Congressional Record, Volume 151 Issue 76 (Thursday, June 9, 2005)

[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 76 (Thursday, June 9, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6245-S6284]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

Big Tobacco

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, on a separate subject, there was a
decision reached this week by the Department of Justice which was very
troubling. A lawyer sold out his client. It happens all the time. It is
wrong, but it happens. What makes this case unique is the lawyer is the
Attorney General and the client is the people of America. In a lawsuit
that had been brought against the tobacco companies, there was expert
testimony to the fact these tobacco companies should pay up to $130
billion over 25 years for lying to the American people and for all the
medical expenses their deadly product created. A similar lawsuit was
brought by the States not that long ago. So the Department of Justice,
slow to begin this process, was taking the tobacco companies to court.
Then, out of the blue, came the following, and this was reported in
the press:

After 8 months of courtroom argument, Justice Department
lawyers abruptly upset a

[[Page S6256]]

landmark civil racketeering case against the tobacco industry
yesterday by asking for less than 8 percent of the expected
penalty.

Suing for $130 billion, the lawyer for the people of the United
States walked into the courtroom this week and said: Oh, we just want
$10 billion. The story goes that this Justice Department lawyer,
Stephen Brody, even shocked the tobacco company representatives by
announcing that he only needed $10 billion over 5 years. The
Government's own expert said $130 billion over 25 years. What a
discount. Here is the lead from the story:

Government lawyers asked two of their own witnesses to
soften recommendations about sanctions that should be imposed
on the tobacco industry if it lost a landmark civil
racketeering case, one of the witnesses and sources familiar
with the case said yesterday.

Matt Myers, a person I know and worked with in the past, said he was
asked to basically change his testimony to lighten up on the tobacco
companies. He confirmed in this article. The second witness declined
comment, but four separate sources familiar with the case said the
Justice Department asked the same of him.
By the time the Government opened its racketeering case against
tobacco companies last September, it had already spent $135 million to
develop its case. Why, at the 11th hour, would the Government's own
lawyers, the people's own lawyers, fold under the pressure of the
tobacco companies and give away so much potential recovery for the
taxpayers of America?
Why would they ignore the advice of their own expert witness to seek
a penalty of $130 billion and reduce their demand to $10 billion over 5
years?
Even the lawyer for Philip Morris tobacco company coordinating the
case said as follows:

They've gone down--

Meaning the Government, your lawyer, the attorney--

from $130 billion to $10 billion with absolutely no
explanation. It's clear the Government hasn't thought through
what it's doing.

End of quote from Dan Webb, the lawyer from the tobacco company, who
could not believe what he had heard when the Department of Justice
walked into the courtroom and said: We are going to deeply discount the
amount we are trying to recover.
Why is this money important? There are 45 million smokers in America.
Many of them want to quit. The money was going to be used for cessation
programs, reducing disease and death in America, and the Bush
administration walked away from it, walked away from the vast amount
already established in court as the amount necessary to move these
programs forward.
In court yesterday, a Philip Morris lawyer tried to explain away the
reduced fine by claiming that the Government's case was in disarray.
The judge in the case interrupted the tobacco lawyer who was trying to
put some credibility into the new position of the Bush administration
by saying that was not true.
So what is the reason? Sadly, it is because there is too much
political impact by the tobacco lobby on this administration,
particularly on Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum, Jr.
Who is he? This is what the L.A. Times said about him:

Before his appointment in the Justice Department . . . he
had been a partner at Alston & Bird, an Atlanta-based firm
that had done trademark and patent work for R. J. Reynolds
Tobacco. In 2002, McCallum signed a friend-of-the-court brief
by the administration urging the Supreme Court not to
consider an appeal by the Government of Canada to reinstate a
cigarette smuggling case against R. J. Reynolds that had been
dismissed. The Department's ethics office had cleared
McCallum to take part in the case.

Let me point out, in fairness to Mr. McCallum, that he is not the
only friend of the tobacco industry in the Bush administration. There
are many.
Does this have something to do with the surprise announcement
yesterday that the Justice Department was selling out its client, the
American people, those addicted to tobacco? That is why Senators
Lautenberg, Kennedy, Wyden, and I have sent a letter to the inspector
general of the Justice Department, asking him to investigate this
reversal of position by the Attorney General.
Just why in the world has the Attorney General of the United States
thrown in the towel, given up, when he was supposed to be fighting for
people across America who need this public health assistance?
I think that is a critical and unanswered question, which I hope the
inspector general will address.
I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the
quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SHELBY. Mr. President, I rise today to express my strong support
for the nomination of Bill Pryor, to serve on the United States Court
of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
I have known Bill for many years and have the highest regard for his
intellect and integrity. He is an extraordinarily skilled attorney with
a prestigious record of trying civil and criminal cases in both the
Federal and State courts. He has also argued several cases before both
the Supreme Court of the United States and the supreme court of the
State of Alabama.
As the Attorney General of the State of Alabama, Judge Pryor
established a reputation as a principled and effective legal advocate
for the State and distinguished himself as a leader on many important
State issues. During his tenure as Attorney General, it was his duty
and obligation to represent and defend the laws and interests of the
State of Alabama. And while he may not have always agreed with those
laws, he consistently fulfilled his responsibility dutifully and
responsibly.
Long before being nominated to the Eleventh Circuit, Judge Pryor made
it a priority to be open and honest about his personal beliefs, which
is what voters expect from the persons whom they elect to represent
them. Yet he has shown again and again that when the law conflicts with
his personal and political beliefs, he follows the law as articulated
by the Constitution and the Supreme Court.
Despite his detractors, I believe it is important to note that
actions speak louder than words, and certainly, Judge Pryor's actions
since joining the Eleventh Circuit speak volumes about his fairness and
impartiality. During his brief tenure on the Court, Judge Pryor has
authored several opinions that effectively demonstrate his willingness
to protect the rights of those often overlooked in the legal system.
In light of all of the information that has been presented here
today, I believe that we must confirm Judge Pryor. Bill Pryor is a man
of the law and that is what we need in our Federal judiciary. Whether
as a prosecutor, a defense attorney, the Attorney General of the State
of Alabama, or a Federal judge, he understands and respects the
constitutional role of the judiciary and specifically, the role of the
Federal courts in our legal system. Indeed, I have no doubt that he
will make an exceptional Federal judge because of the humility and
gravity that he brings to the bench. I am also confident that he will
serve honorably and apply the law with impartiality and fairness--just
as he has done during his brief tenure on the Eleventh Circuit.
I again encourage my colleagues to support Judge Pryor's nomination
because I believe it is what is right for our people, and it is what is
right for our country.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the
nomination of Judge William Pryor to the Eleventh Circuit Court of
Appeals.
I would like to respond to the accusations by some of my colleagues
concerning Bill Pryor's comments related to Section 5 of the Voting
Rights Act. Judge Pryor has an outstanding record on civil rights and a
demonstrated commitment to seeking equal justice for persons of all
races.

[[Page S6257]]

Nevertheless, some of my colleagues on the other side have tried to
characterize Bill Pryor as ``out of the mainstream'' because, as you
have heard, he has called for the amendment of Section 5 of the Voting
Rights Act.
Judge Pryor is not out of the mainstream on this issue, and I'll
explain why.
After you hear who agrees with Judge Pryor on his reasoning here, I
think you will agree with me that if Bill Pryor is ``out of the
mainstream'' on his critiques of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act,
he's ``out there'' with some great Americans.
First, let me explain what Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is
about. Section 5 requires any ``covered States''--States that are
subject to the Voting Rights Act--to pre-clear any decision to change
``any voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard,
practice, or procedure with respect to voting.''
The Supreme Court in Allen v. State Board of Elections has made it
clear that the:

legislative history on the whole supports the view that
Congress intended to reach any State enactment which altered
the election law of a covered State in even a minor way.

In practice, this means that Section 5 requires Federal officials at
the Department of Justice to approve even very minor practices related
to voting.
For example, if a State moved a polling place from one side of a
street to another, this action would have to be pre-cleared by the
Justice Department pursuant to Section 5.
Bill Pryor has called the Voting Rights Act ``one of the greatest and
most necessary laws in American history,'' but he has taken to task
Federal courts that have ``turned the Act on its head and wielded . . .
power to deprive all voters of the right to select . . . public
officers,'' even though the Act ``was passed to empower minority voters
in the exercise of the franchise.''
As Alabama Attorney General, Bill Pryor was by no means alone in his
criticisms of the Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.
In a brief before the Supreme Court in the case of Georgia v.
Ashcroft, Thurbert Baker, our State Attorney General in Georgia, who
himself is a Democrat and African-American, called Section 5 an
``extraordinary transgression of the normal prerogatives of the
states'' and ``a grave intrusion into the authority of the states.''
General Baker also stated that:

Section 5 was initially enacted as a ``temporary'' measure
to last five years precisely because it was so intrusive.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have a copy of a letter
that General Baker wrote back in 2003 to Senators Shelby and Sessions
of Alabama, in which General Baker describes Bill Pryor as ``an
excellent candidate for a slot on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals,''
printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

Department of Law,

Atlanta, GA, March 31, 2003.
Hon. Richard Shelby,
U.S. Senate, Hart Senate Office Building,
Washington, DC.
Hon. Jeff Sessions,
U.S. Senate, Russell Senate Office Building,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senators: I have had the great pleasure of knowing and
working with Bill Pryor over the past five years. Through the
National Association of Attorneys General, Bill and I have
worked together on matters of mutual concern to Georgia and
Alabama. During that time, Bill has distinguished himself
time and again with the legal acumen that he brings to issues
of national or regional concern as well as with his
commitment to furthering the prospects of good and responsive
government.
During his tenure as Attorney General, Bill has made
combating white-collar crime and public corruption one of the
centerpieces of his service to the people of Alabama. He
joined the efforts of Attorneys General around the country in
fighting the rising tide of identity theft, pushing through
legislation in the Alabama legislature making identity theft
a felony in Alabama. Bill has fought to keep law enforcement
in Alabama armed with appropriate laws to protect Alabama's
citizens, pushing for tough money laundering provisions and
stiff penalties for trafficking in date rape drugs.
Time and again as Attorney General, Bill has taken on
public corruption cases in Alabama, regardless of how well-
connected the defendant may be, to ensure that the public
trust is upheld and the public's confidence in government is
well-founded. He has worked with industry groups and the
Better Business Bureau to crack down on unscrupulous
contractors who victimized many of Alabama's more vulnerable
citizens.
From the time that he clerked with the late Judge Wisdom of
the 5th Circuit to the present, though, the most critical
asset that Bill Pryor has brought to the practice of law is
his zeal to do what he thinks is right. He has always done
what he thought was best for the people of Alabama.
Recognizing a wrong that had gone on far too long, he took
the opportunity of his inaugural address to call on an end to
the ban on inter-racial marriages in Alabama law. Concerned
about at-risk kids in Alabama schools, he formed Mentor
Alabama, a program designed to pair volunteer mentors with
students who needed a role model and an attentive ear to the
problems facing them on a daily basis.
These are just a few of the qualities that I believe will
make Bill Pryor an excellent candidate for a slot on the 11th
Circuit Court of Appeals. My only regret is that I will no
longer have Bill as a fellow Attorney General fighting for
what is right, but I know that his work on the bench will
continue to serve as an example of how the public trust
should be upheld.
Sincerely,
Thurbert E. Baker.

Mr. CHAMBLISS. General Baker goes on in his letter to my colleagues
from Alabama to say:

My only regret is that I will no longer have Bill as a
fellow Attorney General fighting for what is right, but I
know that his work on the bench will continue to serve as an
example of how the public trust should be upheld.

Judge Pryor's concerns about Section 5 have been borne out in
Georgia, where the State appealed to the Supreme Court in Georgia v.
Ashcroft to have a recent redistricting plan approved following the
2000 decennial census, and after a Federal district court found that
Georgia's plan violated Section 5.
During the litigation in the district court, Congressman John Lewis,
a hero of the civil rights movement, testified on behalf of the State
of Georgia in support of the plan, noting that Georgia:

is not the same state it was. It's not the same state that it
was in 1965 or in 1975, or even in 1980 or 1990. We have
changed. We've come a great distance.

John Lewis knows that thoughtful review of Section 5 could be of some
benefit.
According to the New York Times, Georgia's plan, pushed by both
``white and black Democrats,'' represented an attempt:

to reverse [a] trend in Georgia and elsewhere by
redistributing some of the black voters and re-integrating
suburban districts to gain a better chance of electing
Democrats.

That is a quote from a New York Times article of January 18, 2003 at
A12.
The New York Times further notes that Georgia currently has:

some safe Democratic districts with large black majorities,
along with a sharply increased number of Republicans elected
from suburban districts that had become increasingly white.

