[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 17 (Thursday, January 30, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Page S1760]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      NOMINATION OF MIGUEL ESTRADA

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in 
the Record three separate items. The first, as was mentioned by the 
distinguished assistant majority leader, concerns the Judiciary 
Committee that is meeting today to consider the nomination of Miguel 
Estrada for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. I left that meeting in 
order to be in the Chamber but will be casting my vote in support of 
his nomination.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an editorial 
appearing in today's Wall Street Journal by Herman Badillo, who 
illustrates some of the reasons why Miguel Estrada should be confirmed 
when he is brought before the full Senate.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

             [From the Wall Street Journal, Jan. 30, 2003]

                            Que Pasa, Chuck?

                          (By Herman Badillo)

       New York.--Nothing makes Democrats more frenzied than when 
     a Hispanic or African-American goes off the reservation. 
     Witness now the opposition that the Puerto Rican Legal 
     Defense Fund and the usual Washington special interests are 
     giving Miguel Estrada, the young Honduran immigrant-turned-
     New Yorker that President Bush has nominated to the D.C. 
     Circuit Court of Appeals.
       Congressional Democrats have gone so far as to say that Mr. 
     Estrada is a Hispanic ``in name only.''
       But if their behavior is outrageous it is also par for the 
     course. Half of the Democrats' energy lately seems focused on 
     corraling the nation's two largest minority groups into an 
     intellectual ghetto. The vitriol we saw most famously 
     directed at Clarence Thomas, and more recently at Condoleezza 
     Rice, demands that blacks and Hispanics toe a political line 
     to have their success acknowledged by their own community.
       When confirmed by the Senate, Miguel Estrada, a brilliant 
     lawyer with extraordinary credentials, will be the first 
     Hispanic on the second most prestigious court in the land. He 
     will be a role model not just for Hispanics, but for all 
     immigrants and their children. His is the great American 
     success story.
       But his confirmation by the Senate will come no thanks to 
     Chuck Schumer, his home-state senator. Mr. Schumer has thrown 
     every old booby-trap in Mr. Estrada's way, and invented a few 
     new ones just for him. When the Senate held a hearing for Mr. 
     Estrada last year, Mr. Estrada's mother told Mr. Schumer that 
     she had voted for him and hoped that he would return the 
     favor. He hasn't yet.
       It is hard to blame Democrats of course. They know how 
     their bread is buttered and by whom--the monied special 
     interest groups that have made a profitable business of 
     opposing the nominations of President Bush. The Hispanic 
     groups that shun Mr. Estrada, including the Congressional 
     Hispanic Caucus, which announced its opposition to his 
     nomination last September, are a different matter. They 
     should be ashamed of themselves.
       Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah), who heads both the Senate 
     Judiciary and the Senate Republican Hispanic Task force, put 
     it well when he said that these liberal Hispanic groups 
     ``have sold out the aspirations of their people just to sit 
     around schmoozing with the Washington power elite.''
       Mr. Schumer's one-man campaign against Mr. Estrada has 
     grown tiresome too. Despite the rebuke of every living U.S. 
     solicitor general of both parties dating back four decades, 
     Mr. Schumer continues to make irresponsible demands, never 
     made before for a non-Hispanic nominee, and insists on making 
     backhanded and unfounded insinuations about Mr. Estrada's 
     career and temperament. This treatment of Mr. Estrada is 
     demeaning and unfair, not only to the nominee but also to the 
     confirmation process and the integrity of the Senate.
       Mr. Schumer's petulance ignores Mr. Estrada's 
     qualifications, intellect, judgment, bipartisan support, and 
     that he received a unanimous ``well qualified'' rating--the 
     highest possible rating--from the American Bar Association. 
     The liberal Hispanic groups that challenge Mr. Estrada's 
     personal identity as a Hispanic ignore his support by non-
     partisan Hispanic organizations, such as the Hispanic 
     National Bar Association, the League of United Latin American 
     Citizens, and the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
       Mr. Schumer and his colleagues are fond of speaking about 
     the need for ``diversity'' on the courts. Apparently that 
     talk does not extend to President Bush's nominees, since the 
     confirmation of Mr. Estrada would provide just such diversity 
     on this important court. It is past time that Mr. Schumer put 
     an end to his embarrassing grandstanding on Mr. Estrada's 
     nomination.
       One would think that a New York senator would know that, 
     whether Puerto Rican, Dominican or Honduran, Hispanic are 
     most united in one thing--the pride we take in our 
     advancement as Americans regardless of where we started. One 
     suspects that Mr. Schumer may learn this lesson yet, and that 
     Miguel Estrada's name is one that Charles Schumer will hear 
     repeated when he runs for re-election all too soon.

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