, to move to the confirmation 
of each of the circuit court judges, as well as district court judges, 
on this calendar? Is that still the intention of the majority leader 
before we recess?
  Mr. LOTT. It is my intent to continue to try to work through these 
matters. I never indicated, in any way, that I could guarantee that we 
would get them all done. There are objections to some of them, and 
multiple objections to some of them. But I will continue to work on 
them one at a time, because you can't work six or seven at a time. It 
has worked pretty well. And I am working on that one. I have talked to 
the other Senator from Michigan, Senator Abraham, about this judge. We 
are looking into what might be the problems and what might be done. Let 
me say this. Circuit judges are viewed very differently than district 
judges for a lot of reasons, and we can discuss that some other night. 
But that is not to say that we will not continue to work on it.

  Mrs. BOXER. Will the Senator from Michigan yield to me for a 
question?
  Mr. LEVIN. Yes. I yield the floor.
  Mrs. BOXER. I really want to thank the majority leader for doing all 
this. I want to make the point to the Senator from Texas, and others 
who have problems with this, that you are talking about real people 
when you stand here late at night and object. Sometimes we forget that. 
I think Senator Wellstone was very real last night when he came back 
and he was on the phone ready to tell this particular nominee that all 
was well.
  I happen to know two judges on that list from California. Their lives 
are on hold. They are human beings, just as we are. Many have been 
waiting for months and months. I say to the majority leader, please, do 
all you can, because pretty soon we are going to come down here with 
photographs of the families that are in limbo. They don't know. Some of 
them are closing other practices up. It is a hardship on the families. 
These are wonderful people. These are people who came out of those 
committees, many of them without one objection. These are people who 
have support of both Senators, in many cases, Republican and Democrat 
alike. So we really changed course here when many of us understood it 
was going to go a certain way. It is very hard, I think, on the people 
whose lives are affected, their children and their spouses.
  So I hope we can work together for the good of, frankly, these people 
and their families and the criminal justice system. I don't think it 
does any good to have these judgeships vacant. Justice needs to be 
done, and it is hard to serve it when you don't have the judgeships 
filled.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I am going to have to respond to some of 
that. There are real people, also, whose lives would be affected by 
these appointments. These are not administration appointees who will 
serve at the pleasure of the President for a year or 4 years. These are 
lifetime appointments to the Federal judiciary, and it is very 
important who these people are--
  Mrs. BOXER. Yes, it is.
  Mr. LOTT. And how they are going to rule. We should look not only at 
their education, background, and qualifications, but also--particularly 
when it comes to circuit judges--what is their philosophy with regard 
to the judiciary and how they may be ruling. We have a legitimate 
responsibility to ask those questions. I have to tell you, we have all 
been through this. I have had a couple of judges that I have been 
interested in, one from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. He is a 
great guy, a great lawyer, Harvard educated, with all the credentials. 
He did not make it in 1992. That is the way it goes. Some people did 
not like him because he was a very conservative lawyer. I think the 
philosophy does make a difference when it comes to the circuit.
  I want to emphasize here that, when we start painting this mosaic 
about this person and the family going to be affected, we have a right 
to think about all the families whose lives will be affected by some of 
the ridiculous decisions we see in the Federal judiciary, and the 
activism where they start writing laws, which is our job. I never 
intended to infer, in any way, or imply that I could guarantee that all 
these would be done or that I would even vote for all of them. All I 
said was that I would work through this list and I would try, because I 
didn't know any of them, not a single one of them, when I started out.
  I started down the list, at the direction of my predecessor, I got to 
know some of them and worked through them. I tried to move four en bloc 
one night, and because we did not have all of them on the list, it was 
objected to by a Senator. I thought we had worked it out. Later, I 
tried to move the same four judges again that nobody objected to, 
except when I brought it to the floor, a Democratic Senator objected 
because his judge was not on the list. And then the majority leader 
left, and I said, well, maybe I can work through more of them. I got it 
up to nine judges. One night, I came to the floor and we had 10 that 
had cleared on the hotline. I even talked to a couple Senators as they 
hit the ground at the airport trying to get them done. At the last 
minute, one of those dropped by the wayside. I tried nine judges, and I 
had an objection from a Democrat when I was trying to clear nine 
judges. I think at least five or six of those were supported by 
Democrats. So I said, OK, that hasn't worked. In an abundance of good 
faith, I said I will do them one-by-one.
  I brought up one. It was objected to. But then I started working it 
with the minority leader. He started working it with his people. And 
then we started to move with the ones that were really not 
controversial. We got four or five done. Then we got five more done. 
And I think it is 15 or 16--16 that we are working through the process.
  I really must say that the minority leader was fair in his remarks of 
how we talked about it. We work together on it. We will just keep 
moving through the process.
  But again these are not insignificant. These are big-time, lifetime, 
high-paid jobs that are going to affect our lives, and, if we do not 
know who they are, if we do not ask questions, then we will be shirking 
our responsibilities.
  But we will continue working on these judges. Just like the Senator