In his brief in Georgia v. Ashcroft, Georgia Attorney General
Thurbert Baker cited his own election as an example of how African-
American candidates can take ``the overwhelming majority of the total
vote against their white opponents'' without the benefit of
supermajority districts.
The Federal Government opposed Georgia's plan on the ground that
Section 5 does not give Georgia the power to eliminate supermajority
minority legislative districts, even in the name of increasing overall
minority voting power.
Section 5 has not only placed a burden on covered States, but also on
the Justice Department, which has wasted time by being forced to pre-
clear a huge number of changes in voting practices that have nothing to
do with minority voting rights.
Section 5 requires covered states to pre-clear any decision to
change:

any voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or
standard, practice, or procedure with respect to voting.

Again, the Supreme Court has made it clear that the:

legislative history on the whole supports the view that
Congress intended to reach any state enactment which altered
the election law of a covered State in even a minor way.''

That statement is included in Allen v. State Board of Elections, 393
U.S. 544, 566.
For example, if a State moved a polling place from one side of a
street to another, this action would have to be pre-cleared by the
Justice Department pursuant to section 5, which indicates that ``any
change in the boundaries of voting precincts or in the location of
polling places'' requires pre-clearance.
Another great American, the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis

[[Page S6258]]

Powell also criticized section 5 of the Act.
President Clinton has called Justice Powell ``one of our most
thoughtful and conscientious judges'' and a Justice who reviewed cases
``without an ideological agenda.''
In 1973, in another case styled as Georgia v. United States, Justice
Powell wrote in a dissenting opinion that:

It is indeed a serious intrusion, incompatible with the basic
structure of our system, for federal authorities to compel a
state to submit its [reapportionment] legislation for advance
review [under section 5].

The most important point I would like to stress is that despite Mr.
Pryor's well-documented concerns about Section 5 of the Voting Rights
Act, he has vigorously enforced all provisions of the Act.
Let me give you two examples. First, when Alabama state legislator
J.E. Turner died and the new candidate wanted to use stickers to place
his name on the ballot, Attorney General Pryor issued an opinion
stating that the use of stickers required pre-clearance under Section 5
of the Act. Certainly this illustrates that Bill Pryor was able to
separate his personal disagreement with the requirements of Section 5
from his duty as Alabama's Attorney General to enforce the provision
despite his personal views.
A second example involved Mr. Pryor's successful defense of several
majority-minority voting districts, approved under Section 5, from a
challenge by a group of white Alabama voters in the Sinkfield v. Kelley
case. The voters, who were residents of various majority-white voting
districts, sued the State of Alabama in Federal court, claiming that
Alabama's voting districts were the product of unconstitutional racial
gerrymandering.
The districts were created under a state plan whose acknowledged
purpose was the maximization of the number of majority-minority
districts in Alabama. Attorney General Pryor personally defended the
majority-minority districts all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court,
which held that the white voters could not sue because they did not
reside in the majority-minority district and had not personally been
denied equal treatment.
When some of these provisions of the Voting Rights Act are up for
renewal, we should review and consider them in a very deliberative,
bipartisan manner to make sure that the law today reflects the
realities of our society here in the 21st Century.
Thurbert Baker and Bill Pryor, as attorneys general of two
neighboring states in the South, know this to be the case one is
African-American and one is white; one is a Democrat and the other is a
Republican, but together they share a vision of making the voting
rights laws of our country effective and enforceable in today's times.
To sum up, Bill Pryor has established an impressive record as a fair,
diligent, and competent public servant. Two of my fellow Georgians,
John Lewis and Thurbert Baker, have expressed concerns with Section 5
of the Voting Rights Act, just as Bill Pryor did and just as the late
Justice Lewis Powell did.
This is not out-of-the-mainstream thinking; it's thoughtful and
sincere analysis.
Even the liberal New York Times had to concede as much in its
comments regarding Georgia's redistricting plan.
Bill Pryor's nomination to the Eleventh Circuit enjoys strong
bipartisan support in his home State of Alabama, and in my home State,
which is also part of the Eleventh Circuit.
A month ago, I visited with a number of my district court judges, all
of whom said that in their contact with the Eleventh Circuit Court of
Appeals, they had nothing but great things to say about the job Bill
Pryor is doing as an interim appointee to the Eleventh Circuit. I urge
my colleagues to vote in favor of his confirmation today.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I am here to speak on the nomination of
William Pryor to the Eleventh Circuit. Bill Pryor's nomination is the
last of the three covered by the deal worked out by 14 of our
colleagues to avoid meltdown in the Senate.
Yesterday was the vote on Janice Rogers Brown. It was a sad vote. Not
a single Republican Senator broke with his or her party to vote against
a nominee whom even the National Review, George Will, and others
singled out for her judicial activism and radicalism. It showed again
that the other side is willing to march in almost total lockstep with
the President. If they had their way, the Senate would be a complete
rubberstamp for any nominee the President proposes--totally against
what the Founding Fathers intended this Senate to be.
The count is 2,921 to 2. Out of almost 3,000 votes on appellate court
nominees, 44 in all, only twice have Republican Senators dared to
deviate from the party line. Is that the kind of independent thinking
that an up-or-down vote entails? It is a sad day, indeed. For sure,
Janice Rogers Brown's views do not mirror those of most of my
colleagues or even come close.
In a moment, I will go through all the reasons I am opposed to Judge
Pryor's nomination and all the things he said with which I strongly
disagree. Here is one I agree with. In his testimony before the Senate
in 1997, Judge Pryor told Senators, ``Your role of advice and consent
in judicial nominees cannot be overstated.'' On this point, Judge Pryor
and I see eye to eye.
As we await a slew of new nominations from the President, as we await
the possible retirement of a Supreme Court Justice, and as we vote on
the current nominees in the wake of an agreement that specifically
urged President Bush to consult the Senate in advance of nominations, I
again plead with the President and my colleagues to look to the future.
Look to a future where harmony can replace acrimony in the Senate,
where bipartisanship can replace one-upmanship, and where discourse can
replace demagoguery. How can that be done? It is very simple. The
President can, as he said he would in a recent press conference,
consult meaningfully with Senators before trying to jam extreme
nominees down our throats.
The renomination of Bill Pryor was the most breathtaking example of
the President's ignoring checks and balances and bypassing the Senate's
role in the nomination and confirmation process. The President stuck a
thumb in the eye of bipartisanship when he renominated people like
Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen, and Richard Myers after they were
rejected by the Senate.
But the President did not get his way with William Pryor, and then he
took the truly extraordinary step of making a recess appointment. While
the renomination of rejected judges was a thumb in the eye to
bipartisanship, the recent appointment of Bill Pryor was a punch in the
face. This was particularly outrageous because not only is Bill Pryor
one of the most ideologically driven nominees we have ever seen but
also because there were questions about his credibility with the
committee, and there was an unfinished investigation regarding the
Republican Attorney General Association that he founded.
It is not enough for him or any other nominee to simply say: I will
follow the law. His views are too well known. His record is clear about
how he will vote as a judge. We all know that judging is not a rote
process. We all know our own individual values and thoughts influence
how we interpret the law. If it were just by rote, we would have
computers on the bench instead of men and women in black robes. There
is a degree of subjectivity, especially in close cases and
controversies on hot-button issues. It is hard to believe that the
incredibly strong ideological bent of this nominee will not have an
impact on how he rules.
As my colleagues know, I have no litmus test when it comes to
nominees. I am sure most of this President's judicial nominees have
been pro-life, but I voted for so many of them because I have been
persuaded they are committed to upholding the rule of law. I, for one,
believe a judge can be pro-life and yet be fair and balanced and uphold
the woman's right to choose. But for a judge to set aside his or her
own personal views, the commitment to the rule of law must clearly
supersede his or her personal agenda. That is a trick some can pull
off. Not everybody can.
Let's take a moment to review some of the more radical remarks
William Pryor has made and some of the more polemical positions he has
taken. On criminal justice issues, I tend to be conservative. I tend to
agree with most

[[Page S6259]]

of my Republican colleagues. But there are lines which should not be
crossed.
William Pryor defended his State's practice of handcuffing prisoners
to hitching posts in the hot Alabama Sun for 7 hours without even
giving them a drop of water to drink, and then he criticized the
Supreme Court--hardly a liberal court--when it held this practice
violated the eighth amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. We
do have standards. We are not a medieval society, even for those of us
who believe in tough punishment. What Pryor did, he goes far, too far,
to say the least. In criticizing the Supreme Court's decision, he
accused the Justices of applying their own subjective views on
appropriate methods of prison discipline. The Supreme Court, which I
believe was unanimous--or maybe 8 to 1--in rejecting William Pryor's
view, was far more appropriate than he was.
He also called the Supreme Court's decision in Miranda--something
that is part of judicially accepted law--one of the worst examples of
judicial activism.
He has vigorously opposed the exemption of retarded defendants from
being executed. He submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in
Atkins v. Virginia, and he argued that mentally retarded individuals
should be subjected to the death penalty like anyone else.
When issues have been raised about the fair and just administration
of punishment, particularly in some of these cases, Mr. Pryor's
reaction has been to scoff.
When asked what steps Alabama would take to ensure that the death
penalty was fairly applied--and I have supported the death penalty--
regardless of the defendant's race, he said:

I would hate for us to judge the criminal justice system in
a way where we excuse people from committing crimes because,
well, we have imposed enough punishment on that group this
year, and that's precisely what you are being asked to think
of with that kind of analysis.

It is ridiculous. The analysis simply said, don't take race into
account. This is a judge who will be fair and impartial and open to
advocates' positions on both sides of an issue?
How about States rights? Mr. Pryor has been one of the staunchest
advocates of efforts to roll back the clock, not just to the 1930s but
to the 1890s. He is an ardent supporter of an activist Supreme Court
agenda cutting back Congress's power to protect women, workers,
consumers, the environment, and civil rights.
As Alabama's attorney general, Mr. Pryor filed the only amicus brief
from among the 50 States. Only 1 attorney general out of all 50 filed a
brief urging the Supreme Court to undo significant portions of the
Violence Against Women Act. I am a proud author of that act. I carried
the bill in the House when I was a Congressman. And to be so opposed to
preventing women from being beaten by their husbands and taking
remedies to deal with women who are so beaten makes no sense to me.
In commenting on that law, Pryor said:

One wonders why [VAWA] enjoys such political support,
especially in the Congress.

One wonders why it enjoys such support when, for the first time, we
in Washington, hailed by Republicans and Democrats, started trying to
help women who were beaten by their husbands? When they used to go to
certain police stations, they were told--not out of malice but out of
ignorance--go home, it is a family matter; whose children had watched
them be hit? And he cannot understand why it enjoys such political
support? He is not the kind of man I want on the court of appeals.
How about child welfare? Bill Pryor's ardent support of States rights
extends even to the realm of child welfare. At the same time he was
conceding that Alabama had failed to fulfill the requirements of a
Federal consent decree regarding the operation of a child's welfare
system, he was demanding his State be let out of the deal.
On environment, we have more of the same concerns. Pryor was the lone
attorney general to file an amicus brief arguing the Constitution does
not give the Federal Government power to regulate interstate waters as
a habitat for migratory concerns.
When it comes to disabilities, contrast Mr. Pryor's approach with the
approach he took in Bush v. Gore. Bill Pryor was the lone State
attorney general to file an amicus brief supporting the Supreme Court's
intervention in Florida's election dispute. Every other attorney
general, Democrat and Republican, had the sense to stay out of this
dispute. Not Mr. Pryor.
Yet when it came to the ADA, the disabilities act, Mr. Pryor was the
driving force behind the case in which a nurse contracted breast
cancer, took time off to deal with her illness, and when she returned--
in violation of the ADA--she found that she was demoted.
In conclusion, Mr. Pryor is extreme. Again, why is he, over and over
again, 1 of the 50 attorneys general--there are a lot of conservative
attorneys general--to file these briefs? Why is he, on things that are
part of the mainstream of American feelings and jurisprudence--
environment, Americans With Disabilities Act--way over?
Why did he say:

I will end with my prayer for the next administration.
Please, God, no more Souters?

