[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 103 (Thursday, July 22, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Page S8585]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          JUDICIAL NOMINATIONS

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, my colleague from Michigan is here, and I 
know she will probably want to speak on the three votes on judges.
  The first point I make is, I would much rather be debating the 
Homeland Security bill than these judges. Where are our priorities in 
this body? What are we doing? We have had weeks and weeks where many 
have called for bringing Homeland Security appropriations to the 
Senate. Instead, we have been debating all the political footballs. I 
know it is a Presidential election year, I know it is election season, 
but some things should have a higher calling.
  On this particular issue, I make one point before yielding the floor 
to my colleague from Michigan. Anyone who thinks this is a tit-for-tat 
game at least misreads the Senator from New York. Were there bad things 
done on judges when Bill Clinton was President by the Republican-
controlled Senate? You bet. But that does not motivate me in terms of 
what we ought to do in the future.
  What motivates me is that in the issue of appointing judges--and I 
remind the American people that now 200 judges have been approved and 6 
have been rejected. My guess is the Founding Fathers, given that they 
gave the Senate the advice and consent process, would have imagined a 
greater percentage should be rejected.
  I am always mindful of the fact that one of the earliest nominees to 
the U.S. Supreme Court, Mr. Rutledge, from the neighboring State of the 
Presiding Officer, South Carolina, nominated by President George 
Washington, was rejected by the Senate because they didn't like his 
views on the Jay Treaty. That Senate, which had a good number of 
Founding Fathers in it--the actual people who wrote the Constitution, 
many of them became Senators the next year or two--didn't have any 
qualms about blocking a judge they thought was unfit.
  Now all of a sudden when this body stops 6 of 200, we hear from the 
other end of Pennsylvania Avenue: That is obstructionist.
  That is not obstructionist. That is doing our job. The Constitution 
didn't give the President the sole power to appoint judges. It was 
divided. In fact, for much of the Constitutional Convention the 
Founding Fathers thought the Senate ought to appoint the judges and 
only at the last minute did they say the President, with the advice and 
consent of the Senate.
  This President--regretfully, in many instances--has not consulted the 
Senate. The two Senators from Michigan--they happen to be of a 
different party than the President but we know they enjoy working with 
the other party--were not consulted. I know it can be done. We have 
done it in my State of New York. We don't have a single vacancy in 
either the district courts or the Second Circuit because finally, after 
I said I was not going to allow judges to go through unless I was 
consulted, the White House came and consulted, and there is a happy 
result. All the vacancies are filled. The judges tend to be 
conservative, but they are mainstream people. I may not agree with them 
on a whole lot of issues, but they have all gone forward. In Michigan 
we have had no consultation.
  Today when I vote against these three nominations, I am not just 
backing up two Senators from Michigan; I am defending the Constitution. 
That is what all of us who vote this way will do. Because for the 
President to say on judges, it is my way or the highway, no compromise, 
is just not what the Founding Fathers intended. It is not good for 
America. It tends to put--whoever is President--extreme people on the 
bench instead of the moderate people we need.
  I regret that we have come to vote on these judges, but I have no 
qualms that I will vote and recommend to my colleagues that we vote 
against all three.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Dole). The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call 
be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. Would the Chair advise the Senator from Nevada what the 
status of the floor is at this time?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There are 2 minutes remaining under morning 
business.
  Mr. REID. I yield that time back.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Time is yielded back.

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