[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 159 (Wednesday, November 5, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14077-S14081]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          JUDICIAL NOMINATIONS

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank Senator Bennett for his 
leadership today and the work he does. He is such an able part of this 
body. I will just say to Senator Reid, the assistant Democratic leader, 
that something has happened here in this body that has never happened 
before.
  Even though there are a majority of Senators prepared to vote and 
confirm a series of highly qualified nominees for the Federal bench, 
for the first time in the history of this Nation, the Democratic 
leadership--Senator Daschle and his team--have deliberately and 
systematically filibustered. That has never been done before on Federal 
judges. It should not be done. It is a complete change in the history 
of this body.
  I believe that Senator Frist is correct that we need to talk about 
these nominees, and we need to spend some time talking about them. We 
need to state what their records are, what their accomplishments are, 
why they are fine and decent men and women, and why they ought to be 
confirmed.
  I hope the American people will listen because everywhere I go people 
tell me they are concerned about the courts. They believe judges are 
stepping outside of their bounds. They are legislating when they ought 
to be adjudicating. They are taking over schools, prisons, hospitals, 
and whatever else, and running them for years and years. And people 
question that.
  President Bush has said: I am going to nominate judges who believe in 
the rule of law and who believe in doing the right thing, who do not 
legislate but adjudicate, who decide cases based on what the law says, 
not what they think is good politics.
  Now we have these filibusters for the first time in history. I cannot 
imagine why Senator Daschle and his team would object to utilizing the 
legitimate, historic rules of this body, to talk all night, if need be, 
about why filibustering is unfair. They are not going to be out here 
anyway doing business. We are not doing anything in the middle of the 
night anyway.
  To take a day of this session to talk it all the way through that day 
about the incredible, historical change in procedure that has occurred 
here is eminently justified. Why they would think they should, 
therefore, be offended is really amazing to me. There is just no basis 
for it. It is mock anger that they are going to now block legislation, 
which apparently was the intention all along.
  We passed the CARE Act 90 to 5. We can't move the bill to conference 
because that bill is being filibustered under the leadership of Senator 
Daschle and the Democrats. We passed the Healthy Forests Act 80 to 14, 
an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote. That is being blocked, so it cannot 
be sent to conference. This is obstructionism again and again. I 
believe it is not harmful for the American people to have a glimpse of 
what is going on in this body.
  When we saw what went on in the Intelligence Committee with the 
disclosure of this internal memorandum for the first time in history 
that I know of--the Intelligence Committee, which has always been 
organized and always been led to be a nonpartisan--not bipartisan, a 
nonpartisan entity dealing

[[Page S14078]]