That is what he said before the Federalist Society, a Republican
appointee to the bench. The man is clearly an ideologue. The man does
not respect the rule of law in too many instances.
As I have said before, Bill Pryor is a proud and distinguished
ideological warrior. But ideological warriors, whether from the left or
from the right, are bad news for the bench. They tend to make law, not
interpret law. That is not what any of us should want from our judges.
Ideological warriors, whether from the left or the right, do not belong
on courts of appeals.
I will suggest that you do not need to take my word for it. Here is
what Grant Woods, the former attorney general of Arizona, and a
conservative Republican, said of Mr. Pryor: While I would have great
question of whether Mr. Pryor has an ability to be nonpartisan, I would
say he was probably the most doctrinaire and partisan attorney general
I have dealt with in 8 years. So I think people would be wise to
question whether or not he is the right person to be nonpartisan on the
bench.
I could not have said it better myself.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Chambliss). The Senator from Iowa.
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am here to speak again, as so many
before me, on the nomination of William Pryor to the Eleventh Circuit
Court of Appeals.
Now, we have heard many concerns and complaints about Mr. Pryor. We
have heard that Mr. Pryor cost his State millions of dollars when he
refused to join litigation seeking to hold tobacco companies
accountable for the cost of smoking because he believes that ``smokers,
as a group, do not impose the cost of their habit on the government''
and, listen to this, that the premature deaths of smokers actually save
the Government the cost of ``Social Security, pensions, and nursing
home payments.''
We have heard about Mr. Pryor's vigorous defense of Alabama's use of
the hitching post as a punishment, a practice the Supreme Court held to
be cruel and unusual punishment.
So there has been a lot of talk about different things about Mr.
Pryor and what he has stood for, but I am here specifically to talk
about Mr. Pryor's persistent, repeated efforts to eliminate the ability
of people with disabilities to receive equal treatment in our society.
I am here to talk about this nominee's hostility toward the Americans
with Disabilities Act.
Most of my colleagues know that I had a brother who was deaf. Through
his eyes, my family and I saw firsthand what discrimination against
persons with disabilities looks like. It was, and still is, very real.
When we in Congress sought to remedy this history of discrimination,
we spent years laying out, piece by piece, a legislative record fully
documenting the overwhelming evidence that discrimination against
people with disabilities in America was rampant. At the time we passed
this bill, we took care to make sure that this important civil rights
law had the findings and the constitutional basis to pass muster with
the Supreme Court. The signing of the ADA was the culmination of a
monumental bipartisan effort that sought to right decades worth of
wrongs.
So what did William Pryor have to say about this bill that was signed
by

[[Page S6260]]

President Bush in 1990, supported overwhelmingly by the American
people, supported overwhelmingly by both Republicans and Democrats in
the Senate and the House? What did he have to say about it? In the case
of Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama v. Garrett, he argued
that Congress did not identify ``even a single instance of
unconstitutional conduct'' to support the Americans with Disabilities
Act.
This is complete and utter nonsense. We documented it, hundreds and
hundreds and hundreds of cases of unconstitutional discrimination
against people with disabilities--cases of the forced sterilization of
people with disabilities, the denial of educational opportunities,
unnecessary institu- tionalizations, among others.
Mr. Pryor has made no secret of the fact that he does not believe we
in Congress have the power to pass laws to protect people from
discrimination. He has worked hard to find cases with which to
challenge the power of Congress to protect victims of domestic
violence, victims of age discrimination, and women seeking to take
maternity leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act. He has also
repeatedly filed cases challenging Congress's authority to allow
Americans with disabilities to live full and productive lives under the
Americans with Disabilities Act.
Now, some of my colleagues may remember that 2 years ago I stood on
this floor and asked Senators to oppose the nomination of Jeffrey
Sutton because Mr. Sutton had devoted a significant portion of his
legal career to trying to have the Americans with Disabilities Act and
other laws designed to protect Americans from discrimination declared
unconstitutional. At that time, many of my colleagues on the other side
of the aisle argued that Jeffrey Sutton should be confirmed because he
was simply doing the work on behalf of his client. Well, guess who his
client was. The client was William Pryor, then-attorney general of
Alabama.
It is hard to imagine any other nominee with such a record of
aggressive negative activism. Given the record of William Pryor, it is
impossible to imagine that someone with a disability rights or civil
rights claim will get a fair decision by him.
So I cannot support putting someone on a Federal circuit court who
has gone out of his way and worked hard affirmatively to undermine the
Americans with Disabilities Act. And that is what he has done.
Mr. President, I have a list of 68 groups, disability-related groups.
They represent the interests of individuals with disabilities, both
nationally and some in States. I ask unanimous consent that the list of
these 68 organizations, along with a few letters from a number of the
groups, be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

Disability Community Opposition to Pryor

national

AAPD
ACCESS FOR AMERICA
ADA WATCH
Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law
National Association of the Deaf (NAD)
National Coalition on Self Determination, Inc.
National Disabled Students Union (NDSU)
National Council on Independent Living (NCIL)
United Spinal (formerly Eastern Paralyzed Veterans)
World Association of Persons with Disabilities

alabama

Independent Living Center of Birmingham, Alabama
Center for Independent Living of Jasper, Alabama

Alaska

Southeast Alaska Independent Living

Arizona

Arizona Bridge to Independent Living (ABIL) of Phoenix, AZ
Services Maximizing Independent Living and Empowerment
(SMILE) of Yuma, AZ
New Horizons Independent Living Center, (Prescott Valley, AZ)

California

California Council of the Blind
California Democratic Party Disabilities Caucus
Disability Resource Agency for Independent Living, (Stockton,
CA)
Independent Living of Southern California
Independent Living Center, Claremont, CA (Claremont, CA)
Independent Living Resource Center of San Francisco, CA
Independent Living Resource Center, Ventura, CA (Ventura, CA)
Placer Independent Resource Services
Southern California Rehabilitation Services
California Foundation for Independent Living Centers (CFILC)

Colorado

Center for Independence Grand Junction (Grand Junction, CO)

Florida

Access Now
Center for Independent Living of South Florida (Miami, FL)
Self Reliance, Inc. (Tampa, FL)

Idaho

Disability Action Center NW, Inc. (Coeur D'Alene, ID)

ILLINOIS

Center for Independent Living of Illinois/Iowa
Lake County Center for Independent Living
Illinois Network of Centers for Independent Living

IOWA

Center for Independent Living of Illinois/Iowa

KANSAS

Southeast Kansas Independent Living Resource Center (SKIL)
Prairie Independent Living Resource Center (PILR), Hutchinson
KS
Cherokee County Advocacy Group

KENTUCKY

Kentucky Disabilities Coalition

MAINE

Maine Developmental Disabilities Council

MARYLAND

Eastern Shore Center for Independent Living, (Cambridge, MD)
The Freedom Center (Frederick, MD)

MASSACHUSETTS

Stavros Center for Independent Living (Amherst, MA)

MISSISSIPPI

Mississippi Statewide Independent Living Council
Mississippi Coalition for Citizens with Disabilities

MONTANA

Summit Independent Living Center, Inc., (Missoula, MT)
Living Independently for Today and Tomorrow, (Billings, MT)

NEW JERSEY

Center for Independent Living of South Jersey (Westville)
Heightened Independence and Progress (Hackensack)

NEW YORK

ARISE (Syracuse)
Southern Tier Independence Center (Binghamton)
The Genesee Region Independent Living Center (Batavia, NY)
Northern Regional Center for Independent Living (Watertown)

OHIO

The Ability Center of Defiance, OH
The Ability Center of Greater Toledo (Sylvania)
Tri-County Independent Living, (Akron, OH)

OREGON

Disability Advocacy for Social and Independent Living
(DASIL), (Jackson County, OR)

PENNSYLVANIA

Pennsylvania Statewide Independent Living Council
Pennsylvania Council for the Blind

SOUTH CAROLINA

Disability Resource Center, (North Charleston, SC)

TENNESSEE

Tennessee Disability Coalition

TEXAS

Houston Area Rehabilitation Association
ABLE Center for Independent Living, (Odessa, TX)

VIRGINIA

Disabled Action Committee, Dale City, VA

WEST VIRGINIA

Fair Shake Network (Institute, WV)
Mountain State Centers for Independent Living (Huntington)

WISCONSIN

Options for Independent Living (Green Bay, WI)

Unknown: Options Center for Independent Living--Illinois or
MN/ND?
____

ADA Watch, National Coalition

for Disability Rights,

Washington, DC, June 10, 2004.
Hon. Patrick Leahy.
Dear Senator Leahy: ADA Watch is an alliance of hundreds of
disability and civil rights organizations united to protect
the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the civil
rights of people with disabilities. The disability community
is opposed to the confirmation of Alabama Attorney General
William Pryor because we do not believe a person with a
disability would receive a fair hearing from a ``Judge
Pryor.''
Pryor has demonstrated a commitment to extremism rather
than to justice. Pryor's right-wing ideology is far outside
the mainstream of American legal thought. Pryor has led the
battle to undo the work of a democratically-elected Congress
to legislate federal protections for American citizens.
Despite widespread bipartisan support for the

[[Page S6261]]

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Pryor said he was
``proud'' of his role in weakening the ADA and ``protecting
the hard-earned dollars of Alabama taxpayers when Congress
imposes illegal mandates on our state.
William Pryor, nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the Eleventh Circuit, has been a leader in the effort to
limit congressional power to enact laws protector civil
rights. Pryor has prevailed in a series of 5-4 cases before
the Supreme Court that have curtailed civil rights, including
the Board of Trustees of Alabama v. Garrett, which
successfully challenged the constitutionality of applying the
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 to states as
employers.
Pryor argued that the protections of the ADA were ``not
needed'' to remedy discrimination by states against people
with disabilities. This decision prevents persons with
disabilities from collecting monetary damages from state
employers. Most significantly, it has resulted in fewer
attorney being willing to represent individual in ADA cases
against state employers. Despite the massive record of
egregious conduct toward individuals with disabilities by
states that Congress has compiled--including instances of
forced sterilization of individuals with disabilities,
unnecessary institutionalization, denial of education, and
systemic prejudices and stereotyping perpetrated by state
actors--Pryor argued that states were actually in the
forefront of efforts to protect the rights of individuals
with disabilities.
Pryor is a leading architect of the recent ``states'
rights'' or ``federalism'' movement to limit the authority of
Congress to enact laws protecting individual and other
rights. He is among those fighting to eliminate federal
protections and leave us with a patchwork of uneven civil
rights protections dependent on an individual's zip code.
Sincerely,
Jim Ward.
____

Opposition to Confirmation of Nominee William H. Pryor, Jr. to U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit

The National Association of the Deaf (NAD) is opposed to
the confirmation of nominee William H. Pryor, Jr., to the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Currently the Attorney General for the State of Alabama,
Pryor is a ``states' rights'' and ``federalism'' ideologue, a
leader in the movement to limit the authority of Congress to
enact laws protecting individual civil rights. Pryor has
fought aggressively against the Americans with Disabilities
Act (ADA) and other laws that protect Americans with
disabilities and other minorities.
The NAD is opposing Pryor because of his outspoken activism
against federal civil rights protections for people with
disabilities and other minorities. His commitment is to
ideology, not to justice.
Established in 1880, the NAD is the nation's oldest and
largest nonprofit organization safeguarding the accessibility
and civil rights of 28 million deaf and hard of hearing
Americans across a broad range of areas including education,
employment, health care, and telecommunications.
The NAD is a dynamic federation of 51 state association
affiliates including the District of Columbia, organizational
affiliates, and national members. Primary areas of focus
include grassroots advocacy and empowerment, policy
development and research, legal assistance, captioned media,
information and publications, and youth leadership.
Kelby N. Brick,
Associate Executive Director, National Association of the
Deaf Law and Advocacy Center.
____

Illinois/Iowa Center for

Independent Living,

Rock Island, IL, July 21, 2003.
Please note that the Illinois/Iowa Center for Independent
Living opposes the nomination for William Pryor. We strongly
feel that Mr. Pryor and his record as the Attorney General in
Alabama does NOT support nor represent the millions of people
with disabilities or their basic civil rights. Please know
that we will do all we can to see that his nomination is
stopped! Thank you for your cooperation and help!
Susan A. Sacco.
____

The Ability Center of

Greater Toledo,

Sylvania, OH, July 14, 2003.
To The Senate Judiciary Committee: The Ability Center of
Greater Toledo expresses its adamant opposition to the
nomination of William Pryor to the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the Eleventh Circuit. Our opposition is based on his record
as an attorney, as an Attorney General and on his comments
made publicly which represent his personal views.
Mr. Pryor's professional position in cases such Garrett v.
Alabama, and Alexander v. Sandoval, to name a few, indicate a
distinct inclination toward the protection of states from
individual's attempt to protect themselves under federal
civil rights laws. The results of cases like these seriously
weaken the enforcement of laws like the Americans with
Disabilities Act and therefore seriously affect the
independence and quality of life of American citizens with
disabilities.
Mr. Pryor's publicly declared notion that the ADA was not
needed, that there was no pattern of discrimination by the
states, that Congress therefore had no authority to enact its
protections, flies in the face of the thousands of cases of
discrimination identified by Congress. His attitudes are a
slap in the face of American citizens who were forced to be
sterilized, institutionalized and otherwise denied access to
places and things that able-bodied people take for granted.
The passage of the ADA opened doors, literally and
figuratively, to thousands of individuals to live, work and
play when and where they chose. Unfortunately there continues
to be defiance and ignorance of employers, businesses and
government entities regarding the right to access and
opportunity granted to all citizens. The ADA, and other civil
rights legislation, is the only defense people with
disabilities can call on to realize their independence and
potential. There is no other protection or defense.
The Ability Center asks that you oppose this nomination as
a statement that the civil rights of all U.S. citizens are a
priority above all else. Oppose the nomination to send a
message that any judicial candidate who demonstrates, in word
and deed, extreme ideology is not an appropriate choice for
the judicial bench. Oppose the nomination because it is a
lifetime appointment and that such an appointment represents
a serious and real threat to millions of citizens with
disabilities. Appoint individuals to the federal court system
who have demonstrated an ability to interpret the law without
bias and extreme ideologies. This is not William Pryor.
Sincerely,
Susan Hetrick,
Advocacy Director.
____

Heightened Independence

and Progress,

Hackensack, NJ, July 14, 2003.
Heightened Independence and Progress (hip) Center for
Independent Living strongly opposes the confirmation of
William Pryor to the U.S. Court of AppeaIs for the Eleventh
Circuit.
People with disabilities have worked long and hard to bring
about the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and rely on
the Act's protections to ensure that employers, schools,
governmental entities and business both large and small do
not discriminate against anyone because of a disability.
William Pryor has taken positions about ADA related cases
that cause disability advocates to have serious concerns
about his ability to be objective in such cases. We strongly
urge that William Pryor not be confirmed to a position on the
Eleventh Circuit Court of Appea1s.
Nancy Hodgins,
Advocacy Coordinator.
Eileen Goff,
Executive Director.
____

June 10, 2003.

