[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 113 (Monday, July 28, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10024-S10027]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
EXECUTIVE SESSION
______
NOMINATION OF EARL LEROY YEAKEL III OF TEXAS TO BE UNITED STATES
DISTRICT JUDGE FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the hour of 5:20
p.m. having arrived, the Senate will proceed to executive session for
the consideration of Calendar No. 296, which the clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read the nomination of Earl Leroy Yeakel III of
[[Page S10025]]
Texas to be United States District Judge for the Western District of
Texas.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will be 5
minutes for debate equally divided between the Senator from Texas, Mrs.
Hutchinson, and the Senator from Texas, Mr. Cornyn, and 5 minutes for
debate for the Senator from Vermont, Mr. Leahy.
Who yields time?
The Senator from Texas.
Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, are we going to have back-to-back
votes for Judge Cardone as well as Judge Yeakel, or do we talk about
each judge before their individual votes?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There will be back-to-back votes.
Mrs. HUTCHISON. Thank you, Mr. President.
Mr. President, I would like to speak on behalf of two Federal judge
nominees for Texas. They are both for the Western District. Leroy
Yeakel will sit in Austin; Kathleen Cardone will sit in El Paso, TX.
The Western District has the highest caseload of any district on the
list of districts where judicial emergencies exist. It has been the No.
1 district in that regard. I am very pleased that we have two nominees
to fill two benches in Austin and El Paso because we do need to be able
to move these cases expeditiously. People are entitled to have their
cases disposed of one way or another.
I am proud to speak for Lee Yeakel who has been nominated for the
Austin vacancy. He has served as a justice of the Texas Third Court of
Appeals in Austin since 1998. Prior to that, he spent 29 years in
private practice in Austin, most recently as a partner with the firm of
Clark, Thomas & Winters.
Lee earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Texas at
Austin in 1966 and his law degree from the University of Texas in 1969.
He earned a master of law degree from the University of Virginia in
2001.
He is also very active in the community. He serves on the boards of
the Austin Rotary Club, the West Austin Youth Association, the Austin
Choral Union, and the Committee for Wild Basin Wilderness.
I am very proud to know Lee Yeakel. I have known him for years. I
have also known his wonderful wife Anne and their family. I am very
pleased that the President nominated Lee Yeakel after Senator Cornyn
and I recommended him. I know he will be a hard worker, and I know he
will be an independent judge, one who looks at the law and decides
cases based on the law and not based on his personal opinions. So I am
pleased to recommend him to the Senate.
Mr. President, I also recommend Kathleen Cardone for the judgeship in
the Western District of Texas. She will be sitting in El Paso. Kathy is
a New York native who graduated from the State University of New York
at Binghamton and St. Mary's School of Law in San Antonio.
After graduating from law school, Kathy clerked for a U.S. Magistrate
for the Southern District of Texas, and then went into private
practice.
She has the distinction of serving as the first judge for the 388th
Judicial District Court, a new State court created in El Paso in 1999.
She developed and founded the El Paso County Domestic Relations Office.
This office serves as an intermediary between courts and litigants in
family law matters. She also presided over the 383rd Judicial District
Court in El Paso.
She has an excellent record of civic involvement. She is a member of
the board of directors of the Upper Rio Grande Workforce Development
Board and the El Paso Center for Family Violence. She is a past board
member of the YWCA and the El Paso Holocaust Museum and Study Center.
She has also been on the board of the El Paso Bar Foundation, the El
Paso Mexican American Bar Association, and the Child Crisis Center of
El Paso.
I think you can see that both of these nominees meet the high
standards that we hold for Federal judges, both having been active in
their communities and being well regarded by the bar.
I can say that both of these nominees were highly recommended by
Democrats and Republicans and by their bar association membership.
People who have worked with them recommend them highly, and I am very
pleased with our nominations.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the nomination
of Justice Earl Leroy Yeakel to be a U.S. District Court Judge for the
Western District of Texas.
Justice Yeakel has been a justice on the Texas Court of Appeals since
1998. For 29 years prior to his judicial service he was engaged in
private practice, litigating both civil and criminal matters at the
trial and appellate levels in state and federal courts.
While attending the University of Texas School of Law, he worked for
the Austin law firm of Mitchell, Gilbert & McLean. Upon graduation in
1969, he remained at the firm as an associate counsel, participating in
a broad range of litigation-related work. Five years later, Justice
Yeakel started his own firm, where he remained until his departure in
1982. In the sixteen years that followed, he served as either an
associate or partner in three prominent Austin law firms, litigating
both civil and criminal matters at the trial and appellate level in
state and federal courts.
Justice Yeakel has proven himself to be a distinguished legal
scholar, author, practitioner and judge. He enjoys bi-partisan support
and I am confident he will make an excellent federal judge. I commend
President Bush for nominating Justice Yeakel and urge my colleagues to
join me in supporting this nomination.