with the most sensitive secrets this Nation deals with, wrestling with 
the idea of whether or not we have enough intelligence, do we have 
enough interpreters, do we have enough agents, do we have enough high-
tech equipment to defend our country and to give our men and women in 
uniform the best information they have; that is what this committee has 
been about. Now we know that the minority Democratic staff were 
plotting and making plans to drag out the committee hearings, then turn 
on the chairman who has tried his best to be fair and open with them, 
and then attack him and attack the President next year during the 
election year. This is what we are seeing here to an unprecedented 
degree.
  Let me talk now about Bill Pryor, the attorney general of the State 
of Alabama, who is nominated by the President for the Eleventh Circuit 
Court of Appeals. He represents the highest and best and finest 
qualities in lawyering in America today. I know Bill Pryor. I hired him 
as an assistant attorney general. I put him in charge of the most 
complex and important cases in my office. He was a partner in two of 
Birmingham's finest law firms, two of Alabama's finest law firms. He 
gave that up for public service. No more idealistic public servant 
exists in America today, a man of unquestioned integrity, unquestioned 
ability, a man who is willing to give up the high salaries he could 
make in any law firm in America and give his service to the people of 
America because that is the way he was raised.
  His daddy was band director at the McGill-Toolen High School in 
Mobile, AL, a Catholic school. He was raised to do right. He believes 
in doing right. His family believes in doing right. His mother has 
taught in African-American schools voluntarily for most of her career 
as a schoolteacher. They have done the right things. They are the good 
people, people who always wanted to make America better, to reach a 
higher level of morality and decency and faithfulness. That is the way 
he is.
  Bill Pryor attended Tulane University. I know the Presiding Officer 
knows Tulane is an excellent school, in the league with the Ivy League 
institutions. They think so at least. It is certainly a superb 
institution. He graduated magna cum laude. He was editor in chief of 
the Tulane Law Review. For those who understand law school, they know 
that the editor of the law review is the most respected graduate of the 
law class. Somebody might have higher grades, although few had higher 
grades than Bill Pryor. But if you are selected by your compatriots on 
the law review to be editor in chief, that is an additional indication 
of respect that even high grades don't have.
  That is what he came from. He then clerked for Judge John Minor 
Wisdom on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, the very type of position 
he will be undertaking. He was a law clerk sitting at the right hand of 
Judge John Minor Wisdom on the old Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. 
Judge Wisdom is known as a champion of civil rights. He was one of the 
giants on the Fifth Circuit who was faced with rendering the decrees 
that dismantled segregation throughout the South. That is Bill Pryor's 
background.
  His father was a John F. Kennedy Democrat, Catholic Democrat, who 
believed in that and voted for President Kennedy years ago. So this is 
his background.
  He was very successful in his clerkship with Judge Wisdom. Then he 
served as an attorney with two law firms in Birmingham, first rate 
firms. I called on him to join my office-the office of the State 
Attorney General--and he took over the most important cases in my 
office. And, lo and behold, 2 years later I find myself in the Senate. 
The Governor made a decision to appoint Bill Pryor as my successor. He 
was one of the youngest, if not the youngest, attorneys general in 
America at the time. He handled that office with courage, with 
brilliance, with commitment to the rule of law, and with enthusiasm and 
commitment to a degree matched by few.