Dear Senator Leahy: The disability community is opposed to
the confirmation of Alabama Attorney General William Pryor
because we do not believe a person with a disability would
receive a fair hearing from a ``Judge Pryor.''
Why?
Pryor has demonstrated a commitment to extremism rather
than to justice. Pryors right-wing ideology is far outside
the mainstream of American legal thought.
William Pryor, nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the Eleventh Circuit, has been a leader in the effort to
limit congressional power to enact laws protecting civil
rights. Pryor has prevailed in a series of 5-4 cases before
the Supreme Court that have curtailed civil rights, including
the Board of Trustees of Alabama v. Garrett, which
successfully challenged the constitutionality of applying the
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 to states as
employers.
Pryor argued that the protections of the ADA were ``not
needed'' to remedy discrimination by states against people
with disabilities. This decision prevents persons with
disabilities from collecting monetary damages from state
employers. Most significantly, it has resulted in fewer
attorneys being willing to represent individuals in ADA cases
against state employers. Despite the massive record of
egregious conduct toward individuals with disabilities by
states that Congress had compiled--including instances of
forced sterilization of individuals with disabilities,
unnecessary institutionalization, denial of education, and
systemic prejudices and stereotyping perpetrated by state
actors--Pryor argued that states were actually in the
forefront of efforts to protect the rights of individuals
with disabilities.
Pryor has led the battle to undo the work of a
democratically-elected Congress to legislate federal
protections for American citizens. Despite widespread
bipartisan support for the Americans wi1h Disabilities Act,
(ADA). Pryor said he was ``proud'' of his role in
``protecting the hard-earned dollars of Alabama taxpayers
when Congress imposes illegal mandates on our state.''
Pryor is a leading architect of the recent ``states'
rights'' or ``federalism'' movement to limit the authority of
Congress to enact laws protecting individual and other
rights. He is fighting to reverse the results of our nation's
civil war and leave us with a patchwork of uneven civil
rights protections dependent on an individual's zip code.
He personally has been involved in key Supreme Court cases
that, by narrow 5-4 majorities, have restricted the ability
of Congress to protect Americans' rights against
discrimination and injury based on disability, race, and age.
Worse, he has urged

[[Page S6262]]

the Court to go even further than it has in the direction of
restricting congressional authority. Just last month, for
example, the Court, in an opinion by Chief Justice Rehnquist,
rejected Pryor's argument that the states should be immune
from lawsuits for damages brought by state employees for
violation of the federal Family and Medical Leave, Act.

Victoria Wolf,
Assistive Technology Specialist, Disability Resource Agency
for Independent Living.
____

Eastern Paralyzed Veterans

Association,

Jackson Heights, NY, July 14, 2003.
Hon. Orrin G. Hatch,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Orrin G. Hatch: The Eastern Paralyzed Veterans
Association strongly opposes the confirmation of William
Pryor to the Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In the
past, Mr. Pryor's attempts to limit Congressional authority
in the area of disability rights have directly undermined the
protections given to people with disabilities through the
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and other disability
rights laws.
In Board of Trustees of University of Alabama v. Garrett,
Mr. Pryor formulated the argument that Congress did not have
the authority under the Constitution to apply the ADA to
States in employment discrimination suits for damages.
Additionally, Pryor successfully persuaded in 5-4 majority of
the Supreme Court in Alexander v. Sandoval that individuals
cannot sue to enforce regulations under Title VI of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964. Since the decision was issued states have
begun to use its reasoning in efforts to persuade the courts
that people with disabilities should not be allowed to
enforce regulations under the ADA and Section 504 of the
Rehabilitation Act requiring reasonable accommodations,
integration of individuals with disabilities, and accessible
public housing.
Mr. Pryor's positions in these and other cases (i.e.,
Pennsylvania Department of Corrections v. Yeskey and
California Board of Medical Examiners v. Hason) clearly
represent an interpretation of the Equal Protection Clause,
Spending Clause, and Commerce Clause that would dramatically
restrict Congress's authority and hinder its ability to pass
laws protecting the rights of Americans with disabilities,
older workers, and others under the Constitution. For this
reason, Eastern Paralyzed Veterans Association strongly urges
you not to confirm Mr. Pryor to the court.
People with disabilities have fought long and hard to
achieve the protections afforded by the ADA and like-minded
laws. We must continue the fight to ensure that an activist
court does not abridge these rights and protections. Please
vote against William Pryor's confirmation.
Thank you.
Sincerely.
Jeremy Chwat,
Director of Legislation.
____

Independent Living Center of

Southern California, Inc.,

July 14, 2003.
To Whom It May Concern: This letter is written on behalf of
the Independent Living Center Of Southern California, to
oppose the nomination of Mr. William Pryor, to the U.S. Court
of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Please note that this nomination would gravely affect the
civil rights of persons with disabilities.
Sincerely,
Peter Huard,
Client Assistance Program.
____

The Freedom Center, Inc.

Frederick, MD, Ju1y 21, 2003.
Jim Ward,
Executive Director, ADA Watch Coalition, Washington, DC.
Dear Jim: I am the Executive Director for the Freedom
Center, a center for independent living in Frederick, MD. We
empower persons with disabilities to lead self-directed,
independent, and productive lives in a barrier-free
community. We work to ensure the removal of physical and
attitudinal barriers that are faced by Americans with
disabilities.
We, on behalf of the disability community, are strongly
opposed to the nomination of Alabama Attorney General William
G. Pryor. We are strongly opposed to the confirmation of his
appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh
Circuit. This is a lifetime appointment which could
eventually lead to an appointment to the Supreme Court.
Attorney General Pryor's right-wing ideology is far outside
the mainstream of American legal thought. He is responsible
for the weakening of the ADA in recent Supreme Court battles.
He took a position against Patricia Garrett in her case
against the State of Alabama when she was wrongly
discriminated against because of her disability. He followed
her to the Supreme Court and was responsible for influencing
the Supreme Court by hiring an extreme Federalistic, right
wing, and a State's Rights activist lawyer to represent the
State of Alabama. Because the Supreme Court ruled in favor of
the State of Alabama against Ms. Garrett, the ADA has been
weakened. One can no longer sue a state government or entity
under the Federal ADA. It is Attorney General Pryor's belief
that the ADA is unconstitutional. In this respect, he has
undermined Congress's effort to protect all Americans
regardless of what state they live in. He has attacked
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, the Individuals with
Disabilities Educational Act, and all basic civil rights
against people with disabilities. gender and race. He not
only has held a position in the University of Alabama v.
Ganett case but has filed Amicus Briefs in Pennsylvania Dept.
of Corrections v. Yeskey and Medical Board of California v.
Hason. He also took opposition to the Alexander v. Sandoval
case. All of his oppositions also include running amok in his
own state using the state laws to his own belief. It is
because of his ideology that we have laws such as the Federal
ADA, IDEA, Civil Rights, etc. The laws were implemented to
protect Americans from individuals like him. Because of his
track record, he cannot be a Federal Judge. A Federal Judge
must be unbiased and have full understanding of the total
law. A Federal Judge cannot interpret Federal laws to fulfill
his own beliefs as a State's Rights activist. A Federal Judge
cannot use his position to further his own cause. It is
imperative that we do all that we can do to help our
legislators to understand the importance of approving a
nomination that is nonpartisan of any individual who would
take his position seriously and for the good of the American
people and not for his own beliefs or reasons.
You may sign our name to any petition or letter that
opposes the confirmation of Alabama Attorney General William
G. Pryor. You have permission to use our letter to give to
members of Congress to help them to be our voices and
understand why we are so opposed to his confirmation to the
U.S. Court of Appeals to the Eleventh Circuit. Thank you very
much for your attention to this very urgent matter. Let's all
work together to prevent deteriorization to the ADA and other
disability civil rights.
Sincerely,
Jamey George,
Executive Director.
____

Independent Living Resource

Center--San Francisco,

San Franciso, CA, July 3, 2003.
Hon. Dianne Feinstein,
San Francisco, CA.
Dear Senator Feinstein: I am contacting you with great
concern about the possible appointment of an anti-ADA
judicial activist to the 11th Circuit Federal Court of
Appeals, Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor. I am asking
you, on behalf of the over 150,000 people with disabilities
in San Francisco that our agency represents to firmly oppose
Mr. Pryor's appointment.
Attorney General Pryor has proved on many occasions that he
is an opponent not only of the ADA, but of other civil rights
legislation as well. Mr. Pryor did not support the passage of
an Alabama State disability rights law; has opposed
enforcement of ADA Title II to state prisons (arguments that
were rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court); has supported
denial of patients' rights for Medicaid recipients; among
other affronts to civil rights. This is hardly a neutral
judicial appointment.
We are concerned, Senator, that you hear the voices of your
constituents with disabilities. We find it ironic on the eve
of our country's `independence day' that such an opponent of
independence for people with disabilities should be a nominee
to such a key judicial post. Please oppose this nomination.
Sincerely,
Pamela S. Fadem,
Information Manager, ILRCSF.

Mr. HARKIN. Here are 68 different disability groups from all over the
United States.
This is from the National Association of the Deaf:

The National Association of the Deaf is opposing [Mr.]
Pryor because of his outspoken activism against federal civil
rights protections for people with disabilities and other
minorities. His commitment is to ideology, not to justice.

Here is the Illinois/Iowa Center for Independent Living:

We strongly feel that Mr. Pryor and his record as the
Attorney General in Alabama do NOT support nor represent the
millions of people with disabilities or their basic civil
rights.

The National Disabled Students Association stated the nomination of
Judge Pryor would be ``devastating to the rights of over 54 million
Americans with disabilities protected by the Americans with
Disabilities act. . . .''
So, Mr. President, there may be a lot of reasons that people have for
opposing this nominee to go on the circuit court. I want to make it
crystal clear that my major objection to this person going on the
circuit court is his open, consistent, and persistent opposition to the
Americans with Disabilities Act. He has made no secret of it. He does
not think we had the power to pass it.
He said, in his own opinion, that we did not even document one single
instance of unconstitutional conduct against people with disabilities.
Well, I am sorry, courts have held differently: forced sterilizations
of people with disabilities, forced institutionalizations of people who
did not need to be institutionalized, denying people with disabilities
educational opportunities. Maybe he never heard of the case of PARC v.

[[Page S6263]]

Pennsylvania. Perhaps he did not know that courts had held there was a
record, a strong record, of discrimination in public education against
kids with disabilities, not letting them go to school, denying them
educational opportunities.
The courts held that as long as a State provides a free public
education, just as they could not discriminate on the basis of race, or
sex, or national origin, they cannot discriminate on the basis of
disability either. So the courts held that there is a constitutional
right for kids in our country to get a free, appropriate public
education, as long as the State is providing that. The kids with
disabilities have to be allowed in the public schools, also.
But for Mr. Pryor, no. He says, no, not even one instance do we have
of an unconstitutional discrimination. I do not know where Mr. Pryor
went to law school. I did not even look it up. It does not make any
difference to me. But whatever he learned there he must have forgotten.
It seems to me, here is an individual with an ideological perception
that he is right and everyone else is wrong, that only he knows what is
constitutional and not--not the Congress, not the Senate, not even the
Supreme Court. He alone has a right to decide that. He alone has a
right to decide whether people with disabilities are protected under
the Americans with Disabilities Act.
We have come too far in our country. We spent years developing the
Americans with Disabilities Act. When President Bush signed it in 1990,
we had accumulated a voluminous record of discrimination, from the
earliest childhood to the latter stages of life, with people with
disabilities being discriminated against. We sought to remedy that with
the Americans with Disabilities Act.

