[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 51 (Tuesday, April 30, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3527-S3529]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                    Nomination of Michael M. Baylson

  Michael Baylson is a man I have known since 1965. He was one of the 
first people I appointed as an assistant district attorney when I was 
elected in 1965. I have known him intimately for the course of the past 
37 years. I can attest to his capability.
  He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, with both a 
Bachelor of Science and a law degree. Beyond serving as an assistant 
district attorney in my office, where he was chief of the homicide 
division, and he handled some of the most complicated criminal 
prosecutions known, he later served as a U.S. attorney from 1988 to 
1993. He has been a senior partner in the distinguished Philadelphia 
law firm of Duane, Morris & Heckscher, working on some very tough 
litigation matters in the areas of commercial and securities litigation 
and antitrust law.

  Mr. Baylson served as United States Attorney for the Eastern District 
of Pennsylvania from 1988 to 1993. He was heavily involved in the Weed 
and Seed Program.
  From 1966 to 1969, he was an assistant district attorney in the 
Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, where he served as chief of 
the Narcotics and Homicide Divisions.
  He is the chair of the Specialization Committee and past chair of the 
State Action Exemption and Noerr Doctrine Committee of the Antitrust 
Law Section of the American Bar Association, and is a fellow of the 
American Bar Foundation.
  He has also been on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania Law 
School.
  He received the United States Department of Treasury's U.S. Attorneys 
award for Distinction in Financial Management, 1993; Attorney General's 
Special Commendation Award, 1993; Inspector General's Prospective 
Leadership Award, U.S. Health and Human Services, 1992; and the 
Distinguished Service to Law Enforcement Award from the County and 
State Detectives Association of Pennsylvania, 1992.
  Baylson has provided pro bono services to prisoners asserting civil 
rights violations and has represented defendants accused of crimes on a 
pro bono basis.
  Madam President, while my colleague from Vermont is still in the 
Chamber, I want to make a comment or two about some discussions he and 
I have had, and which I have had with other members of the Judiciary 
Committee. It is my hope that we will be able to agree on a protocol of 
where we can come to an agreement in the Judiciary Committee, and 
really in the full Senate, as to how we handle judicial nominations.
  We have seen recurrent problems when we have a Republican President 
and a Senate controlled by the Democrats. When the shoe was on the 
other foot, we had a President who was a Democrat and the Senate was 
controlled by Republicans. Before that, we had a Republican President 
and the Senate was controlled by Democrats.
  So that in my Senate tenure we have had three situations where the 
White House and the Senate were controlled by different parties.
  When there is debate about what has happened and how long the 
nominations have taken, although I have been here and followed the 
situation closely, I get lost in the statistics. I think the American 
people do too.
  I do believe there have been failures on both sides, by both parties. 
I think the time has come to move beyond recrimination and to try to 
establish a protocol. Hopefully this protocol will provide for a 
certain number of days after a nomination has been submitted to be 
accorded a hearing, so many days later for a markup in an executive 
session, so many days later to be considered by the full Senate. Delays 
could occur at the discretion of the chairman of the committee, after 
consultation with the ranking member--not the concurrence of the 
ranking member but the consultation--similarly with the

[[Page S3528]]

majority leader, with consultation with the minority leader.
  I wanted to make those comments because one might say it is hard for 
the issue to disintegrate further, but I do see it disintegrating 
further. On May 9, we are going to have a one year anniversary of the 
submission of eight circuit judges, and I hope we do not have dueling 
press conferences. I hope we are able to work this out where we will 
have rules and a protocol established, regardless of who controls what.
  Again, I thank the Chair for sitting overtime and I thank my 
colleague from Vermont for staying overtime.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I am always happy for the cooperation of 
the Senator from Pennsylvania, and I do compliment him on the two 
judges who will be confirmed today, recommended by him, and his efforts 
to get a consensus for them. I am well aware we can have dueling press 
conferences.
  I have mentioned a number of courts of appeals judges were heard out 
of order at the request of Republican Senators, and I am sure if some 
of those same Senators were then to speak of the fact that some of the 
judges, their own nominees especially, were heard ahead of others, that 
they would see delicious irony in that.
  I know we are supposed to recess. I yield the floor.