  In the course of it, he won tremendous respect throughout the State. 
He had case after case that were exceedingly difficult, tough cases, 
more than you would normally get, in which he was called on to make 
choices, make legal decisions in litigation that placed him at odds 
with his core supporters, friends of his, friends of mine.
  For example, there was a redistricting in Alabama. In the State 
legislature, the Republicans hold not many offices, well below half. 
But five of the seven Congressmen are Republicans. The Governor is 
Republican. Both Senators are Republican. But the way they organized 
those districts--some would say gerrymandered the districts--it favored 
Democrats being elected. Republicans filed a lawsuit to attack it. 
Unfortunately, the lawsuit was legally improper and not sound.
  Bill Pryor is attorney general of the State of Alabama. He has to 
speak for the State. This reapportionment plan, whether he liked it or 
not--I assume he didn't like it; I haven't liked it--he was empowered 
and required under the duty of an attorney general to defend the acts 
of the Alabama Legislature, the reapportionment plan they had, and 
defend it he did.
  It made them mad. A lot of our Republican friends were mad at Bill 
Pryor. They said he ought to work with them, he ought to help them. 
This was several years ago. He said: My job is to defend the law. My 
job is to do what an attorney general should do. An attorney general 
should defend the duly enacted laws of the State of Alabama, including 
the laws they passed to redistrict the State, as long as they are 
defensible.
  He lost in the court of appeals. The Eleventh Circuit Court of 
Appeals, which he would be joining, ruled against him. But he didn't 
stop there. He knew he was correct. He appealed to the U.S. Supreme 
Court. The U.S. Supreme Court heard the case, ruled against the 
Republicans, ruled with Attorney General Pryor, and kept in place the 
reapportionment plan in that State.
  I hear people say: Attorney General Pryor is an activist. He has 
political views. He is a conservative. He won't follow the law.
  I am telling you, this man, as much as any man I have ever known in 
my life--and I have spent 20 years in the full-time practice of law and 
I know a lot of lawyers--is committed to the rule of law. He is 
committed to doing what is right. That is the way he was raised. That 
is the way he always does.
  He has had many other difficult positions. Right this very minute, 
this very week, he has been drawn into the case of the Ten Commandments 
at the Supreme Court. Justice Roy Moore, chief justice of the Alabama 
Supreme Court, had a Ten Commandments plaque in his office as county 
judge. It was carved out of wood. And when he got elected to the 
supreme court, he was sort of known as the Ten Commandments judge. 
After that, he decided to put in a block of stone, not much bigger than 
these desks, and it had the Ten Commandments on the top.
  Frankly, I am not offended by it. At least three replicas of the Ten 
Commandments are in the Supreme Court Building right across that 
street. Right up on that wall in the Senate Chamber are the words ``In 
God We Trust.'' I don't see anything wrong with it, frankly. But Judge 
Moore had some very strong views about this. He had his own ideas about 
separation of church and state. He read all the papers of the Founding 
Fathers. He can quote from them at length. He thinks we are 
misinterpreting what the Founding Fathers thought about separation of 
church and state. He believes it deeply, and I respect him for it.
  Attorney General Pryor says: I am sympathetic with you, Judge, and I 
support your opinion. But as attorney general, I write the briefs for 
the State and we will argue it my way.
  Judge Moore said: No, I want you to argue it my way.
  He is chief justice. But, basically, what happened was the attorney 
general said: You hire your lawyer, and you argue it the way you want 
to; I am the attorney general, and I represent the State, and I will 
make the best argument that I think is worthy of merit and that could 
protect the ability to preserve the Ten Commandments.
  The story goes that the supreme court did not agree and the courts 
have not agreed. They have ordered the Ten Commandments block to be 
removed, and there has been quite a bit of stir about it. So what do 
you do?
  Under Alabama law, the attorney general is required to, and has a 
duty to, argue cases brought by the Judicial Inquiry Commission. The 
Judicial Inquiry Commission met and returned

[[Page S14079]]

charges against the chief justice, saying he violated a court order to 
remove the Ten Commandments. The attorney general now is required to 
handle that case. There is no way he can get away from it. He is either 
going to violate his duty and obstruct the rule of law, or he is going 
to prosecute the case. So he is prosecuting the case. He is going 
forward.
  I say this: Go back and look at the documents put out by People for 
the American Way in opposition to the confirmation of William Pryor, 
and some of these other trashy, sorry, dishonest documents that were 
put out there. They have accused Bill Pryor of being in cahoots with 
Judge Moore to upset the rule of law, to impose religious views on 
people because he has expressed his personal belief in God and his 
personal faith in public statements. So they have accused him of being 
a religious extremist and are trying to attack him on that basis.
  Nothing could be further from the truth. It is just a false charge. 
As a matter of fact, when former Gov. Bob James--who was the Governor 
who appointed Bill Pryor--resisted the Federal court rulings that said 
teachers could not lead children in prayer, Governor James took the 
view that football coaches ought to be able to lead the boys in prayer. 
He didn't see anything wrong with that. He didn't think the 
Constitution prohibited that. Frankly, I don't think it does either. 
The Constitution says that Congress shall make no law respecting the 
establishment of a religion nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof. 
That is all it says.
  Anyway, the courts say you cannot have a football coach lead the kids 
in prayer before the ball game. So it caused a big stir. Some schools 
thought they could and some didn't. Lawsuits were being filed. Attorney 
General Pryor researched the law of schools and prayer and wrote a 
letter to every school board in the State asserting leadership. He 
acted in a way that the Atlanta Journal Constitution even said helped 
to bring a cooling voice in a heated period. He told them what they 
could do and what they could not do. As it turns out, that opinion he 
wrote was very similar to the position the Clinton Department of 
Education took on these matters. He researched the law and decided what 
the law was, and he followed it. So it is a pretty high price that some 
people are trying to put on him, because it is not true.
  Dr. Joe Reed is one of the most powerful political figures in the 
State of Alabama. Every Democratic Presidential candidate will know Dr. 
Reed. He is an important African-American leader in the State. When he 
speaks as chairman of the Alabama Democratic Conference, an arm of the 
Alabama Democratic Party, and endorses a candidate for President, or 
Governor, or Lieutenant Governor, he has tremendous weight. His 
opinions are followed closely. He is a member of the Democratic 
National Committee. Dr. Reed is a vice chairman of the teachers union 
in Alabama--another source of influence and power. He is a man who has 
always been interested in Federal courts. He has endorsed Attorney 
General Pryor, saying, ``He is a first-class public official'' who will 
``be a credit to the judiciary and a guardian of justice.''