When it passed the Senate, I said it was the proudest day of my
legislative career, and it still is--when the ADA passed the Congress
and was signed into law. And we have not looked back. We look around
our country now and we see people with disabilities in education,
traveling, going out to eat, holding down good jobs, getting the civil
rights that all the rest of us enjoy.
But for Mr. Pryor, people with disabilities do not have those rights.
They only have the right--these are my own words--it seems to me Mr.
Pryor has said, in his decisions and in his writings and in his
perceptions of the Americans with Disabilities Act, that people with
disabilities only have the right to be pitied, they only have the right
to get whatever it is that those of us who are not disabled choose to
give to them.
Well, I am sorry, that is not enough. People with disabilities have
every right, Mr. President, that you and I have. So it is for that
reason, that he has gone out of his way--I could see if a judge made
one mistake and maybe made a decision but came back and rectified it,
looked at the law, looked at the history, but Mr. Pryor did not do
that. He did not go back and look at the history of the ADA. He did not
go back and find out all these examples that we had come up with that
is in the record. He just simply said: I know what is best. I know what
is best for people with disabilities.
Well, people with disabilities have been hearing that for far too
long in our country: We know what is best for you--that paternalizing
attitude. People with disabilities said: No, we are going to be on our
own. We are going to have our own civil rights. We are going to decide
our own future. We are going to decide how we want to live, not how
you, the Government, or you, society, want us to live.
Well, we have come a long way in 15 years since the ADA was signed.
This is one circuit court judge who would turn the clock back. And he
will get these cases. He will get them. And people with disabilities
will be on the short end of the stick.
So for that reason, and perhaps a lot of other reasons but for that
reason alone--for that reason alone--Mr. Pryor should not be confirmed
for this circuit court position.
With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence
of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of the nomination
of William Pryor to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
or, to put it more precisely, I rise to support the permanent
appointment of Judge William Pryor to the Eleventh Circuit.
Judge Pryor's credentials, his character, and commitment to judicial
restraint already make a compelling case for his appointment. His
continuing service on the Eleventh Circuit only adds to that compelling
case.
I urge my colleagues to vote for confirmation so Judge William Pryor
can continue to be a valuable member of the U.S. Court of Appeals.
Debate about this nomination did not just begin. President Bush
nominated William Pryor more than 2 years ago. During a lengthy hearing
before the Judiciary Committee in June 2003, he answered more than 185
questions. It has now become common practice for Senators to deluge a
nominee with post-hearing written questions. Judge Pryor answered
nearly 300 of those as well. The Judiciary Committee debated this
nomination during three different business meetings and favorably
reported it twice here to the Senate floor where we have already
debated it in the context of two previous attempts to invoke cloture.
Here we are debating the Pryor nomination again. I am one of many
Senators who believes we should have confirmed this nomination a long
time ago. Yesterday more than one of our Democratic colleagues
complained that we are debating judicial nominations when, they said,
``we should be doing legislative business.'' That is exactly what we
would be doing were it not for the confirmation obstruction campaign
led by those very same Democratic Senators. They are the ones who met
in 2001 to change the confirmation ground rules. They are the ones who
demand dozens and dozens of unnecessary rollcall votes that have eaten
up literally days of floor time. They are the ones who launched this
campaign of outrageous and unprecedented judicial filibusters.
Our Democratic colleagues have changed the way we do judicial
confirmation business in the Senate, and that has changed the way we do
legislative business. They have no one to blame but themselves. To come
in here and complain that we are not doing the business of the people
when one-third of the separated powers in this country involves judges
is pretty much out of line.
Under the standards the Senate traditionally applied to judicial
nominations, we would already have confirmed the nomination before us.
Although some across the aisle have attempted to change the ground
rules, I am pleased we have now invoked cloture and are in the final
stretch of debate on this very important nomination. There is light at
the end of the confirmation tunnel.
We have become accustomed to the pattern of attack by those who
oppose President Bush's judicial nominees. They equate a nominee's
personal views with that nominee's judicial views. They create the most
wretched and distorted caricature of a nominee, turning him into some
creature one might see on ``Law and Order'' or ``America's Most
Wanted.''
What it boils down to is the wrongheaded notion that no one who
thinks for himself, who does not toe the leftwing line, whose
perspective or values did not turn the liberal litmus paper the right--
or left--color, or who as a judge may fail consistently to deliver
politically correct results is acceptable. These advocates of an
activist judiciary are not foolish enough to attack every nominee. They
will remind us of how many of this President's judicial nominees they
have supported. But the circumstances that have brought us here today
demonstrate the confirmation ground has shifted.
I urge my colleagues not to be persuaded by the caricatures created
by Washington-based lobbyists and leftwing groups which need to send
out the next fundraising appeal. Instead I urge my colleagues to listen
to those who actually know William Pryor, who have worked with William
Pryor, because they are among his strongest supporters.

[[Page S6264]]

Dr. Joe Reed, chairman of the Alabama Democratic Conference--yes,
that is right, the Alabama Democratic Conference, the State Democratic
Party's African-American caucus--knows William Pryor. He has worked
with William Pryor, and he strongly supports William Pryor. Note what
Dr. Joe Reed has to say about this nominee.
He says that William Pryor:

will uphold the law without fear or favor. I believe all
races and colors will get a fair shake when their cases come
before him. I am a member of the Democratic National
Committee and, of course, General Pryor is a Republican, but
these are only party labels. I am persuaded that in General
Pryor's eyes, Justice has only one label--Justice!

Any of us would certainly be hard pressed to come up with a better
endorsement or a more substantive compliment for any judge on any court
anywhere in America.
Listen to Alvin Holmes, an African American who has served in the
Alabama House of Representatives for nearly three decades. He
introduced a bill to remove the State Constitution's ban on interracial
marriage. Representative Holmes says that while white political leaders
in the State, Democrats and Republicans, either opposed the bill or
kept quiet, then-Attorney General William Pryor spoke out. William
Pryor urged Alabamans to vote for removing the ban on interracial
marriage and then, when it passed, he defended the measure in court
against legal challenge.
Representative Holmes knows William Pryor. He has worked with William
Pryor, and he strongly supports William Pryor. Listen to what
Representative Holmes says about this nominee, this African-American
leader of the Alabama House of Representatives:

I request your swift confirmation of Bill Pryor to the 11th
Circuit because of his constant efforts to help the causes of
blacks in Alabama.

Or consider the opinion of Judge Sue Bell Cobb who sits on the
Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals. This is what she says:

I write, not only as the only statewide Democrat to be
elected in 2000, not only as a member of the Court which
reviews the greatest portion of General Pryor's work, but
also as a child advocate who has labored shoulder to shoulder
with General Pryor in the political arena on behalf of
Alabama's children. It is for these reasons and more that I
am indeed honored to recommend General Pryor for nomination
to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

That is the Honorable Sue Bell Cobb, judge of the Alabama Court of
Criminal Appeals.
Think about that. These are people who know William Pryor. These
testimonies--and there are many more like them--describe a man who
cares deeply about what is right and who has the character to do what
is right, no matter what the political cost. People such as these are
in the best position to know the real William Pryor. If this were a
court of law, their testimony would be deemed especially credible.
Theirs is not hearsay testimony such as we are hearing from some with
the other side. They are not repeating someone's talking points. They
are not offering generalities or cliches.
Talking points, generalities, and cliches, however, are all that
Judge Pryor's opponents have to offer. The far left-wing Washington-
based lobbyists who appear to make their living opposing President
Bush's judicial nominations repeat the same rhetoric about nominee
after nominee. Sometimes I wonder whether they put together their press
releases and action alerts simply by cutting and pasting in the name of
a new nominee.
They use the same mantra now, saying Judge Pryor is hostile to civil
rights, hostile to virtually every right under the sun. Perhaps he is
also the cause of childhood asthma, global warming, and rising interest
rates.
I would listen to the people I have just quoted who know the man.
They are all Democrats, by the way.
If there is any reason to believe such a thing as these awful
comments that have been made by our colleagues on the other side, then
these left-wing Washington lobbyists should be able to convince Dr. Joe
Reed, Alvin Holmes, and Judge Sue Bell Cobb that Judge William Pryor is
hostile to civil rights. I wish them luck because I know they can't do
that. And they know they can't do it. That is what is reprehensible.
Perhaps the most important element of judicial duty is the commitment
to follow the law regardless of personal views. Throughout his career
William Pryor has not just stated such a commitment to judicial
restraint, he has demonstrated it. We all know, for example, that
William Pryor is pro-life. His belief in the sanctity of human life no
doubt helps explain his advocacy for children. Like millions of
Americans, most Alabamians apparently share such pro-life values. In
1997, the State legislature enacted a ban on partial-birth abortion. If
William Pryor were what his critics claim, that would surely have been
his chance to take a stand, stake a claim, defy the Supreme Court, and
to seek to impose his personal moral code. He did no such thing,
proving once again that his critics are flat wrong.
(Mr. ALEXANDER assumed the chair.)
Mr. HATCH. After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Stenberg v. Carhart
that a State legislative ban on partial-birth abortion is
unconstitutional, Attorney General William Pryor instructed State law
enforcement officials to abide by that decision, even though he
personally disagreed. The Senator from Tennessee, Mr. Alexander,
presiding in the Chair right now, reminded us earlier today that this
was at General Pryor's own initiative. The law, not his personal views,
formed how he carried out his official duties.
Attorney General Pryor filed an amicus brief in the Lawrence v. Texas
case defending a State's right to prohibit certain sexual conduct.
Alabama had a statute similar to the Texas statute being challenged in
that case. When the Supreme Court ruled against his position, he
immediately released an official statement that the Supreme Court
decision rendered Alabama's law unenforceable.
Similarly, the entire country knows that as Alabama Attorney General,
William Pryor took an unpopular stand regarding the Ten Commandments
display in the Alabama judicial building. One respected religious
magazine placed a picture of Judge Pryor on its cover with a headline
asking whether his legal stance amounted to political suicide. It is
clear that Judge Pryor places the law above personal priorities and
political expediency. This stuff about following the law rather than
personal opinions is not rhetoric, talking points, or window dressing.
This is not just William Pryor's stated commitment, this is
his demonstrated commitment.

It is a record that makes former Alabama Attorney General Bill
Baxley, another Democrat, strongly support Judge Pryor's nomination.
Here is what General Baxley, a leading Democrat in Alabama, said about
William Pryor:

In every difficult decision he has made, his actions were
supported by his interpretation of the law, without race,
gender, age, political power, wealth, community standing, or
any other competing interest affecting judgment. I often
disagree, politically, with Bill Pryor. This does not prevent
me from making this recommendation because we need
fairminded, intelligent, industrious men and women, possessed
of impeccable integrity, on the Eleventh Circuit. Bill Pryor
has these qualities in abundance. . . . There is no better
choice for this vacancy.

That is Bill Baxley, former Alabama Attorney General, leading
Democrat in the State.
Just think about that. These Democratic leaders from Alabama paint a
very consistent picture of William Pryor. He will uphold the law
without fear or favor. He makes decisions without regard to political
or irrelevant factors. He is fairminded, intelligent, and industrious.
I certainly agree with this assessment, though it does not come first
from the Senator from Utah. Democrats such as Dr. Joe Reed,
Representative Alvin Holmes, Judge Sue Bell Cobb, and Attorney General
Bill Baxley know the difference between private views and public duty.
They know the difference between personal opinion and judicial opinion.
And they strongly support William Pryor's nomination to the Eleventh
Circuit.
I wish some of my Democratic colleagues and their left-wing enablers
knew the difference. Instead they focus only on results. All that
matters, it appears, is that a judge rules right or left, as the case
may be.
On Tuesday a Democratic Member of this body summed up their results-
oriented litmus test approach when he said:

[[Page S6265]]

with respect to a whole series of issues, this nominee is
profoundly wrong.

