[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 33 (Thursday, March 17, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E485-E486]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      RECOGNIZING THE WORK OF QUIN HILLYER OF THE MOBILE REGISTER

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                             HON. JO BONNER

                               of alabama

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 17, 2005

  Mr. BONNER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize a recent 
contribution of Mr. Quin Hillyer, editorial writer for the Mobile 
Register.
  As many in this chamber are aware, former Alabama Attorney General 
and current 11th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge William Pryor has faced 
numerous difficulties with his nomination to a full-time position on 
that court by the President. As I speak today, it is my understanding 
that Judge Pryor's nomination to a lifetime appointment will again come 
up for consideration within the next few months.
  During introductory remarks I delivered at the original confirmation 
hearing for then-Attorney General Pryor, I stated that he has earned 
the political respect of many, including his political foes. He has 
consistently sided with constitutional precedent in making his 
decisions, and throughout his career he has received very high ratings 
for his legal ability and very high ethical standards. Judge Pryor has 
received the backing and strong support for a lifetime appointment to 
the 11th Circuit from men and women from all across Alabama's political 
spectrum.
  Mr. Speaker, I am hopeful Judge Pryor will receive a favorable and 
impartial decision on the matter of a permanent appointment to the 11th 
Circuit Court of Appeals, and I would encourage those involved in that 
process to take a fair and unbiased look at his record. To that end, 
Mr. Hillyer has written what I feel is a very impassioned and well-
reasoned argument for why Judge Pryor should receive this appointment. 
This article appeared in the Wall Street Journal on March 3, 2005, and 
I ask my colleagues to carefully consider the comments he makes here.

                    Cross Country: Pryor Impressions

                   (By Quin Hillyer, Mobile Register)

       If judicial nominations represent the spear-point of all of 
     the partisan battles in Washington, former Alabama Attorney 
     General Bill Pryor is the poison on the spear. Judge Pryor, 
     whose renomination to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals could 
     get a Senate hearing as early as March 9, has become a folk 
     hero to conservatives nationwide while

[[Page E486]]

     drawing fierce denunciations from liberal editorial pages. 
     Come to Alabama, though, and the cognoscenti from all shades 
     of the political spectrum find the controversy badly 
     misguided.
       Here, the Republican Pryor--at age 42, now serving a mere 
     temporary appointment to the 11th Circuit--is the darling not 
     just of right-leaning editorial boards. He enjoys near-
     universal support even from newspapers that endorsed Al Gore 
     and John Kerry, from elected officials both Democrat and 
     Republican, black and white--and even from the Democrat who 
     Mr. Pryor defeated for attorney general.
       The liberal Anniston Star, for instance, in the same 
     editorial that urges filibusters against most of President 
     Bush's nominees, writes that ``Pryor, who possesses a 
     brilliant legal mind, cannot be so easily dismissed. . . . 
     Pryor has been proven capable of setting aside his ideology 
     when it matters most. . . . [He] helped shut down [Alabama 
     Chief Justice Roy Moore's Ten Commandments] sideshow and, in 
     the process, displayed personal courage. That alone ought to 
     convince Democrats currently blocking a vote on Pryor to give 
     him a chance.''
       Why do Alabamians so strongly back Judge Pryor? Because 
     they've seen him in action defending Democratic lawmakers 
     against Republican lawsuits, defying the Republican governor 
     (Fob James) who appointed him, and spending countless hours 
     establishing a youth mentorship program through the attorney 
     general's office. They know him, up close, as a man of 
     integrity and compassion.
       National critics have gone to prodigious lengths to muddy 
     that home-state record. Unfairly so. Consider that critics 
     have accused Judge Pryor of being insensitive to women 
     because he successfully argued against one small portion of 
     the Violence Against Women Act. But Judge Pryor's 
     constitutional point was virtually incontrovertible, namely 
     that rape doesn't qualify as ``interstate commerce.'' His 
     goal was to keep authority for prosecuting rapes in state 
     courts, where (in Alabama at least) the juries are likely to 
     be harder on rapists than elsewhere. Meanwhile, he has been 
     praised throughout Alabama by groups that aid victims of 
     domestic violence. Mobile's Penelope House women's shelter 
     even named him to its Law Enforcement Hall of Fame.
       The story is similar on every issue on which he has been 
     criticized. Somebody served Sen. Dianne Feinstein poorly, for 
     example, when providing her a quote from Judge Pryor that 
     made it sound like he advocated the Christianization of 
     government. But the quote came from a speech to his alma 
     mater--McGill-Toolen Catholic High School, in Mobile--the 
     point of which was not that the government should be 
     Christian but that Catholics have a duty to be good citizens. 
     (As it turned out, he was citing St. Thomas Aquinas, hardly a 
     great threat to the American order.)
       Critics have also accused him of race-based opposition to 
     one portion of the Voting Rights Act. Why, then, is Judge 
     Pryor supported by Alabama's lone black, Democratic 
     congressman, and by its two most prominent black, Democratic 
     legislators, and by its black Democratic National 
     Committeeman? And on the case in question, Judge Pryor was 
     backed by Georgia's black, Democratic AG, Thurbert Baker, who 
     also endorsed Bill Pryor's judicial nomination.
       Obviously, there is a disconnect between the interest-group 
     and liberal-media assumption that Southern conservatives, 
     especially Alabama ones, likely have racist tendencies, and 
     the obvious reality of Judge Pryor's genuinely warm 
     relationships with so many of Alabama's black leaders. Part 
     of the explanation lies in the fact that Alabama has indeed 
     come a long way since Bull Connor. Also important is that 
     Judge Pryor's native Mobile, especially its old-line Catholic 
     sector in which he grew up, handled civil rights with far 
     more aplomb than Bull Connor's Birmingham--and with virtually 
     no violence. Early on, then-Mayor Joseph Langan peacefully 
     integrated the city's bus lines. And Bill Pryor's own high 
     school, where his father was band director, integrated 
     comfortably in the '60s, well before he matriculated.
       Judge Pryor would say, correctly, that his jurisprudence 
     aims at helping neither victims nor powerful interests, but 
     merely at following precedent and the Constitution. In his 
     closing arguments against the judicial vigilantism of 
     Alabama's then-Chief Justice Roy Moore, he said: ``In our 
     system, a judge must follow the final decision of other 
     judges, even when he is convinced they're wrong. . . . The 
     answer this court must provide to every judge in Alabama is 
     that no judge is above the law.''
       That's why, against his own personal predilections, he 
     refused, as attorney general, to enforce part of a new state 
     law against partial birth abortions: because that section 
     contradicted clear U.S. Supreme Court precedent. That's why, 
     against his own predilections, he enforced the very portion 
     of the Voting Rights Act that he and his Georgia Democratic 
     counterpart opposed. And that's why the leader of Alabama's 
     top black, Democratic organization endorsed him as a judge 
     who ``will uphold the law without fear or favor,'' while 
     former Democratic AG Bill Baxley said Judge Pryor always acts 
     ``without race, gender, age, political power, wealth, 
     community standing, or any other competing interest affecting 
     his judgment.''
       Yes, we in Alabama proudly support Bill Pryor. His career--
     as public intellectual, successful prosecutor, cultural-
     bridge-builder and man of conscience even at his own 
     political peril--represents many of the traits the national 
     media has always said Alabama lacks. Until he came along, our 
     most famous exemplar of such character was the fictional 
     Atticus Finch. Now that we can offer a real-life Atticus, 
     we're more than a little angry that the Washington elites 
     want to reject him.

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