[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 97 (Wednesday, July 17, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Page S6943]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  CONFIRMATION OF LAVENSKI SMITH TO THE U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE 
                             EIGHTH CIRCUIT

  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, this week I voted not to confirm 
Lavenski Smith to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, 
which includes my State of Minnesota. While I have supported the vast 
majority of administration appointments that have come to the floor to 
date, I voted against this nominee because I am concerned about his 
lack of experience and qualifications, as well as about what I consider 
to be an excessively ideological approach to important issues, such as 
women's reproductive rights, in his legal work so far.
  Our district needs and deserves the best judges, especially because 
they receive lifetime appointments. I regret that the President did not 
nominate a person with a more distinguished record to this important 
position.
  Mr. Smith has just 7 years' experience practicing law, in which time 
he has gained minimal Federal experience and minimal appellate 
experience. He has no experience arguing cases before the Eighth 
Circuit, the court to which he has now been confirmed.
  In addition to his lack of experience, Mr. Smith has advocated 
ideologically tendentious legal positions that I believe may cast doubt 
on his ability to adjudicate cases fairly. In the one appellate case in 
which Mr. Smith took a lead role, his argument in relation to 
reproductive rights was unanimously rejected by the Arkansas Supreme 
Court. The court's decision observed that Mr. Smith disregarded both 
judicial precedent and the plain meaning of the Arkansas Constitution 
in making his case.
  The circuit court of appeals is one step from the Supreme Court. Yet 
the Arkansas Times wrote of this nominee: ``Lavenski Smith of Little 
Rock is not the best qualified Arkansan President Bush could have 
chosen for the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, nor even close.'' 
Whatever State a nominee might come from, Minnesota and the Eighth 
Circuit deserve better.

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