No doubt each of us in this body has heard something like that in a
campaign commercial. We might hear it here when the Senate is in
legislative session. But this is a judicial nomination we are debating.
What does it mean to say that the judicial nominee is wrong on the
issues? Never mind being judicially correct, just be politically
correct. Results are all that matters.
Yesterday during the debate on the Brown nomination, the Senator from
California, Mrs. Boxer, took a similar tack. She put up one poster
after another, each stating in the most simplistic terms the results of
a case, and then claimed that Justice Brown personally favored the
result for which she voted.
This insidious tactic claims, for example, that if a judge votes that
the law does not prohibit racial slurs, then the judge must favor
racial slurs. If a judge votes that the law does not prohibit an
employer's hiring decision, then the judge must favor that hiring
decision. In March of 2000, 29 current Senators, including my friend
from California, Senator Boxer, voted against a constitutional
amendment to allow protection of the American flag. How would any of
them respond--how would the Senator from California respond--to the
accusation that by that vote, they were siding with the flag
desecraters?
That would be an outrageous charge, and we all know that.
Yet opponents of these judicial nominees, including the Senator from
California, are using exactly the same tactic, exactly the same logic.
They continue doing so in this debate over William Pryor's nomination.
But this tactic misleads the American people about what judges do, and
it twists and distorts these debates about whether to confirm judicial
nominees.
I am reminded of a 1998 article written by the distinguished Judge
Harry Edwards, appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC
Circuit by President Jimmy Carter, in which he warned that giving the
public a distorted view of judges' work is bad for the judiciary and
the rule of law. The tactics being used against nominees such as
William Pryor are, indeed, giving the public a distorted view of
judges' work.
Thankfully, Judge Pryor knows the difference between personal views
and the law. He knows the difference between means and ends. And I am
proud to say that Judge Pryor refuses to go down the politicized road
of judicial activism. He has demonstrated where his commitment lies. He
has shown, in each phase of his career, that he will follow the law.
Our colleague and my fellow Judiciary Committee member, Senator
Sessions, has worked very hard to educate this body about this fine
nominee. He has a special perspective on Judge Pryor's commitment to
follow the law. He hired William Pryor in the Alabama attorney
general's office and Judge Pryor replaced him when then-Attorney
General Sessions joined us here in the Senate. I thank our colleague
for his tireless and principled efforts. I know this Senator's
understanding of this nominee is better as a result.
William Pryor is demonstrating that same commitment on the U.S. Court
of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. That is exactly what America needs
in her judges, and I urge my colleagues to support a permanent
appointment for Judge William Pryor.
Mr. President, I have taken a minute or two over my allotted time. I
apologize to my colleague.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I support the confirmation of William
Pryor to the Eleventh Circuit. I think he is a truly outstanding
individual and, most importantly, after all these years of waiting, I
am pleased he is finally going to get an up-or-down vote on his
nomination. I am pleased, in just a few hours, Bill Pryor will be
confirmed as a Federal appellate judge. He more than deserves to be
confirmed by the Senate. Bill Pryor is doing a great job now, and he
will continue doing a great job in the future.
The problem is how we have gotten to where we are with the hangup and
these judges not being voted on. I continue to be troubled by the road
we have been going down in this judicial nomination process.
Unfortunately for Bill Pryor, he has been one of the prime targets of
the slash-and-burn program of the left-wing liberal interest groups. He
and several other good candidates nominated by President Bush have been
subject to off-base, trumped-up charges which just smear an
individual's record without regard to the reality of that record.
We need to look at the merits of a candidate, and, on the merits,
Bill Pryor is one of the more impressive nominees coming before the
Senate.
William Pryor graduated magna cum laude from Tulane Law School, where
he was editor in chief of the law review. He served as a law clerk to
civil rights legend and champion Judge John Wisdom. He practiced law
for several years before joining the attorney general's office in the
State of Alabama. He also taught law as an adjunct professor at
Cumberland Law School. So without a doubt, and going even beyond the
good attributes I pointed out, Bill Pryor has the legal experience to
serve on this Federal bench. But that is not all. William Pryor has the
unwavering support of the people who knew him best--the citizens of his
very own State of Alabama. His support among Alabama Republicans is
near unanimous. But furthermore, and maybe more importantly, some of
the most important members of the Alabama Democratic leadership are
just as supportive of this Pryor nomination.
For example, the chairman of the Alabama Democratic Conference, which
is the State Democratic Party's African-American caucus, said that Bill
Pryor is a first-class public official who will be a credit to the
judiciary and a guardian of justice.
Former Democratic Gov. Don Siegelman described Bill Pryor as an
incredibly talented, intellectually honest attorney general who calls
the issues like they ought to be called.
These are just some of the comments made by Democrats, of which I am
aware, who support this good man.
But that does not seem to stop some groups or people inside the
beltway from upping that ante and spreading lies. The usual suspects
are back in the saddle again, however, with a vengeance to
mischaracterize this man's record and drag his good name through the
mud.
But if one really takes a close look at Bill Pryor's record, one can
only find that he is a man who embodies the characteristics that any
Federal judge ought to have. The fact is that William Pryor is a man
who puts law before politics. The role of a Federal judge, as all my
colleagues know and as best stated by Chief Justice John Marshall,
is to ``say what the law is.''

That is exactly upon which Bill Pryor has built a distinguished law
career. The truth is, in the face of opposition from both Democrats and
Republicans, Bill Pryor has steadfastly based his legal decisions on
court rulings and not on his own political beliefs. Bill Pryor's
actions are the only record that we need to look at to see that this is
an individual who truly believes in the rule of law. He is the right
man for the job, and we should keep this man on the Eleventh Circuit
Court.
I have looked at Bill Pryor's record and some of the allegations made
against him. Bill Pryor wins hands down, no contest.
I would like to refer to an article in the ``Mobile Press Register,''
``Civil Rights Guardian, Outstanding Nominee.'' In this article, Willie
Huntley took the opportunity to distinguish the views of Alabamians and
most Americans from those shared by some inside-the-beltway, left-wing
interest groups. Mr. Huntley is an African-American attorney. He is
from Bill Pryor's hometown. He expressed why the people of Alabama
should continue to trust in this man, Bill Pryor, rather than in the
liberal special interest groups, such as People for the American Way,
organizations that are so powerful here with some Members of Congress.
I would like to read some of what this article has to say about Bill
Pryor, again, emphasizing Willie Huntley, an African-American attorney
from Bill Pryor's hometown:

People for the American Way asserts that Pryor's
appointment would devastate civil rights. What its people
don't say is that after about 100 years of inaction by other
leaders, Bill Pryor led a coalition that included the NAACP
to rid the Alabama Constitution of its racist ban on
interracial marriage.

[[Page S6266]]

Bill Pryor then defended the repeal against a court
challenge by a so-called Confederate organization. Our
Attorney General also took the side of the NAACP in
successfully defending majority-minority voting districts--
all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court--against challenges by
white Alabama Republicans.
Bill Pryor further opposed a white Republican redistricting
proposal that would have hurt African-American voters. He did
not back down to criticism from his own party--not one inch.
He then played a key role in the successful prosecution of
former Ku Klux Klansmen Bobby Frank Cherry and Thomas
Blanton, Jr., for the 1963 bombings of the 16th Street
Baptist Church in Birmingham.
Pryor started a mentoring program for at-risk kids and
regularly goes to Montgomery public schools to teach African-
American kids to read.
Because Bill Pryor has a civil rights record that very few
can equal, it is no wonder that African-American leaders who
know and who have worked with him--like Artur Davis, Joe
Reed, Cleo Thomas, and Alvin Holmes--support his nomination
to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
Ignoring Pryor's defense of voting rights for African-
Americans, People for the American Way charges that he
opposes the landmark Voting Rights Act. The truth is, he has
dutifully enforced all of the Voting Rights Act every time a
case has come up.

The article goes on to conclude:

The truth and the record show that Bill Pryor has fought
for the civil rights and voting rights of African-Americans
in Alabama when People for the American Way were nowhere to
be found. Now that President Bush has nominated Pryor to a
Federal judgeship, People for the American Way assumes that
it can come here and attack him. . . .We who actually know
Bill Pryor support him 100 percent.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record the
article from which I quoted so people can read it in its entirety.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

[From CFIF.ORG]

Civil Rights Guardian, Outstanding Nominee

(By Willie J. Huntley Jr.)

The Washington-headquartered, liberal witch-hunt against
President Bush's federal judicial nominees has targeted its
next victim, and it is one of our own: Bill Pryor, the
attorney general of Alabama.
Among those leading the charge against Pryor is the mis-
named group People For the American Way. This should be no
surprise; PFAW has led vicious attacks against Attorney
General John Ashcroft, Justice Clarence Thomas, Priscilla
Owen, Miguel Estrada and numerous other Republican nominees.
PFAW is a radical leftist group that has supported broad
court protection for child pornography; burning the American
flag, and publicly funded art portraying the Virgin Mary
splattered with elephant dung. Most recently, PFAW helped
coordinate protests against the war in Iraq--the war in which
some Alabamians gave their lives for their country.
PFAW is funded by the pornography industry and Hollywood
radicals, including Playboy magazine, the Screen Actors
Guild, and the Center for Alternative Media & Culture. (And
they call Bill Pryor an extremist.)
PFAW asserts that Pryor's appointment would devastate civil
rights. What its people don't say is that after about 100
years of inaction by other leaders, Bill Pryor led a
coalition that included the NAACP to rid the Alabama
Constitution of its racist ban on interracial marriage.
Pryor then defended the repeal against a court challenge by
a so-called Confederate heritage organization.
Our attorney general also took the side of the NAACP in
successfully defending majority-minority voting districts--
all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court--against a challenge by
white Alabama Republicans.
Bill Pryor further opposed a white Republican redistricting
proposal that would have hurt African-American voters. He did
not back down to criticism from his own party--not one inch.
He then played a key role in the successful prosecution of
former Ku Klux Klansmen Bobby Frank Cherry and Thomas Blanton
Jr. for the 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist
Church in Birmingham. In fact, he will personally argue to
uphold Blanton's murder conviction before the Alabama
Court of Criminal Appeals later this month.
Pryor started a mentoring program for at-risk kids, and
regularly goes to Montgomery public schools to teach African-
American kids to read.
Because Bill Pryor has a civil rights record that very few
can equal, it is no wonder that African-American leaders who
know and have worked with him--like Artur Davis, Joe Reed,
Cleo Thomas and Alvin Holmes--support his nomination to the
11th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Ignoring Pryor's defense of voting rights for African-
Americans, PFAW charges that he opposes the landmark Voting
Rights Act. The truth is, he has dutifully enforced all of
the Voting Rights Act every time a case has come up.
Pryor has simply stated that a procedural part of the
Voting Rights Act--Section 5--has problems that Congress
should fix. Section 5 requires federal officials in
Washington to approve even minor changes in voting practices
that have nothing to do with discrimination.
For example, last year, Pryor issued an opinion that
required a white replacement candidate for a deceased white
state legislator to get Washington approval under Section 5
to use stickers to put his name on the ballot over the name
of the deceased candidate.
Thurbert Baker, the African-American Democratic attorney
general of Georgia, has voiced similar concerns about Section
5 before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Undeterred, PFAW and its allies also charge that Pryor
believes in ``states' rights''--their code words for racism.
The truth is that he believes in the Constitution. He has
fought to protect the state's treasury from lawsuits that
would have taken our tax dollars away from the state--away
from salaries for teachers and medical care for poor people.
It is the job of an attorney general to defend his client--
the state. In fact, the key Supreme Court case on defending a
state from lawsuits was won not by Pryor, but by Democratic
Attorney General Bob Butterworth of Florida.
Democratic attorneys general like Eliot Spitzer of New
York, Jim Doyle of Wisconsin and others have all made the
same arguments to defend their state budgets. I guess they
are all ``right-wing extremists,'' too.
PFAW and its allies have also attacked Pryor for being
extremist on abortion rights. As a dedicated Roman Catholic,
Bill Pryor loves kids and is against abortion, no doubt about
it.
But even though he disagrees with abortion, he instructed
Alabama's district attorneys to apply Alabama's partial-birth
abortion law in a moderate way that was consistent with U.S.
Supreme Court precedent.
Again, he was criticized by Republicans; pro-life activists
accused him of gutting the statute. Again, he didn't back
down.
Not surprisingly, PFAW and its allies have attacked Pryor
for supporting the display of the Ten Commandments in
courthouses. But Pryor simply took the position that if a
representation of the Ten Commandments can be carved into the
wall of the U.S. Supreme Court's courtroom, it can be placed
in an Alabama courtroom.
PFAW also has attacked Pryor for the position he took in
the Alexander vs. Sandoval case, in which a person who didn't
speak English sued to force Alabama to spend its money on
printing driver's license tests in foreign languages.
As broke as our state is, there are better things to spend
our money on--like teaching kids to read English so they can
take the test and read road signs, and also paving the roads
for them to drive on. Pryor fought this attempt to drain our
state budget, and the U.S. Supreme Court agreed with him.
The truth and the record show that Bill Pryor has fought
for the civil rights and voting rights of African-Americans
in Alabama when PFAW was nowhere to be found. Now that
President Bush has nominated Pryor to a federal judgeship,
PFAW assumes that it can come here and attack him.
I, for one, suggest that PFAW pack up its pro-pornography,
flag-burning, anti-religious, attack-dog tactics and go back
to Hollywood and Washington.
We who actually know Bill Pryor support him 100 percent.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I hope my colleagues will see through
all the smoke and mirrors that have been kicked up by groups such as
the People for the American Way. I hope my colleagues will take a very
close look at the facts and reject those allegations that are not true,
just as many Alabamians have so rejected because the people who know
this man best ought to be the ones to whom we listen.
I hope that Bill Pryor's true record will shine through and that my
colleagues will join me in supporting his nomination.
I close by, once again, telling my Senate colleagues that if the role
of a Federal judge is to say, as Chief Justice John Marshall said, ``to
say what the law is,'' then there are very few candidates as qualified
as William Pryor.
Being a good judge is not about doing what is popular, and it is not
for sure about giving in to liberal special interest groups, and it
certainly is not about legislating the left-wing's agenda from the
bench. Being a good judge is about fairly applying the law, fairly
applying the law no matter who the person is, no matter how unpopular
the cause or the argument being advocated is. It is not the role of a
judge, nor should it ever be the role of a judge, to serve as a puppet
to the popular position. That is what William Pryor has built his
career on--the rule of law, enforcing the law, carrying out the law.
I know that is what William Pryor will continue to do when he is
finally confirmed by this Senate for the Eleventh Circuit Court of
Appeals.