                     nomination of michael baylson

  Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I rise in support of the confirmation of 
Mr. Michael Baylson to the District Court of Eastern Pennsylvania. Mr. 
Baylson is another fine example of the qualified attorneys President 
Bush has named to the federal bench, and I am convinced based on his 
record that he will make an outstanding addition to an already 
prestigious court.
  Mr. Baylson earned his undergraduate degree from the University of 
Pennsylvania's Wharton School. He then graduated from the University's 
Law School. After working as a volunteer for the public defender in 
Philadelphia, he joined the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office. My 
colleagues will remember that my friend the distinguished senior 
Senator from Pennsylvania, Senator Specter, was the Philadelphia 
District Attorney at this time. Mr. Baylson was quickly promoted to 
supervise that office's Narcotics Unit and then it Homicide Unit.
  Mr. Baylson worked in private practice at the law firm of Duane 
Morris and Heckscher. Then, in 1988, he returned to public service as 
the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 
There, he became well-known for his aggressive drug prosecutions. Mr. 
Baylson also was a pioneer in developing the Violent Traffickers 
Project, a program that uses a different strategy than the traditional 
tactic of arresting smaller dealers and then ``flipping'' them in order 
to convict the leaders of a drug conspiracy.
  After leaving the U.S. Attorney's Office, Mr. Baylson returned to 
Duane Morris and Heckscher as a partner and has specialized in 
antitrust, federal securities, RICO and white collar crime matters.
  Clearly, Mr. Baylson is a very talented attorney with a great deal of 
experience. I have no doubt that he is an excellent choice to be a 
judge on the District Court of Eastern Pennsylvania.


                  nomination of Judge Cynthia M. Rufe

  Madam President, I rise in support of the confirmation of Judge 
Cynthia Rufe to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of 
Pennsylvania. Judge Rufe's nomination is yet another example of 
President Bush's effort to enhance our excellent and diverse federal 
judiciary. Judge Rufe has had a distinguished legal career. She is an 
outstanding Pennsylvania state judge who will only add to the 
distinguished federal court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
  Judge Rufe graduated with a B.A. in Political Science and Education 
from Adelphi University in 1970. After receiving her teacher's 
certificate from Bloomsburg University in 1972 and teaching high school 
social studies, Judge Rufe graduated from SUNY-Buffalo Law School in 
1977.
  After law school, and mindful of each attorney's responsibility to 
``serve the disadvantaged,'' she joined the Bucks County Public 
Defenders Office. In this role, her case-load ran the gamut from 
misdemeanors to homicides. At the Public Defender's Office, Judge Rufe 
developed an expertise in representing abused and neglected children.
  As a result of that expertise, she created and led the Public 
Defender's Juvenile Division. Later, Judge Rufe rose to the level of 
Deputy Public Defender. In this position, she was responsible for 
managing the office's trial caseload.
  In 1982, she left the Defender's Office to begin a private practice. 
Judge Rufe concentrated on litigation, especially criminal and juvenile 
law. Over the years, the Judge Rufe's practice expanded to include 
cases on employment, discrimination, personal injury, defamation, 
contracts, adoptions, estates and family law.
  But, during this period, she never forgot about her community, and 
she served as Solicitor of the Bucks County Children and Youth Social 
Services Agency.
  In 1994, Judge Rufe re-entered public life when she was elected to 
the Bucks County Court of Common Pleas. For the last eight years, she 
has developed a well-earned reputation for hard work and fairness.
  It is a pleasure and a privilege to support Judge Rufe's nomination 
to the federal bench.


                         judicial confirmations

  Madam President, I would like to respond briefly to some comments 
made earlier today on the topic of judicial confirmations. I had no 
intention of bringing up this topic today, but now I find myself with 
no choice but to set the record straight. I want to make one 
observation and then two simple points.
  Madam President, my observation is this: The American people want 
this Senate to help--rather than hinder--President Bush. And that is 
true of every President. Everyone understands that we are living at a 
time of great national importance. Our government is being put to a 
test. President Bush is performing extraordinarily well, and he is 
leading our country and our military in the right direction to achieve 
prosperity and security for all Americans. The American people support 
President Bush and his administration, and they correctly believe that 
the Senate should do the same.
  But the people who follow the Judiciary Committee's record on 
reviewing and approving President Bush's judicial nominations are 
frustrated--for good reason--with the way in which this body has 
treated President Bush. They know that President Bush gave great care 
and attention to finding nominees who are extremely well-qualified, 
highly talented legal thinkers who hold mainstream American values. 
There is not an ideologue among them. To the contrary, President Bush's 
picks for the judiciary are all principled and fair people, from a 
variety of backgrounds and experiences, who are committed to following 
precedent, applying the law as it exists, and standing firm against 
judicial activism. President Bush should not be forced to divert any 
more of his time and attention away from the war on terrorism and his 
many domestic priorities in order to persuade this body to do what is 
right for the American people.
  Now, Mr. President, I would like to make two points that directly 
respond to the comments made earlier today.
  Madam President, the current Senate leadership is not doing a better 
job this Congress than the Senate has done under other Presidents. I 
listened as my colleague explained that, if looked at through the right 
looking glass, or examined in the right subsection of the right time 
period of the right session of the right Congress, then the current 
numbers are pretty impressive.
  The most important measure of performance should be how we are 
handling the most important courts: the Circuit Court of Appeals. Let's 
compare the treatment of President Bush's first 11 circuit court 
nominees to the first 11 of previous presidents. President Reagan, the 
first President Bush and President Clinton all enjoyed a 100 percent 
confirmation rate on their first 11 circuit court nominees, and all 
were confirmed well within a year. President Reagan's first 11 were 
confirmed in an average of 39 days, the first President Bush's first 11 
averaged 88 days, and President Clinton's first 11--only 115 days. The 
longest any of these individuals were held up in committee was 202 
days. In stark contrast to previous