[[Page S9419]]

from Michigan said, we will talk more about that.
  Mrs. BOXER. Will the leader yield?
  Mr. LOTT. Certainly; I am happy to yield.
  Mrs. BOXER. I thank the leader for yielding. I appreciate what he is 
saying. He is so right about that. I have to say having had the real, 
great privilege to get a number of judges through this U.S. Senate--
  Mr. LOTT. There was one from California that we moved.
  Mrs. BOXER. Absolutely. I want to say that the committee is doing its 
job. They were very clear with all of us--the Republican Senators--
saying we want to make sure when you bring people up that they have 
Republican support as well as Democratic support in their committees. 
And it has been, frankly, a joy for me to work to bring these types of 
people who have that type of bipartisan support.
  But I guess the one point that I just want to make--and I will not 
belabor this any longer--is that I heard the Senator from Minnesota say 
that he would be delighted to debate this. He is ready.
  Mr. LOTT. Let me say in this case that I have already told him. If I 
could reclaim my time for a moment, it is relevant. If we can't get it 
worked out, I intend to move it, and we'll have a debate.
  But here is one of my problems. We have a few hours left here. We 
have a lot of work that we need to get done that you want, and that we 
want. So I plead with everybody. Let us keep our heads cool. Let us 
keep talking.
  Also, I again say that I think it would be a major mistake--a major 
mistake--for Senators to hold up health insurance reform, safe drinking 
water, small business tax relief, and minimum wage, if we can't work 
through all of these things tomorrow. I plead with you not to do that. 
I urge you not to do it.
  Let us get these conferences that we have worked together on in a 
bipartisan way. I understand there is some objection maybe to the 
illegal immigration bill. I do not know the details of the negotiations 
there. But this is something the American people feel outraged about. 
We can't control illegal immigration in this country. But if there is 
some problem with the way it was handled we will take that into 
consideration.
  There are three of these conference reports which everybody has 
pretty much signed on to. They have problems with them.
  Mr. NICKLES. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. LOTT. Yes.
  Mr. NICKLES. I just want to say that I appreciate the comments, and 
this has been informative.
  In the last couple of months, if my figures are correct, there have 
been 23 judges on the Executive Calendar ready for confirmation by the 
Senate. We have confirmed 16. We have 7 still left on the calendar.
  So I tell my colleagues on the other side who might be frustrated 
that is a pretty good batting average. That is 16 out of 23 in this 
period of time. I admit that hardly--I think maybe one judge was 
confirmed prior to that time.
  Also, just while we are looking at this, I mention Frank Keating who 
was not confirmed in 1992. And my colleague, Senator Daschle, mentioned 
that we confirmed 66 judges in 1992, which is a lot. That is correct. 
But we also had 58 nominations pending at the end of 1992. Right now 
the total nominations of judges on the calendar--and that have been 
nominated--the total is 28.
  So, if you look at the total percentage of those we have on the 
percentage--
  Mr. LOTT. That is, those on the calendar and those still pending in 
the Judiciary.
  Mr. NICKLES. Still pending before the Judiciary Committee.
  So the only thing you have had on your plate is that there has been 
23 judges on the Executive Calendar. The Senate has now confirmed 16. 
There are 7 remaining.
  So I would say that in the past month the majority leader has been 
very cooperative in the fact that he has moved 16 out of 23. That is 70 
percent of the judges.
  So I think he has been very cooperative in working with all Senators.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I thank the President.
  I just ask the majority leader to extend the courtesy, if he can. I 
want to add my compliments to those that he has already received for 
such a good job, and I think too in a most serious way. He has tried 
to--
  Mr. LOTT. One of those was from New Jersey, if the Senator will 
yield.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Absolutely.
  Mr. LOTT. We ran into a little problem, and we worked it out.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. To use an expression, ``I don't have a judge in this 
fight.'' So I want you to know that.
