[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 74 (Tuesday, June 7, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6172-S6173]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   NOMINATION OF JANICE ROGERS BROWN

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I thank the majority leader for allowing 
me to have this time. I acknowledge all his hard work to bring us to 
having votes. And that is true of the minority leader. The Senate is 
back in business and we are voting in the fashion of 214 years of our 
history and some good people are getting voted on. That is all we can 
ask or hope for.
  I rise to speak on behalf of Justice Janice Rogers Brown. I intend to 
vote for her tomorrow when the vote is called. Being from the South, 
being from South Carolina, about to turn 50, I can say it is a long way 
from Greenville, AL, as a daughter of a sharecropper to the Supreme 
Court of California; an African-American female who grew up in the 
segregated South, daughter of a sharecropper in Greenville, AL, growing 
up, listening to stories from a grandmother about famous NAACP lawyer 
Fred Gray, who defended Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks.
  It is a long way--and most of it is uphill. But she made it. And we 
ought to all be proud of the fact that someone such as Janice Rogers 
Brown has accomplished so much in her life. Not only did she go from 
Greenville, AL, to the Supreme Court of California, she served with 
distinction.
  California has a unique system in the sense that the voters can 
decide whether they want to retain a judge. The last time she was up 
for retention vote in California she received 76 percent of the vote. 
We can talk about this as long as we would like, and apparently 30 
hours is as long as we are going to talk about it. I find it hard to 
believe that someone could be out of the mainstream to the point they 
are a rightwing judicial fanatic and still get 76 percent of the vote 
in California. The last time I checked, it is not exactly the haven of 
rightwing people.
  The reason she received 76 percent of the vote in California is 
because nobody made a big deal about her being a judge. The fact is, 
she decided a lot of cases with a variety of issues and a consistent 
manner that made it so that people who came before her did not feel the 
need to go out and try to get her beat. Only after the fact, only when 
she gets in this political whirlwind we are in now, where every Federal 
court nominee is getting attacked in a variety of different ways, 
mainly on the lines that you are out of the mainstream because you 
happen to be conservative, only then has she gotten to be a problem.
  This is politics, pure and simple, because if it was about 
competency, if it was about professional qualifications, she would 
never have been on the Supreme Court in California to start with. She 
would not have stayed 7 or 8 years, and she would not have gotten 76 
percent of the vote. To say otherwise defies common sense.
  We are going to take a vote tomorrow. She is going to be confirmed to 
the Federal bench on the court of appeals. She is a good candidate for 
that position. Not only is the California Supreme Court a good training 
ground for such a position, her story as a person is a great reservoir 
for her to call upon.
  The idea that she cannot relate to people who suffer and who have 
been dealt a difficult time is absurd given her life circumstance. She 
will be an ideal court of appeals judge because

[[Page S6173]]

she was a very solid supreme court justice.
  Is she conservative? You better believe it. The last time I checked, 
that is not a disqualifier. As a matter of fact, I think that is 
exactly what the country needs right now. We need Federal judges who 
will interpret the law and not make it. The Federal judiciary has lost 
its way on many occasions. She will be part of the solution, not the 
problem.

  For 25 years she has been a public servant. She has worked for the 
legal assistance folks in California doing things for people who are 
less fortunate. She has been an outstanding jurist. She is a smart 
lady. She graduated near the top of her class and has given back more 
than she has taken.
  The road from Greenville, AL, to the Supreme Court of California now 
leads to the Federal bench. We all should be proud of the fact that 
someone like this has done so much for so many people. Instead of 
picking apart every word she said, we should celebrate her success 
because come tomorrow, she will be a Federal judge. The country will be 
better off for it. We will be a stronger nation having someone like her 
on the Federal bench.
  I am very proud of what she has accomplished as a person. I am very 
supportive of her judicial tenure, her judicial reasoning. She will 
bring out the best in our Nation's legal system.
  One final thought: Politicians live in a world of 50 plus 1. We think 
of the most awful things we can say about each other just to get these 
jobs and to hold on to them sometimes. More and more people are turned 
off by politics because it is 24/7, running each other down. I wish we 
could stop.
  Let me tell you about the present Presiding Officer. He has the 
perfect demeanor, as far as I am concerned, about a political figure. 
The Presiding Officer has had many jobs, and he has carried himself 
well. But we are adrift in politics. We are trying to find who is the 
least bad among us. By the time we get through with each other, nobody 
wants to vote for anybody. That needs to be corrected. At least we 
volunteer for this. We go in it with our eyes wide open. If we continue 
to do to judges what we have embarked on for the last 15 or 20 years, 
we will do great damage to the judiciary.
  This lady has been called a Neanderthal. She has been called some 
names you would not call your political opponent. There is a lot that 
has been said about Janice Rogers Brown that is over the top and is 
unfair. But she stuck it out and she will have her vote and she will 
win.
  Let me state to all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, 
whatever our Democrat friends have done, we are capable of doing the 
same on our side. If we do not slow down, take a deep breath and 
reassess what we are doing to judicial nominees, we will destroy the 
independence of the judiciary because it has become another form. If 
you have ever had a thought in your life and you have expressed it, it 
will be used against you in a political fashion, not a qualification 
fashion.
  I hope we will learn from the past 15 or 20 years and declare a 
cease-fire on the judiciary. If you do not like people, vote against 
them. If they have bad character or bad ethics, bring it up and we will 
come together and deal with that. I hope we will stop declaring war on 
these people in such a personal fashion because the downside of this is 
good men and women of the future who would want to be judges are going 
to take a pass. Who in their right mind in the future is going to put 
their family and themselves through what these nominees have gone 
through? They do not have to. They have decided not to get in the 
political arena. They decided to devote themselves to the rule of law.
  The difference between my business and the courtroom is the 
difference between very loud and very quiet. Pack your political agenda 
at the courthouse door, at the courthouse steps. The courtroom is a 
quiet place where you are judged based on what you do, not who you are. 
You do not have to pay in the American legal system because you have a 
big wallet. In the American political system, we hit the rich pretty 
routinely. In the American political system, the unpopular have zero 
chance because they do not poll well.
  In a courtroom, we do not take any polls. We look at what you do, not 
where you came from, and we let your peers, the citizens of the 
community, decide your fate, with somebody presiding over the trial 
with no ax to grind. What a marvelous system.
  The jury is not special interest groups. They are not out raising 
money. They do not get rewarded or punished. They leave when the case 
is over, and they get a few dollars for their time. And do you know 
what. It works marvelously well. And that person in a black robe is 
nobody's campaign manager. They are there to call the balls and the 
strikes. This has worked well for 214 years. And if we do not watch it, 
we are going to ruin it.
  Hopefully, over the next coming weeks, we can get back to the 
traditions of the Senate, treat people with the courtesy they deserve, 
and if you do not think they will be a good judge, vote against them. I 
think that is your obligation. The name-calling needs to stop.
  So come tomorrow, at 5 o'clock, Janice Rogers Brown is going to 
continue her journey from Greenville, AL, and she is going to wear the 
robe of a Federal court judge. I think that is something we all should 
celebrate.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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