[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 121 (Thursday, September 16, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11013-S11014]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          JUDICIAL NOMINATIONS

  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, we have one other block of remaining issues 
of consideration, and that is judicial nominations. We had planned to 
go forward with three judges--two that have been cleared and one that 
may require time for discussion, and a vote on that at some point. 
There may need to be, as I said, time for discussion. I hope we can get 
a reasonable agreement on that.
  I would not want to have to file cloture on Federal judges. I think 
it would be a bad practice if we began to have filibusters on Federal 
judicial nominations, requiring only 41 votes to defeat a judicial 
nomination. I guess that has been done in the past but not recently, 
not since I have been majority leader, that I know of.
  So I hope we can work out an agreement on time, as we have done on 
the nomination of Mr. White of Missouri. We have a time agreement. At 
some

[[Page S11014]]

point in the next 2 or 3 weeks that will be called up, and it will have 
a discussion period and a vote.

  I hope that would be the case with any of these three that we had 
hoped to bring up. If we can't get an agreement of how to deal with all 
three of them, then we will not be able to move any of the three. But 
we are still working on that, and we hope to get it worked out.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, will the distinguished leader yield on that 
point?
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I apologize.
  Mr. LEAHY. Will the distinguished leader yield on that point?
  Mr. LOTT. Surely.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, there are one, two, three, four, five, six, 
seven judicial nominations on the calendar. I tell the distinguished 
leader that on this side of the aisle, at least, we are willing to 
agree to a time certain to vote on all of them--right now. We will be 
glad to enter into a time agreement to vote on each and every one of 
them. Obviously, our concern is that they all be considered and we 
suggest that they be in the order in which they appear on the calendar.
  Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I apologize again. I think the Senator is 
propounding a question. What I am trying to do is to move forward on 
judicial nominations. We have already cleared six, I believe, since we 
have been back. I believe we can move two more without any problem. 
That would be eight. Then it would be my intent to move in that block 
of three also the nomination of Mr. Stewart of Utah, Brian Theadore 
Stewart. It would be those three. If we could clear those three, that 
would be nine we have moved since we have been back from the August 
recess, leaving, I believe, only four on the calendar.
  As I indicated, we have gotten tentative agreement on time on the 
nomination of White of Missouri, that we hope within the next week or 
so--at some point--when we find a window, in fact, we will call it up, 
and there will be a period of debate and a vote on that one, leaving 
only three judges on the calendar.
  I understand the Judiciary Committee is moving toward reporting out 
other judges and will begin to move those right away who are not 
controversial and won't take time. If there is controversy, and we can 
get a time agreement, a limited time agreement and then a vote on some, 
then we would do that.
  The three remaining on the calendar are Ninth Circuit judges, where 
there is considerable problem and concern about the size of the 
circuit, whether or not that circuit needs to be dealt with, whether it 
is split in two, and there are concerns about the judges themselves. So 
that is a complicated problem. I cannot give any indication of a time 
agreement at this point.
  I call on the Senators on both sides of the aisle to allow me to 
continue to move forward. I have been showing good faith. Before the 
August recess, I tried to move some of these judges, and if I did not 
include certain judges, there was objection from that side. If I did 
not include certain other judges, there was objection on this side.
  So what I said was: This is not reasonable. It does not make good 
sense. I am going to just start calling them up, one by one, and 
clearing them and getting them done. And by doing that, I have done 
six, and I am on the verge of doing three more. So I would hope we 
would get cooperation on that.
  I think Judge Stewart of Utah is a qualified nominee. He is obviously 
supported by the Senator from Utah, the chairman of the Judiciary 
Committee, who has been working in good faith. He was not particularly 
happy with my plan to just go forward and start calling up judges. I 
assured him that after we had done several of them that had been 
cleared, his would be next. His is going to be next. He will be in this 
package of three.

  I understand Senators may want to talk some more about this in the 
next few minutes. I don't want to file cloture on Judge Stewart. I will 
do that, and then we will start down this 41-vote trail, which I don't 
think is wise. Let's try to have some cooperation with each other and a 
modicum of good faith, and we will continue to work on them.
  It takes a lot of time for the majority leader and the minority 
leader to clear these judges--a lot of time. I have to check with 54 
other Senators before I can enter into any kind of agreement. Sometimes 
the objections are: I need time to think about it; I need to meet with 
this person or that person. Sometimes it is a legislative issue. 
Sometimes they say: Well, I have a problem; I am going to vote no. 
Sometimes they say: I need a lot of time.
  I have to work through all that. I will withhold right now on these 
three, on either of the three. I urge Senator Leahy, Senator Hatch, 
Senator Feinstein, anybody else who is involved and interested, to talk 
this out. I will be back here in a couple of hours, and I will see if 
we can't work out a way we can move the two who have been cleared 
already and move Judge Stewart. I do think you will want to talk about 
it some and perhaps discuss it further with Senator Daschle. That would 
be fine, too.

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