[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 66 (Wednesday, May 18, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H3442]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      SENATE LEADERSHIP WANTS AN UP OR DOWN VOTE ON COURT NOMINEES

  (Mr. KINGSTON asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, as my colleagues know, the United States 
Senate leadership wants to have an up or down vote on Supreme Court 
nominees. Why? Because that is what the Senate should be doing: voting 
yes, voting no.
  We have heard that the President is promoting extreme fringe members 
of the judiciary for appointments on his court. That being the case, 
why do the Democrats not have the guts to just go ahead and debate it 
in public, instead of hiding behind the cloak of committee? It is 
incumbent protection. Let us bring the votes to the floor.
  I want to introduce to my colleagues one of these nominees, Justice 
Janice Rogers Brown. She was elected with 76 percent of the State-wide 
vote in California, hardly an extremist if one gets 76 percent of the 
vote in California. She was born the daughter of a sharecropper in 
Alabama in 1948 and grew up under Jim Crow laws in the South. She is a 
self-made woman. She is a fighter. She is a mainstreamer. She deserves 
an up or down vote.
  That is all the Senate majority leader is asking for, asking these 
very cowardly Democrats to say you know what, if you believe that 
somebody elected with 76 percent of the vote in California is an 
extremist, have the guts to put it on the board and vote yes and vote 
no, but let us see where you stand.

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