  Some of the national civil rights groups have attacked Bill Pryor. 
They don't know him, don't know anything about him, and they have 
accused him of being a southerner who is conservative; they try to say 
he is anti civil rights. Joe Reed is a serious leader in this State, 
and has been for 30 years, and he endorses him.
  Thurbert Baker, an African-American Democratic attorney general in 
Georgia, says that Attorney General Pryor ``has always done what he 
thought was best for the people of Alabama'' and ``know[s] that his 
work on the bench will continue to serve as an example of how the 
public trust should be upheld.''
  Attorney General Baker strongly supports him.
  Former Democratic Governor, Don Siegleman, stated:

       Bill Pryor is an incredibly talented, intellectually honest 
     attorney general. He calls them like he sees them. He's got a 
     lot of courage, and he will stand up and fight when he 
     believes he's right.

  That is absolutely true. They are not political allies, but that is 
true.
  State Representative Alvin Holmes, who is one of the most outspoken 
African-American leaders in the State senate, is very supportive of 
Bill Pryor. He told me he would come up here and speak for him and that 
he believes this very strongly. One of the stories he tells is that, 
under Alabama's constitution--and a number of States had this--was a 
provision that prohibited interracial marriage. Mr. Holmes opposed 
that. Attorney General Pryor was sworn in as attorney general of 
Alabama, and he made reference to that as being wrong. Of course, it is 
unconstitutional. Clearly, it is in violation of the Federal 
Constitution, and the courts, if they have not already declared it 
invalid, would do that at any time. But it was still in the document. 
It ought not to have been there.
  Bill Pryor led the charge around the State to remove this improper 
language in the Alabama Constitution that said people of different 
races could not marry. Alvin Holmes said no other state wide elected 
politician stood with Bill Pryor.
  Artur Davis, an African-American Congressman from Alabama, is a big 
supporter of Bill Pryor and also supports his confirmation.
  Mr. President, we will talk about this more tomorrow. I know the 
chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Orrin Hatch, is extremely 
impressed with Attorney General Bill Pryor. He has seen him as a 
witness. He has met him personally. He told me after Attorney General 
Pryor's confirmation hearing that Attorney General Pryor testified 
brilliantly. He was one of the best witnesses he had ever seen before 
the Judiciary Committee. They tried to give him a hard time and they 
never laid a glove on him.
  He spoke carefully. He spoke pleasantly. He spoke with conviction and 
with great intelligence and legal acumen. It was a tremendous 
performance. They questioned him about his views on abortion because he 
doesn't believe in abortion. I know that is a big subject with some 
people. He believes abortion is taking of innocent human life, and when 
pressed on it, that is what he said. He said: Senator, I believe it is 
taking of innocent human life. The reason I criticize Roe v. Wade is 
because I believe it is unprincipled, and I also believe it has led to 
the death of millions of innocent unborn.
  That is his view. That is the view of the Catholic Church, the 
largest Christian church in the world. It is the view of a lot of other 
churches and denominations, and a lot of people who don't go to church 
believe that is a life.
  We have to get our heads straight in the confirmation process. We 
have to get our thinking clear in this process. It makes no difference 
what he may believe personally about abortion. The question is, if the 
United States passed a constitutional law that deals with abortion, 
will he follow it? If the Supreme Court of the United States makes a 
declaration of interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, will he follow 
it? Bill Pryor has proved he will.
  With regard to abortion, which he feels deeply about, Bill Pryor 
wrote a number of years ago, before he was ever considered for a 
Federal judgeship, to the attorneys general in Alabama and told them 
the Supreme Court had rendered an opinion on partial-birth abortion and 
that a large part of it had been declared unconstitutional; that it 
could not be enforced by them and they should not bring legal actions 
under it.
  Even though he deeply believes abortion is wrong and certainly even 
more strongly believes that partial-birth abortion is wrong, which is 
overwhelmingly the view of the American people, indeed overwhelmingly 
of this Senate because we passed a law declaring it unconstitutional, 
he told them they couldn't enforce it. They had to allow this procedure 
to go forward under certain terms. He was condemned by the pro-life 
movement of which he shares many friends and shares many beliefs.
  What we have to do as a Senate throughout this confirmation process 
is not ask what a person's political beliefs are or their religious 
beliefs but whether or not they understand the law of America and 
whether or not they will enforce it. That is the key to it. If we get 
away from that, we are going to be in trouble.
  Orthodox Jews have views I do not share and most Americans do not 
share. The Muslim faith has views I

