[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 95 (Wednesday, June 30, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7900-S7901]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           EXECUTIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

NOMINATION OF Keith P. Ellison, of Texas, to be United States District 
               Judge for the Southern District of Texas.

                                 ______
                                 

  NOMINATION OF Gary Allen Feess, of California, to be United States 
         District Judge for the Central District of California.

                                 ______
                                 

NOMINATION OF Stefan R. Underhill, of Connecticut, to be United States 
            District Judge for the District of Connecticut.

                                 ______
                                 

NOMINATION OF W. Allen Pepper, Jr., of Mississippi, to be United States 
        District Judge for the Northern District of Mississippi.

                                 ______
                                 

 NOMINATION OF Karen E. Schreier, of South Dakota, to be United States 
            District Judge for the District of South Dakota.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is, Will the Senate advise and 
consent to the nominations?
  On this question the yeas and nays have been ordered, and the clerk 
will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. NICKLES. I announce that the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Voinovich) 
and the Senator from Florida (Mr. Mack) are necessarily absent.
  The result was announced--yeas 94, nays 4, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 190 Ex.]

                                YEAS--94

     Abraham
     Akaka
     Allard
     Ashcroft
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Boxer
     Breaux
     Brownback
     Bryan
     Bunning
     Byrd
     Campbell
     Chafee
     Cleland
     Cochran
     Collins
     Conrad
     Coverdell
     Craig
     Crapo
     Daschle
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Edwards
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Fitzgerald
     Frist
     Gorton
     Graham
     Gramm
     Grams
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Hollings
     Hutchinson
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Jeffords
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Lott
     Lugar
     McCain
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Moynihan
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nickles
     Reed
     Reid
     Robb
     Roberts
     Rockefeller
     Roth
     Santorum
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith (OR)
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stevens
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Thurmond
     Torricelli
     Warner
     Wellstone
     Wyden

                                NAYS--4

     Burns
     Enzi
     Helms
     Smith (NH)

                             NOT VOTING--2

     Mack
     Voinovich
       
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the ayes are 94, the nays are 4. 
The Senate does hereby advise and consent to the nominations of Keith 
B. Ellison of Texas, Gary Allen Feess of California, Stefan R. 
Underhill of Connecticut, W. Allen Pepper, Jr. of Mississippi, and 
Karen E. Schreier of South Dakota.
  The President will be immediately notified of the Senate's action.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am encouraged that the Senate confirmed 
five of the judicial nominees from the 45 pending before us. I am glad 
that the District Courts in Mississippi, South Dakota, Texas, 
Connecticut, and California will soon have additional judicial 
resources. I only wish that were true for the 69 other vacancies around 
the country.
  In particular, I look forward to the Committee finally approving the 
nomination of Marsha Berzon to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals this 
week and would ask the Majority Leader to take up that long-delayed 
nomination with the same expedition that is being. Fully one-quarter of 
the active judgeships authorized for that Court remain vacant, as they 
have been for several years. The Judicial Conference recently requested 
that Ninth Circuit judgeships be increased in light of its workload by 
an additional five judges. That means that while Ms. Berzon's 
nomination has been pending, and five other nominations are pending to 
the Ninth Circuit, that Court has been forced to struggle through its 
extraordinary workload with 12 fewer judges than it needs.
  Marsha Berzon is an outstanding nominee. By all accounts, she is an 
exceptional lawyer with extensive appellate experience, including a 
number of cases heard by the Supreme Court. She has the strong support 
of both California Senators and a well-qualified rating from the 
American Bar Association.
  She was initially nominated in January 1998, almost 17 months ago. 
She participated in an extensive two-part confirmation hearing before 
the Committee back on July 30, 1998. Thereafter she received a number 
of sets of written questions from a number of Senators and responded in 
August. A second round of written questions was sent and she responded 
by the middle of September. Despite the efforts of Senator Feinstein, 
Senator Kennedy, Senator Specter and myself to have her considered by 
the Committee, she was not included on an agenda and not voted on 
during all of 1998. Her nomination was returned to the President 
without action by this Committee or the Senate in late October.
  This year the President renominated Ms. Berzon in January. She 
participated in her second confirmation hearing two weeks ago, was sent 
additional sets of written questions, responded and got and answered 
another question. I do not know why these questions were not asked last 
year. I do hope that the Committee will vote to report her nomination 
to the Senate on Thursday and that the Senate will finally, at long 
last, take the opportunity to confirm her to the federal bench.
  The saga of this brilliant lawyer and good person is a long one, but 
it is not an isolated story. Hers is not even the longest pending 
nomination. That distinction belongs to Judge Richard Paez who was 
initially nominated in January 1996--over three and one half years 
ago--favorably reported by this Committee last year but not voted upon 
by the Senate. He was renominated in January, as well. His nomination 
is in limbo before the Senate Judiciary Committee, more than three 
years after this fine Hispanic judge was first nominated by the 
President.
  In addition, there is the nomination of Justice Ronnie L. White to 
the federal court in Missouri, a nomination I spoke to the Senate about 
earlier this week. This past weekend marked the 2-year anniversary of 
the nomination of this outstanding jurist to what is now a judicial 
emergency vacancy on the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of 
Missouri. He is currently a member of the Missouri Supreme Court.
  He was nominated by President Clinton in June of 1997, 2 years ago. 
It took 11 months before the Senate would even allow him to have a 
confirmation hearing. His nomination was then reported favorably on a 
13 to 3 vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 21, 1998. 
Senators Hatch, Thurmond, Grassley, Specter, Kyl, and DeWine were the 
Republican members of the Committee who voted for him along with the 
Democratic members. Senators Ashcroft, Abraham and Sessions voted 
against him.