[[Page S6267]]

I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I understand we are under a time
consideration. I believe I have half an hour. Is that correct?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Chair remind me when I have 5 minutes
remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair will do that.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to oppose Mr.
Pryor's nomination. Contrary to the widespread impression of a partisan
breakdown in the judicial nominations process, Democrats in this
closely divided Senate have sought to cooperate with the President on
the issues. And we have largely succeeded. We have confirmed 210 of
President Bush's nominees in the past 4 years; 96 percent of the
nominees have been confirmed.
Only 10 nominees did not receive the broad bipartisan support needed
for confirmation, because their records showed that they would roll
back basic rights and protections.
Mr. Pryor's nomination illustrates the problems. His views are at the
extreme right wing of legal thinking. It is clear from his record that
he does not deserve confirmation to a lifetime seat on an appellate
court that often has the last word on vital issues for millions of
people who live in Alabama, Georgia, and Florida, the States that
comprise the Eleventh Circuit.
Mr. Pryor is no true conservative. He has sought to advance a radical
agenda contrary to much of the Supreme Court's jurisprudence over the
last 40 years, and at odds with important precedents that have made our
country more inclusive and fair.
Mr. Pryor has fought aggressively to undermine the power of Congress
to protect civil and individual rights. He has tried to cut back on the
Family and Medical Leave Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and
the Clean Water Act. He has been contemptuously dismissive of claims of
racial bias in the application of the death penalty, and has
relentlessly advocated the use of the death penalty, even for persons
with mental retardation. Mr. Pryor has even ridiculed the current
Supreme Court Justices, calling them ``nine octogenarian lawyers who
happen to sit on the Supreme Court.'' He even has his facts wrong. Only
two of the nine Justices are 80 years old or older.
In addition to these serious substantive concerns, his nomination was
rushed through the Judiciary Committee in violation of the committee's
rules, before the committee could complete its investigation of major
ethical questions raised by the nominee's own testimony at his hearing
and by his answers and non-answers to the committee's follow-up
questions. When these serious problems in Mr. Pryor's record prevented
him from receiving the Senate support needed for confirmation,
President Bush made an end-run around the constitutional system of
checks and balances by giving him a recess appointment during a brief
Senate recess that was, in all likelihood, an unconstitutional use of
the recess appointment power.
In the last Congress, some Members of the majority presented a
version of the history of the nomination and the committee's
investigation which did not comport with the facts. The history is
important, because it shows that Democrats have in fact acted
expeditiously and responsibly, and that the rush to judgment in the
committee in the last Congress was clearly an effort to cut off a
needed further investigation.
As the extraordinary rollcall vote in the Judiciary Committee on July
23, 2003 shows, every member of the minority voted, ``no, under protest
for the violation of Rule IV.''
Democrats did not invent the issue that provoked such an
unprecedented protest. Years before Mr. Pryor's nomination, lengthy
articles in Texas and D.C. newspapers raised the question of the
propriety of the activities of the Republican Attorneys General
Association.
It was reported that the organization sought campaign contributions
to support the election of Republican attorneys general, by arguing
they would be less aggressive than Democratic attorneys general in
challenging business interests for violations of the law. Some
descriptions of this effort characterized it as a ``shakedown'' scheme.
The leaders of the association denied the allegations, but refused to
disclose its contributors. They were able to maintain their secrecy by
funneling the contributions through an account at the Republican
National Committee that aggregated various kinds of State campaign
contributions, and avoided separate public reporting of the
contributions or the amount of their gifts.
The issue received significant press coverage during the 2002 Senate
campaign in Texas, especially after several Republican attorneys
general denounced the association as fraught with ethical problems.
Because Mr. Pryor had been identified publicly as a leader of the
association's efforts, and the ethical issues raised by it were
obviously relevant to his qualifications, he was asked about the issue
at his nomination hearing and in written follow-up questions. His
responses avoided the issue and raised more questions than they
answered.
In July 2003, the Judiciary Committee began a bipartisan
investigation of the matter, in accordance with an investigative plan
provided to the majority. No witnesses were ever questioned under oath
as part of the investigation, and in fact, the investigation was cut
short by the committee majority almost as soon as it began. The
Republican investigator actually instructed interviewees that they did
not have to answer questions from the minority investigator, or comply
with document requests from the minority.
As a result, all of the committee Democrats, having considered the
information available up to that point, wrote to the chairman and
informed him that the investigation was producing serious and
disturbing information, that it would require substantial additional
time, that his investigators were interfering with it, and that after
it was complete, the minority members would want to question the
nominee under oath.
The Republican staff had offered informal staff interviews with the
nominee before that time, but the Democratic investigators had, as any
serious investigator would, declined that offer until the basic
investigative work had been done. In any event, the Democratic members
wanted to question the nominee in person under oath at the appropriate
time.
At the committee meeting to consider the issue, the chairman rejected
the minority's unanimous request out of hand. He insisted on a vote on
the nomination without completion of the investigation and without
further questioning of the nominee under oath. That was the situation
when Senator Leahy invoked the committee's rule IV to prevent a
premature vote on the nomination. The party line vote was 10-9.
The fact that no minority member was among the 10 should have
prevented an immediate vote on the nomination and allowed the
investigation to continue. But the chairman refused to follow rule IV
and insisted on an immediate vote.
The 9 Democrats on the committee all voted against reporting the
nomination, each noting an objection to the violation of rule IV.
The 10 Republicans voted to report it, with one Republican stating
that his vote to report it did not mean he would necessarily vote for
the nominee on the floor. He also stated that he would want to review
the results of the investigation with the nominee before any Senate
vote.
Despite the lack of cooperation from the majority staff, the minority
staff attempted to obtain further information, and did develop new
information which expanded both the scope and the gravity of our
original concerns. However, in the face of the majority's refusal to
cooperate, a further investigation involving the witnesses was
impossible.
I mention this to make clear that the matters raised by this
investigation are very serious, and we should not sweep these questions
under the rug. We are not doing our job in reviewing this nomination if
we look the other way in the face of these serious ethical questions.
The Judiciary Committee should have completed the investigation in
2003, reviewed its findings, heard from the nominee under oath,

[[Page S6268]]

and then decided whether he should be listed for debate and
consideration.
This year, when the committee again considered Judge Pryor's
nomination, the majority offered to permit a few phone calls to
witnesses whose telephone interviews were not completed or who could
not be found in 2003. That offer was appreciated, but, as was obvious
from the first call, it was too little and too late.
The well of evidence had been poisoned by the majority investigator's
negative statements to witnesses in 2003, and now it would take an even
more concerted inquiry to elicit the full story from witnesses who were
adverse to begin with. Nevertheless, because some day that story will
probably come out, this aspect of the nomination remains a ticking-
ethical time bomb.
The rush to judgment on this nomination is particularly troubling,
given the serious substantive problems in Mr. Pryor's record. His
supporters say that his views have gained acceptance by the courts, and
that his legal positions are well within the legal mainstream, but many
disagree. Mr. Pryor has consistently advocated to narrow individual
rights and freedoms far beyond what any court in this land has been
willing to hold.
The Supreme Court rejected his argument that States could not be sued
for money damages for violating the Family and Medical Leave Act. Had
Mr. Pryor prevailed, it would have been far more difficult to protect
workers who need time off because of their own health problems or to
care for a loved one.
The Supreme Court also rejected Mr. Pryor's sweeping argument that
Congress lacked authority to pass the Clean Water Act's protections for
wetlands that are home to migratory birds.
The Court rejected his argument that States should be able to
criminalize private sexual conduct between consenting adults. It
rejected his far-reaching argument that counties should have the same
immunity from lawsuits that Sates have. It rejected his argument that
the right to counsel does not apply to defendants with suspended
sentences of imprisonment. It rejected his argument that it was
constitutional for Alabama prison guards to handcuff prisoners to
hitching posts for hours in the summer heat.
Mr. Pryors opposition to the rights of the disabled is particularly
disturbing. In one case, in an opinion Justice Scalia, the Supreme
Court unanimously rejected his argument that the Americans with
Disabilities Act does not apply to State prisons.
In another case, the Supreme Court rejected his view that provisions
of the act ensuring that those with disabilities have access to public
services are unconstitutional. In that case, a plaintiff who uses a
wheelchair had challenged the denial of access to a public courthouse.
He had refused to crawl up the courthouse stairs to reach the public
courtroom. In his brief in the case, Mr. Pryor argued that Congress has
no power to require States to make public facilities accessible to the
disabled. He argued that denying access to courthouses does not violate
the principle of equal protection, because the disabled have no
absolute right to attend legal proceedings affecting their rights.
In arguing that the legislative history did not show a need for them
to act, Mr. Pryor dismissed congressional findings of discrimination
against the disabled, and evidence that the University of Georgia had
located its office of handicapped services in an inaccessible second-
floor room. According to Mr. Pryor, such ``anecdotes provide no
indication of the extent of the inaccessibility, or whether the
inaccessibility lacked a rational basis and was therefore
unconstitutional.'' That is nonsense. It is obvious that the wording of
this legislative history clearly describes the extent of the
inaccessibility. And there is no rational justification for a State
university to put an office serving disabled students in an
inaccessible second-floor location.
The Supreme Court also rejected Mr. Pryor's radical view of what
constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in the use of the death
penalty. It rejected his argument that executing retarded persons does
not offend the eighth amendment. The Eleventh Circuit, a court
dominated by conservative, Republican appointees, later unanimously
rejected Mr. Pryor's attempt to evade the Supreme Court's decision. He
had tried to prevent a prisoner with an IQ of 65, who even the
prosecution agreed was mentally retarded, from raising a claim that he
should not be executed.
The Supreme Court also rejected his attempt to limit the right to
counsel for the poor. Mr. Pryor argued that the poor have no right to
counsel in misdemeanor cases, even if they risk imprisonment if found
guilty. He told the Court during oral argument that it is reasonable
for the State to preserve its own resources, just as a more affluent
defendant would preserve its resources and not incur the cost of
counsel in this kind of circumstance. The Supreme Court held that the
right to counsel when the accused faces possible imprisonment is more
important than Mr. Pryor's financial concern.
Again and again, his far-reaching arguments like these have been
rejected by the courts. Mr. Pryor is not a nominee within the legal
mainstream.
He and his supporters pretend that he is only ``following the law,''
but in fact Mr. Pryor repeatedly tried to make different law, using the
Alabama Attorney General's office as a political platform for his own
radical agenda.
We are expected to believe that despite the intensity with which he
has advocated for these radical legal positions and the many years he
has devoted to dismantling basic rights, he will start to ``follow the
law'' if he receives a lifetime appointment to the Eleventh Circuit.
Repeating that mantra again and again and again in the face of his
extreme record does not make it credible that he will do so.
His many inflammatory statements show that he lacks the temperament
to serve on the Federal court. He ridiculed the Supreme Court of the
United States for granting a temporary stay of execution in a capital
punishment case. Alabama was one of only two States in the Nation that
uses the electric chair as its sole method of execution. The Supreme
Court granted review to determine whether the use of the electric chair
was cruel and unusual punishment.
For Mr. Pryor, however, the Court should not even have paused to
consider the Eighth Amendment. He said the issue: should not be decided
by nine octogenarian lawyers who happen to sit on the Supreme Court.
This does not reflect the thoughtfulness we seek in our Federal judges.
He is dismissive of concerns about fairness in capital punishment and
the possible execution of persons who are innocent. He has stated: make
no mistake about it, the death penalty moratorium movement is headed by
an activist minority with little concern for what is really going on in
our criminal justice system.
On the issue of women's rights, Mr. Pryor has criticized
constitutional protections against gender discrimination. He dismissed
as ``political correctness'' the Supreme Court's decision that a State-
run military academy could not deny admission to women because of
stereotypes about how women learn.
In a 1997 statement to Congress, Mr. Pryor opposed section 5 of the
Voting Rights Act, which has been indispensable in ensuring that all
Americans have the right to vote, regardless of race or ethnic
background. He called this important law an affront to federalism and
an expensive burden that has far outlived its usefulness.
In March, we commemorated the 40th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, in
which Martin Luther King, Congressman John Lewis, and others were
brutally attacked on a peaceful march in Mr. Pryor's home State of
Alabama while supporting the right to vote for all Americans,
regardless of race. Yet we are now being asked by the administration to
confirm a nominee who opposes the Voting Rights Act.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the constitutionality of
section 5, but Mr. Pryor's derisive statements--criticizing both the
act and the Supreme Court itself--give no confidence that he will
enforce the law's provisions. There is too much at stake to risk
confirming a judge who would turn back progress on protecting the right
to vote.
It is no surprise that this nomination is opposed by leaders of the
civil rights movement, including the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, a
leader of the Alabama movement for civil rights,