  [Laughter].
  I enjoy not only working with him but my kind, friendly tete-a-tete 
with the majority leader.
  I ask the majority leader whether or not in reality these judges did 
not move tonight because they had something to do with something else? 
Is there some legislative redress that is being sought here, a judge is 
being held hostage, and people seeking justice are being held hostage 
because we are not processing their cases in an expeditious fashion? I 
ask the majority leader because it was suggested to me that perhaps 
there was something that I might do to help it along here.
  I just would like to know whether or not there is some particular 
piece of legislation that may have offended someone that has them out 
here saying, ``No. I am going to object to judges. I am going to object 
to anything that goes on in this place, and I do not care what the 
consequences are. I object to the legislation.'' Could I possibly be 
correct in my assumption, Mr. Leader?
  Mr. LOTT. I do not think it has ever happened in the Senate before; 
that one matter would be impacted by an unrelated matter in another 
area. Why, of course, everything in the Senate is tangled up and 
related to something else. I do not guess there is any relationship 
between the judge not moving tonight and the objections to taking up 
the HUD and Veterans appropriations bill. Why, of course, they are 
related.
  But I have found the way you do that, you get all tangled up, and you 
work with them, and quite often they manage to work themselves out and 
we get the job done. But they are related.
  Look. You know that Senators on both sides of the aisle feel strongly 
not only about the judges but about the legislation. People are worried 
when you have a bill that involves a stalking of women and children 
that you really care about, and you think that there is a mistake 
there, and it is a bill that is universally supported. When that bill 
gets tangled up in the course of events, a Senator gets excited about 
that, and upset about that. When a Senator feels like his or her rights 
are trampled upon, they move and they take advantage of whatever rights 
they have.
  My attitude with the Senator from Minnesota tonight was, ``Look. I 
understand. You are doing what you have to do.'' And we will see what 
we can do with his problem that has been affected by another problem. 
We will work them all.
  Yes. They are all related. There is nothing new in that.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. The majority leader--like my name--is frank, and I 
appreciate that candor. Because, if we are talking about the stalking 
bill here that passed the Senate that is over in the House, it carries 
an amendment by me that says wife beaters, child beaters, spouse 
abusers should not have a gun. Apparently there is an objection. ``We 
are concerned about that. We want to give those guys guns. What did 
they do? Beat up their wives? That is not a crime.'' One judge said, 
``I hate to give a noncriminal a criminal sentence.'' One judge was so 
tough that he gave a man who murdered his wife in Baltimore County 18 
months with time to be served on weekends. He murdered his wife. The 
judge said, ``I do not like to really punish someone like the 
criminals. They are not really a criminal. All they did''--he did not 
say this. I am saying it. ``All he did was murder his wife.''
  So I am asking for my amendment and that bill to be carried along, 
and now suddenly I hear that has something to do with the approval of 
judges, which now has us tangled up in appropriations bills. I think it 
is pitiful that someone would object as we saw here

[[Page S9420]]

last night; the Senator objected to an order that the minority leader 
requested and refused to answer a question--refused, turned around and 
walked out. This place is deteriorating into a sorry condition. But I 
know the majority leader is working on it.
  I think it is very important that people across the country hear that 
eight judges are not being appointed because of a piece of legislation 
that would prevent wife beaters and child abusers from getting guns. I 
think that is pretty important. I hope the public hears it and listens 
to it, and I hope the press hears it and listens to it.
  I say to the majority leader, my apologies for this little tirade, 
but I had to kind of get it off my chest.
  I thank the Senator.
  Mr. LOTT addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.

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