Mr. President, I am also in support of the nomination of Kathleen
Cardone to be a U.S. District Court Judge for the Western District of
Texas.
Since 1983, Judge Cardone has served as a state judge in El Paso
County, TX, on numerous courts, including a municipal court, a family
law court, and multiple state district courts. In addition to her
judicial duties, she has worked as a trained mediator, as well as a
teacher of an introductory law course at the El Paso Community College.
After graduating from St. Mary's School of Law in 1979, Judge Cardone
worked for one year as a briefing attorney for Philip Schraub, a United
States Magistrate Judge for the Southern District of Texas. Following
this judicial clerkship, she entered private practice, handling an
array of cases involving civil, criminal and family law matters.
Judge Cardone has proven herself to be a distinguished legal scholar,
author, practitioner and judge. She enjoys bipartisan support and I am
confident he will make an excellent federal judge. I commend President
Bush for nominating Judge Cardone and urge my colleagues to join me in
supporting this nomination.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator for Vermont.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, today the Senate will confirm another two
judicial nominees, bringing the total number of judicial nominees sent
by President Bush to be confirmed to 140. With today's vote, the number
of judicial nominees confirmed this year alone climbs to 40. That
exceeds the number of judges during all of 2000, 1999, and 1997, and is
more than twice as many judges as were confirmed during the entire 1996
session. It is more than the average annual confirmations for the 6\1/
2\ years the Republican majority controlled the pace of confirmations
from 1995 through the first half of 2001. Thus, in the first 7 months
of this year, we have already exceeded the year totals for 4 of the 6
years the Republican majority controlled the pace of President
Clinton's judicial nominees and the Republican majority's yearly
average.
Indeed with the confirmation of this 140th judge, the Senate has now
confirmed in 2 years, from July 20, 2001 to July 28, 2003, more judges
for President Bush than it was willing to consider during any 3-year
period in which President Clinton's nominees were being considered by a
Senate Republican majority.
A good way to see how much faster we are proceeding on judicial
nominations for a Republican President than Republican Senators were
willing to proceed for a Democratic President is to compare where we
are on this date over the last several years. Over the last 6\1/2\
years of Republican control under President Clinton, the Republicans
allowed only 20 judicial confirmations, on average, by July 28, and
included only 4 circuit court nominees, on average, by this time. Today
we will
[[Page S10026]]
have doubled those benchmarks with the confirmation of the 39th and
40th judicial nominees, which have included 10 circuit court judges.
The double standard that Republicans have used in their treatment of
judicial nominees is evident from this chart.
On this day, in 1995, only 32 judicial nominations had been
confirmed; in 1996, only 14; in 1997, only 9; in 1998 the confirmations
totaled 33; in 1999, only 9; and in 2000 the confirmation total by this
point of the year was 35. Today, we confirm the 40th judge so far this
year. Vacancies in the courts stand at less than half of what they were
during the Clinton years and we have more Federal judges serving than
ever before.
We have already this year confirmed 10 judges to the Courts of
Appeals. This is more than were confirmed in all of 4 of the past 6
years when the Republicans were in the majority--in 1996, 1997, 1999,
and 2000. And in the 2 other years, the Tenth Circuit nominee was not
confirmed until much later in the year.
Today, the Senate confirms Earl Lee Yeakel and Kathleen Cardone to
the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. Judge Yeakel
has been serving on the Texas Court of Appeals since 1998, appointed by
then-Governor Bush. Judge Cardone has served as a State court judge on
different courts throughout the El Paso area since 1990. Both were just
nominated on May 1, their paperwork was not complete until June, and
they are being confirmed just a month later. This is another sign of
how fair the Democrats have been to this President's nominees.
The Judiciary Committee has already held hearings for 6 of President
Bush's nominees for the Western District of Texas alone and for 13 of
President Bush's district court nominees from the State of Texas. Eight
of those judges were given hearings and confirmed during the 17 months
I served as chairman of the Judiciary Committee. That was nearly one
judge for Texas every other month, in addition to the four United
States Attorneys and three United States Marshals who were reviewed and
confirmed in that period of time.
As I have noted throughout the last 3 years, the Senate is able to
move expeditiously when we have consensus nominees. Unfortunately, far
too many of this President's nominees have records that raise serious
concerns about whether they will be fair judges to all parties on all
issues.
Mr. President, I reserve the remainder of my time.
How much time do I have remaining on this side?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Seventeen seconds.
Mr. LEAHY. How much time is available to the other side?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Fifty-five seconds.
Mr. LEAHY. I yield back my time.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I would like to briefly respond to the
remarks of my democratic colleague on the state of the judicial
nominations process.
We have heard a lot of statistics batted around about judicial
confirmations. Some of them are accurate, some of them are dubious, but
one of the more misleading ones I have heard is the claim that the
score on President Bush's judicial nominees is 140 to 2. This is hardly
the score.