[[Page S14080]]

may not share that is in the Koran. Other denominations and church 
groups throughout America have views I do not share and in which I do 
not believe. Are we going to get to the point of asking these questions 
and saying: I don't agree with you and your religion; I don't agree 
with how you interpret the Scripture; therefore, I am not going to vote 
for you. How ridiculous can that be? We will never get anybody 
confirmed.
  We have to say to Mr. Pryor, as was asked of him: OK, Mr. Pryor, I 
respect how you believe this, but the Supreme Court has held otherwise, 
and I want to know whether or not you will follow that law. He has 
demonstrated time and again that he will follow the law. He believes in 
the rule of law. He will carry his duties on in a way that brings 
credit to the rule of law. The rule of law is the key cornerstone of 
American greatness, in my view.
  Bill Pryor is a champion of the rule of law. We couldn't have a finer 
nominee. I am so distressed his record has been distorted. I am so 
distressed people have tried to make him out to be something he is not. 
It is not right to have a decent, kind, Christian gentleman who has 
done nothing throughout his life but try to serve his Lord and his 
country with distinction and integrity, to have these skunks come in 
here, as Senator Hatch calls them, the usual suspects, with their 
distorted interpretations of his career and try to paint him as 
something he is not is just wrong. We need to stop it.
  It is wrong to have a filibuster, and it is wrong to distort a man's 
record--it is not correct--in a way that demeans him and undermines his 
true worth as a human being. He is first rate in every way.
  I am confident he will make a great judge. I see my time has passed. 
I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, before the Senator from Alabama leaves, 
may I ask him a question, and if it is appropriate to make a comment 
about his remarks?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I listened very carefully to the 
Senator from Alabama, and I have been listening to the debate about the 
judges. I understand what some of our colleagues on the other side are 
saying is somehow Mr. Pryor is, for some reason, not sensitive to civil 
rights, is an activist, is a person who is unwilling to put his own 
personal beliefs, political beliefs aside and enforce the law; is that 
what the charge is?
  Mr. SESSIONS. That is part of it; that he is insensitive to civil 
rights.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. As I was listening to the Senator from Alabama, and 
maybe he will correct me if I have this wrong, but we are talking about 
Alabama, this is not Brooklyn, NY, we are talking about; right? And we 
are talking about the attorney general of the State of Alabama.
  If I understand it right, after he was appointed, he went out of his 
way to point out that to have the words banning an interracial marriage 
in the Alabama State Constitution was wrong; did I understand the 
Senator to say that?
  Mr. SESSIONS. Absolutely. He said it was bad law, but more than that, 
he said it was morally wrong and not to be accepted any longer in our 
Constitution.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Then, Mr. President, I believe the Senator from 
Alabama talked about the situation going on there today where the chief 
judge is embroiled in a great controversy over whether the Ten 
Commandments have to be taken out of the courtroom. I ask the Senator 
from Alabama, Mr. President, what percent of Alabamians probably 
believe the chief judge is right about the Ten Commandments?
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I don't have the numbers for Alabama 
particularly, but I saw a USA Today poll that said 77 percent of the 
people in the United States believe it is all right to have the Ten 
Commandments in the building.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I am going to just guess, having lived a long time in 
a State that borders Alabama, that it is higher than that in Alabama. 
If I understood the Senator from Alabama correctly, here is the 
attorney general of Alabama, who may also agree with Judge Moore about 
the Ten Commandments, but he is endorsing the judicial proceedings 
against Judge Moore; is that what I heard the Senator say?