[[Page S7901]]

  Even though he had been voted out overwhelmingly, he sat on the 
calendar, and the nomination was returned to the President after 16 
months with no action.
  The President has again renominated him. I have called again upon the 
Senate Judiciary Committee to act on this qualified nomination. Justice 
White deserves better than benign neglect. The people in Missouri 
deserve a fully qualified and fully staffed Federal bench.
  Justice White has one of the finest records--and the experience and 
standing--of any lawyer that has come before the Judiciary Committee. 
He has served in the Missouri legislature, the office of the city 
counselor for the City of St. Louis, and he was a judge in the Missouri 
Court of Appeals for the Eastern District of Missouri before his 
current service as the first African American ever to serve on the 
Missouri Supreme Court.

  Having been voted out of Committee by a 4-1 margin, having waited for 
2 years, this distinguished African American at least deserves a vote, 
up or down. Senators can stand up and say they will vote for or against 
him, but let this man have his vote.
  Twenty-four months after being nominated and after being renominated 
five months ago, the nomination remains pending without action before 
the Senate Judiciary Committee. People like Justice Ronnie L. White 
deserve to have their nominations treated with dignity and dispatch. 
Twenty-four months is far too long to have to wait for Senate action.
  The Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court wrote in his 
Year-End Report in 1997: ``Some current nominees have been waiting a 
considerable time for a Senate Judiciary Committee vote or a final 
floor vote. The Senate confirmed only 17 judges in 1996 and 36 in 1997, 
well under the 101 judges it confirmed in 1994.'' He went on to note: 
``The Senate is surely under no obligation to confirm any particular 
nominee, but after the necessary time for inquiry it should vote him up 
or vote him down.''
  For the last several years I have been urging the Judiciary Committee 
and the Senate to proceed to consider and confirm judicial nominees 
more promptly and without the years of delay that now accompany so many 
nominations. I hope the Committee will not delay any longer in 
reporting the nomination of Justice Ronnie L. White to the United 
States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri and that the 
Senate will finally act on the nomination of this fine African-American 
jurist.
  In explaining why he chose to withdraw from consideration after 
waiting 15 months for Senate consideration, another minority nominee, 
Jorge Rangel, wrote to the President and explained:
  ``Our judicial system depends on men and women of good will who agree 
to serve when asked to do so. But public service asks too much when 
those of us who answer the call to service are subjected to a 
confirmation process dominated by interminable delays and inaction. 
Patience has its virtues, but it also has its limits''.
  Justice White has been exceedingly patient. He remains one of the 10 
longest-pending judicial nominations before the Senate, along with 
Judge Richard Paez and Marsha Berzon.
  Acting to fill judicial vacancies is a constitutional duty that the 
Senate--and all of its members--are obligated to fulfill. In its 
unprecedented slowdown in the handling of nominees since the 104th 
Congress, the Senate is shirking its duty. That is wrong and should 
end.
  As the Senate recesses for the Independence Day holiday, I am glad to 
see that the Senate is taking a few small steps toward responsible 
action by confirming five qualified District Court nominees. I will 
continue to work to see that the scores of remaining nominees be 
treated fairly.

                          ____________________