First, there are more Federal appellate vacancies today, 18, during
President Bush's third year in office, than there were at the end of
former President Clinton's second year in office, 15. Almost one-third
of President Bush's Federal court nominees have not been confirmed.
There are 68 total vacancies on the Federal district and appellate
benches, 32 of which are classified as judicial emergencies. We have
worked to do, and we will continue to fill those vacancies. No raw
number of confirmations means anything, in and of itself, while there
are not one, but two filibusters of exemplary nominees going on now,
potentially more to come, and emergency vacancies continued to exist.
Are we supposed to be grateful that only a few of President Bush's
nominees are being filibustered? Is there an acceptable filibuster
percentage that the Democratic leadership has in mind? The mere fact
that we have to ask these questions makes it crystal clear that we have
a broken process. Even one filibuster of a judicial nominee is one too
many.
As for the allegation that two nominees have been defeated, well, I
for one would not be as quick as some of my Democratic colleagues to
declare that the nominations of Miguel Estrada and Priscilla Owen have
been defeated. We will continue to fight for the confirmation of these
nominees and continue to file for cloture on their nominations. They
are exemplary nominees who deserve to be confirmed.
And as for the implication that it is somehow acceptable to
filibuster two judicial nominees in light of the others that have been
confirmed, I must ask my Democratic colleagues who are leading these
filibusters: Would you ever argue that it is permissible to break two
criminal laws just as long as all the rest are being followed? Of
course not. Nobody would make that argument any more then they would
argue that it is permissible to disregard two of the constitutional
amendments that comprise our Bill of Rights simply because there are
eight others. The confirmation of other Bush judicial nominees in no
way excuses or justifies the shabby treatment inflicted on Miguel
Estrada and Priscilla Owen.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I join the senior Senator from Texas, Mrs.
Hutchison, in commending to the Members of the body the nominations of
Judge Lee Yeakel and Judge Kathleen Cardone. Both of these nominees are
outstanding examples of the highly qualified nominees that President
Bush has sent to this body for consideration and confirmation. They
deserve these appointments. I have every confidence they will serve
with distinction. I am proud of what they represent and the potential
they have as well.
In the couple seconds I have remaining, I would like to respond to
the ranking member's statements about how many judicial nominees this
body has confirmed of those who have been sent by President Bush. I
commend him and this entire body for confirming the number of judicial
nominees that we have. But, frankly, two unconstitutional filibusters
is two too many.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The question is, Will the Senate advise and consent to the nomination
of Earl Leroy Yeakel III, of Texas, to be United States District Judge
for the Western District of Texas?
The clerk will call the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. I announce that the Senator from Kentucky (Mr.
Bunning) and the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Domenici) are necessarily
absent.
I further announce that if present and voting the Senator from
Kentucky (Mr. Bunning) would vote ``yea''.
Mr. REID. I announce that the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Bingaman),
the Senator from New York (Mrs. Clinton), the Senator from North
Carolina (Mr. Edwards), the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry), the
Senator from Louisiana (Ms. Landrieu), the Senator from Connecticut
(Mr. Lieberman), and the Senator from Michigan (Ms. Stabenow) are
necessarily absent.
I further announce that if present and voting the Senator from
Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry) and the Senator from Michigan (Ms. Stabenow)
would each vote ``yea''.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. (Mr. Graham of South Carolina). Are there any
other Senators in the Chamber desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 91, nays 0, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 307 Ex.]
YEAS--91
Akaka
Alexander
Allard
Allen
Baucus
Bayh
Bennett
Biden
Bond
Boxer
Breaux
Brownback
Burns
Byrd
Campbell
Cantwell
Carper
Chafee
Chambliss
Cochran
Coleman
Collins
Conrad
Cornyn
Corzine
Craig
Crapo
Daschle
Dayton
DeWine
Dodd
Dole
Dorgan
Durbin
Ensign
Enzi
Feingold
Feinstein
Fitzgerald
Frist
Graham (FL)
Graham (SC)
Grassley
Gregg
Hagel
Harkin
Hatch
Hollings
[[Page S10027]]
Hutchison
Inhofe
Inouye
Jeffords
Johnson
Kennedy
Kohl
Kyl
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lincoln
Lott
Lugar
McCain
McConnell
Mikulski
Miller
Murkowski
Murray
Nelson (FL)
Nelson (NE)
Nickles
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Roberts
Rockefeller
Santorum
Sarbanes
Schumer
Sessions
Shelby
Smith
Snowe
Specter
Stevens
Sununu
Talent
Thomas
Voinovich
Warner
Wyden
NOT VOTING--9
Bingaman
Bunning
Clinton
Domenici
Edwards
Kerry
Landrieu
Lieberman
Stabenow
The nomination was confirmed.
____________________