[[Page S3529]]

Presidents, 8 of President Bush's first 11 nominations--made on May 9, 
2001, almost a year ago--are still pending in committee without so much 
as a hearing! That's nearly 365 days, and only 3 of the President's 
first 11 nominees are confirmed. Is this what the Democratic leadership 
considers a record-breaking pace? It may be record-breaking, all right, 
but not the record they're talking about. They are confirming with the 
velocity of molasses.
  Now I heard my colleague suggest that some of the first 11 nominees 
may have been superseded out of courtesy to Republican Senators who 
requested some later-nominated judges to move first. Well, I know how 
difficult it is to chair the committee, and such requests do come in. 
But I would suggest to my friend that he do what I did for President 
Clinton: consider more than one circuit nominee per hearing. That's 
what we did, under Republican leadership, no fewer than 10 times. Why 
not two at a time?

  Of course, the pace of confirming a President's first 11 nominees is 
not the only measure by which the current leadership is falling short. 
My colleague suggested that kudos should be awarded for bringing the 
circuit court vacancy rate down to 29. Well, it was never that high at 
the end of any Congress when Republicans controlled the Senate. And I 
certainly don't recall that, during my chairmanship, any of our circuit 
courts were facing the kind of crisis that is going on today in the 6th 
Circuit Court of Appeals, where the court is operating at half-staff 
despite the fact that president Bush has nominated seven highly 
qualified people to serve on that court.
  The fact is that, at the close of the 106th Congress, when I was 
chairman of the Judiciary Committee, there were only 67 vacancies in 
the federal judiciary. In the space of one Democratic-controlled 
congressional session last year, that number shot up to nearly 100, 
where it remains today. Under Republican leadership, the Senate 
confirmed essentially the same number of judges for President Clinton--
377--as it did for President Reagan--382--which proves bipartisan 
fairness--especially when you consider that President Reagan had six 
years of his party controlling the Senate, and President Clinton had 
only two.
  So how did we go from 67 vacancies at the end of the Clinton 
administration to nearly 100 today? There can be only one answer: The 
current pace of hearings and confirmations is simply not keeping up 
with the increase in vacancies. We are moving so slowly that we are 
barely keeping up with natural attrition. President Bush nominated 66 
highly qualified individuals to fill judicial vacancies last year. But 
in the first 4 months of Democratic control of the Senate last year, 
only 6 Federal judges were confirmed. At several hearings, the 
Judiciary Committee considered only one or two judges at a time. The 
committee voted on only 6 of 29 circuit court nominees in 2001, a rate 
of 21 percent, leaving 23 of them without any action at all.
  This leads to my second point, which is that the current situation 
has nothing whatsoever to do with ideology. I was surprised to hear my 
friend, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, address earlier today 
the question of introducing ideology into the judicial confirmation 
process. Some of my Democrat colleagues have made no bones about the 
fact that this is exactly what they are seeking to do. In July, they 
have even held hearings expressly on how to justify it. We saw what 
happened to Judge Charles Pickering.
  What is now occurring is far beyond the mere tug-of-war politics that 
unfortunately surrounds Senate judicial confirmation since Robert Bork. 
Some of my colleagues are out to effect a fundamental change in our 
constitutional system, as they were instructed to do by noted liberal 
law professors at a retreat early last year. Rather than seeking to 
determine the judiciousness of a nominee and whether a nominee will be 
able to rule on the law or the Constitution without personal bias, they 
want to guarantee that our judges all think in the same way, a way that 
is much further to the left of mainstream than most of President Bush's 
nominees.
  In the judiciary that some would create, citizens will have to worry 
about the personal politics of the judge to whom they come for justice 
under the law. I strongly object to that result.
  The legitimacy of our courts, and especially the Supreme Court, comes 
from much more than black robes and a high bench. It comes from the 
people's belief that judges and justices will apply a judicial 
philosophy without regard to personal politics or bias.

  In conclusion, Madam President, it is time for this Senate to examine 
the real situation in the Judiciary Committee, rather than listen to 
more inventive ways of spinning it. We have lots of work to do. There 
are 90 vacancies in the federal judiciary--a vacancy rate of more than 
10.5 percent--and we have 50 nominees pending, including 4 nominees for 
the Court of Federal Claims. Nineteen of the pending nominees are for 
circuit court positions, yet the Senate has confirmed only nine circuit 
judges this Congress. This is despite a crisis of 29 vacancies pending 
in the circuit courts nationwide--virtually the same number of 
vacancies pending when the Democrats took control of the Senate in June 
of last year.
  Madam President, the American people are disappointed in this 
process. They want the Senate to help--not hinder--President Bush. I 
urge my friends across the aisle to focus on this situation, to step up 
the pace of hearings and votes, and to do what's right for the country.
  Thank you, Madam President. I yield the floor.

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