  Mr. SESSIONS. That is correct.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Against the judge who wants to keep the Ten 
Commandments there.
  I think I also heard the Senator from Alabama say there was a 
reapportionment case in the State of Alabama, and the Republican Party 
wanted the attorney general to work with them, since he was appointed 
by a Republican Governor and is a Republican, and that he wouldn't do 
that, and that he even lost the case in the appellate court and kept 
going. He finally defeated a law that was adverse to his party; did I 
understand that right, too?
  Mr. SESSIONS. That is correct. I think he could have not appealed to 
the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court doesn't take a lot of these cases. 
He could have probably justified that and rationalized that, but if he 
believed that the existing Alabama reapportionment system was duly 
enacted and defensible, an attorney general of integrity would appeal 
to the Supreme Court, and he did so, to the detriment of the interest 
of his political party.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Just a couple of other questions, because I think the 
Senator from Alabama is making an important statement. I believe I 
heard him say that the attorney general of Alabama wrote a letter to 
every school district in Alabama, every superintendent and every 
school, telling them that the football coach could not lead a prayer 
before the football game, not because that was what he believed but 
because he researched the law and came to the conclusion that is what 
the law requires, and then he went ahead and suggested to the schools 
what they could do as well as what they could not do, and that his 
advice turned out to be almost exactly the same advice that President 
Clinton and former Secretary of Education Dick Riley advised schools 
all over America. Do I have that about right?
  Mr. SESSIONS. That is correct.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Again, thoroughly unpopular. Alabama is interested in 
football and Alabama is interested in prayer, and for a public official 
to write every school and tell them they cannot pray before a football 
game is not an easy thing to do, even if the law does require it.
  Then, on the issue of abortion, he is a Roman Catholic and he has a 
religious belief about it, but did I understand the Senator from 
Alabama to say that he told the legislature that he could not enforce a 
law they passed limiting abortion because it was unconstitutional?
  Mr. SESSIONS. Well, very similar. What he actually did, I say to the 
Senator from Tennessee, is that as attorney general he has the 
authority to superintend all of the State district attorneys who 
enforce the law.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I see.
  Mr. SESSIONS. There was an already-passed partial birth abortion ban 
in Alabama. The Supreme Court ruled that big chunks of that were not 
constitutional and could not be enforced, and Attorney General Pryor, 
even though he strongly thinks that abortion is not good policy, wrote 
those district attorneys throughout the State and told them they could 
not enforce the law.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. So the point I am trying to make is, if I were to come 
before my colleagues today and we had no other----
  Mr. SESSIONS. May I say one thing on that?
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Of course.
  Mr. SESSIONS. The pro-life groups in Alabama that supported Mr. Pryor 
criticized him for that letter, and the ACLU thanked him for it.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. If we had never heard of this individual and someone 
came today and said he is attorney general of the State of Alabama, and 
he voluntarily scolded the State for still having interracial marriage 
words in the State constitution at a time when he really did not have 
to, who is enforcing the proceedings against a judge who has taken an 
overwhelmingly popular position about the Ten Commandments, who took to 
the Supreme Court a case that was adverse to the Republican Party of 
which he was a member, who advised the district attorneys they could 
not enforce a law about abortion that he personally disagreed with but 
he felt that the law required it, who wrote all of the schools

[[Page S14081]]

that they could not pray before a football game, where is someone going 
to find anybody who has more clearly proven that he or she is able to 
take personal positions and subjugate them to a willingness to enforce 
the law?
  As I said earlier, this is not northern California or the Bronx we 
are talking about, even though those might be difficult positions in 
those States. He was taking positions that were contrary to virtually 
all of the people that he represented and against his own beliefs.
  I am not sure the Senator from Alabama is even aware of this, but I 
was also a law clerk for Judge John Minor Wisdom of the Fifth Circuit 
Court of Appeals, as was Mr. Pryor. Judge Wisdom was one of the great 
judges of America. He was a part of the panel that ordered Ole Miss to 
admit James Meredith in 1962. He, along with Judge Elbert Tuttle of 
Atlanta, Richard Rives of Florida, and John R. Brown of Texas, presided 
over the peaceful desegregation of the South.
  I want to be careful how I say this. I was technically not a law 
clerk. I was a messenger to Judge Wisdom in 1965 and 1966 because he 
already had one of the top graduates of Harvard, but he had a little 
money left for a messenger and he said he would treat me like a law 
clerk. So I am saying that so people will not think I am talking about 
myself.

  All through the 1960s and 1970s and 1980s and 1990s, law graduates in 
America fought each other to be a law clerk for Judge Wisdom. I was 
lucky to be his messenger who was treated as a law clerk. He hired the 
best and the brightest. He was also a graduate of Tulane Law School. He 
would consider the editor in chief of the Tulane Law School to be one 
of the finest persons in America eligible for a law clerkship.
  I can also guarantee that he would never have hired anyone as a law 
clerk who he did not think of as someone of the highest character, good 
intelligence, capacity to be a good lawyer and committed to civil 
rights and to the rights of the individual.
  So something is really amiss in our system of approving judges when 
someone of the academic character and personal integrity of Mr. Pryor, 
who clearly is one of the finest lawyers in the country, who has taken 
a position contrary to the position of most of the people of the State 
he represents because he believes in the law, how could he not be 
confirmed by the Senate? What is it that causes our friends on the 
other side to pick someone like that out and seek to destroy him or 
turn him down?
  I congratulate the Senator from Alabama for his vigorous advocacy of 
such an outstanding person, and I hope very much when the vote comes he 
will be confirmed.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I remain and have always been impressed with the 
Senator from Tennessee since the day he came to the Senate. I did not 
know he clerked for or worked for Judge Wisdom. He gave some real 
insight into the prestige of an appointment to clerk for a judge like 
Judge Wisdom on the court of appeals, a very competitive thing.
  Bill Pryor is one of the best lawyers in America, and these charges 
from People for the American Way that he tried to undermine the 
separation of church and State, he had a majoritarian ideology--
actually, he stood firm for minorities and against the majority in many 
cases, as we just mentioned. They call him an extreme ideologue, a 
crusader to push the law far to the right. Anybody who knows him and 
knows the circumstances under which he has operated knows the courage 
he has shown and knows that these charges are just bogus. It is not 
fair, and we are doing that too often here.
  I thank the Senator from Tennessee for his fine comments. I believe 
Bill Pryor is the most principled, committed lawyer I have known in 
this country. I know he would be a magnificent Federal judge, and we 
will make a big mistake if this body does not see fit to confirm him. 
He needs an up-or-down vote, and we will have that vote tomorrow to see 
if he gets an up-or-down vote. If he gets an up-or-down vote, he will 
be confirmed.

  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________