[[Page S6269]]

the Reverend C.T. Vivian, and many of Dr. Martin Luther King's other
close advisors and associates.
It is clear that Mr. Pryor sees the Federal courts as a place to
advance his political agenda. When President Bush was elected in 2000,
Mr. Pryor gave a speech praising his election as the ``last best hope
for federalism.'' He ended his speech with these words--a ``prayer for
the next administration: Please God, no more Souters.'' He was
referring to Justice Souter, a Republican nominee to the court, whose
opinions Mr. Pryor apparently disagreed with.
In another speech, he said he was thankful for the Bush v. Gore
decision. I wanted Governor Bush to have a full appreciation of the
judiciary and judicial selection so we can have no more appointments
like Justice Souter.
Some have argued that Mr. Pryor's record in his year as a recess
appointee on the Eleventh Circuit somehow erases his long career of
opposition to fundamental rights. The fact that Mr. Pryor has voted
with other judges during the period when he was temporarily appointed
to the court says nothing about what he would do if given a lifetime
appointment and the freedom from Senate oversight. It is no wonder that
he might be cautious when he only has a temporary appointment to the
court. We should not be swayed by ``confirmation conversions,'' and
especially not by ``recess appointment conversions.''
My colleagues on the other side have brought up every argument they
could find to save him. His record is full of examples of extreme
views, and they try to rebut each one. They call Senate Democrats and
citizens who question Mr. Pryor's fitness--including more than 204
local and national groups--a variety of names. They even accuse us of
religious bias.
They claim that those who oppose Mr. Pryor's nomination do so because
of his faith. That's ridiculous given the record. Such a claim is
unworthy of the Senate. Most of us would have had no idea what
religious views are held by Pryor, or any other nominee, if Republicans
had not raised the issue.
The real question is why, when there are so many qualified Republican
attorneys in Alabama, the President would choose such a divisive
nominee? Why pick one whose record raises so much doubt as to whether
he will be fair? Why pick one who can muster only a rating of partially
unqualified from the American Bar Association?
At stake is the independence of our Federal courts. We count on
Federal judges to be intelligent, to have the highest integrity, to be
open-minded. Most of all, we count on them to treat everyone fairly and
not to prejudge a case based on ideology. Mr, Pryor is free to pursue
his agenda as a lawyer or as an advocate, but he does not have the
open-mindedness and fairness needed to be a Federal judge, and I urge
my colleagues to defeat this nomination.
Mr. President, I have, I believe, just a few minutes left. How much
time do I have?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 7 minutes.
Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I have pointed out at other times in
recent days that we have been tied up with these Federal judges--the
handful of Federal judges who will have enormous impact in terms of our
court systems--we have been tied up with this issue for weeks and weeks
when this President could have appointed, as I mentioned in the final
moments of my speech, outstanding, distinguished jurists who could have
gone through here like 95 or 96 percent of the other nominees.
While we have been taking weeks and weeks, let me just mention a few
of the things that have been happening that are affecting real American
families. Let's just take the last week, for example. Let's take the
New York Times last Sunday:

Tax Laws Help to Widen the Gap at the Very Top. The share
of the Nation's income earned by those in the uppermost
category has more than doubled since 1980.

There is a long article about what is happening in our country
between the working families, middle-income families, and the super-
wealthy, and the reasons for it. Are we debating or considering or
thinking about doing anything about that? No, not the Senate.
Here is Monday, New York Times:

College Aid Rules Change and Families Pay More.

Are we doing anything about that this week? Are we having a debate on
that issue, about what we can do to make college tuition more available
to families here in the United States? No, no. That is not on the
agenda.
Then look at Tuesday:

Pension Law Loopholes Help United Hide Its Troubles.
Loopholes in the federal pension . . . allow United
Airlines to treatment its pension fund . . . solid for years
when in fact it was dangerously weakened.

And it basically collapsed.
Pensions, retirement for working families, a matter of principal
concern for millions of our workers--are we doing very much about that
on the floor of the Senate? No.
Wednesday:

G. M. Will Reduce Hourly Workers by 25,000. General Motors
said Tuesday it will cut 25,000 from its blue collar
workforce.

We don't have a silver bullet to answer that, but don't we think we
should be thinking about, if we lost 25,000 workers, what we ought to
do and what we might do in terms of helping working families and
looking at an industry? That was Wednesday.
Here we have Thursday, front-page story:

Limit for Award in Tobacco Case Set Off Protests.

The Justice Department's decision to seek $10 billion instead of what
the professional attorneys in the Justice Department said that they
should, $130 billion.

They were going to use that $130 billion to educate primarily
teenagers, primarily teenage girls. Four thousand teenagers start
smoking every day, and 2,000 become addicted. Try to educate them with
$130 billion? What happened to the Justice Department? They threw in
the towel. You would think we would talk about that.
That is in this last week. These issues affect middle-income working
families, and what do we spend our time on here in the Senate for the
last 6, 7, 8, 9 weeks? Debating these judges, when we know if we had a
President who would offer nominees in the mainstream of judicial
thinking, those individuals would be confirmed, like 96 percent of them
were. Then perhaps we would have a chance to do something that has been
talked about on every front page of every newspaper just this last week
and that affects in a very real and important way the quality of life
of children in this country, working families, and retirees.
Finally, I think I join with Senator Levin and Harry Reid, wondering
why in the world next week we are not going to be considering the
Defense Authorization bill instead of going to the Energy bill. We need
an energy bill but, as has been pointed out by the supporters of the
Energy bill, passage of that bill will not reduce the gas price by 1
cent. The Defense Authorization bill will send a very clear message
about our commitment on death benefits, on uparmoring humvees, on
looking after families in terms of health insurance--all of these
issues that are out there. We would send a very clear message that the
Senate of the United States is behind that reauthorization. We may have
our questions about Iraq policy, but everyone in this body supports our
troops. Why aren't we considering the Defense Authorization bill?
These are some of the concerns many of us have who think this Senate
is not meeting its responsibilities to the American people or to our
national security and defense.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the
quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I have sought recognition to support the
nomination of Judge William H. Pryor, Jr., to be a judge for the
Eleventh Circuit. It has been divided.
Judge Pryor comes to this position with a very distinguished record.
He graduated from Northeast Louisiana University in 1984, magna cum
laude; from the Tulane University School of Law in 1987, again magna
cum laude; was editor-chief of the Law Review of the Tulane University
School of Law, which is no minor achievement. There

[[Page S6270]]

are not too many editors-in-chief around. That is quite an
accomplishment. So the academic career is really extraordinary.
Following graduation from law school, he was law clerk to Judge John
Minor Wisdom for the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, a very
distinguished jurist. A I speak on this subject, the Presiding Officer
is Senator Lamar Alexander, who, as I recollect, was also a law clerk
to Judge John Minor Wisdom and, on the recommendation of Senator
Alexander, he spoke very highly of William Pryor, the people who knew
him in a very distinguished clerkship, one of America's great,
historical jurists. Bill Pryor was his law clerk.
He then had a distinguished record in the practice of law, working
for the firm of Cabaniss, Johnston, Gardner, Dumas & O'Neal; was an
adjunct professor at the Samford University, Cumberland School of Law;
and came back into the practice of law for 4 more years with Walston,
Stabler, Wells, Anderson & Bains. Then, from 1995 to 2004, he was
Deputy Attorney General and also Attorney General of the State of
Alabama and has been on the U.S. Circuit Court for the Eleventh Circuit
now for a year, having obtained an interim appointment from President
Bush.

Judge Pryor has been criticized for his views, expressed very
forcefully, in opposition to the decision of the Supreme Court of the
United States in Roe v. Wade. The quotation attributed to him was that
it was the ``worst abomination of constitutional law in our history,''
which is pretty strong language. That is about as strong as you can
get.
The issue is not what is his personal view of Roe v. Wade. The issue
is what would he do as a circuit court of appeals judge when faced with
the responsibility to uphold the law of the land, of the Supreme Court.
This subject came up during the confirmation hearing of Judge Pryor
before the Judiciary Committee on June 11, 2003. I propounded the
following question to Judge Pryor:

The Chairman [Senator Hatch at the time] has asked about
whether you have made some comments which you consider
intemperate, and I regret I could not be here earlier today,
but as you know, we have many conflicting schedules. But I
note the comment you made after Planned Parenthood v. Casey,
where you were quoted as saying--first I would ask you if
this is accurate. I have seen a quote or two not accurate.
``In the 1992 case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey the Court
preserved the worst abomination of constitutional law in our
history,'' . . . is that an accurate quotation of yours?
Mr. Pryor. Yes.

It is pretty hard to get a simple answer of a witness anywhere and I
appreciated that kind of brevity.
I continued:

Senator Specter. Is that one which would fall into the
category that Senator Hatch has commented on, you wish you
had not made?
Mr. Pryor: No, I stand by the comment.

Then I asked:

Why do you consider it an abomination, Attorney General
Pryor?

And he responded:

Well, I believe that not only is the case unsupported by
the text and structure of the Constitution. But it has led to
a morally wrong result.

And he goes on to give his reasons for his conclusion.
He was very candid, very steadfast, and stood up to what he had said
and was not running from it.
Later, he made it plain he would abide by the law of the land, that
his personal views of Roe v. Wade were not determinative. The record
shows my own view has been to uphold the Supreme Court decision in Roe
v. Wade, a subject I will not discuss as to my own views, but I respect
a difference of opinion.
In looking for the confirmation of a Federal judge, the issue is,
will he follow the law of the land. He said he would and said so very
emphatically on the record.
On March 3 of this year, I wrote to Senator Reid because this
question had come up. I cited the applicable page of the Record June
11, page 45 of the transcript where the following exchange occurred:

Chairman Hatch. So even when you disagree with Roe v. Wade
you would act in accordance with Roe v. Wade on the Eleventh
Circuit Court of Appeals?
Mr. Pryor. Even though I strongly disagree with Roe v. Wade
I have acted in accordance with it as Attorney General and
would continue to do so as a Court of Appeals judge.
Chairman Hatch. Can we rely on that?
Mr. Pryor. You can take it to the bank, Mr. Chairman.

Again, that is about as emphatic as you can be on that subject.
During the course of Judge Pryor's tenure on the Court of Appeals, he
has handed down quite a number of opinions which show maturity, which
show growth, and which undercut many of the objections of his critics.
I ask unanimous consent the relevant portions of the transcript I
have just referred to from the Judiciary Committee hearing and the
letter which I sent to Senator Reid dated March 3, 2005, be printed in
the Record at the conclusion of my statement.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1.)
Mr. SPECTER. Shortly after becoming chairman of the Judiciary
Committee, within a week, by memorandum dated January 12 of this year,
I sent to all members of the Judiciary Committee a memorandum including
summaries of some of Judge Pryor's statements which I thought merited
analysis and reconsideration by those who had opposed him in the past.
Those opinions included the decision in DIRECTV v. Treworgy, where
Judge Pryor ruled against a major satellite transmission corporation,
instead siding with a private citizen to shield him from liability.
Also, a case on Judge Pryor's decision protecting religious liberty,
Benning v. Georgia, also decided in the year 2004. A case illustrating
Judge Pryor's protection of civil rights in the case of Wilson v. B/E
Aerospace, Incorporated. A case which involved a district court's
dismissal of a female employee's gender discrimination claims. Judge
Pryor reinstated her claim of bias as to promotion and remanded back to
the district court.
By way of amplification of the case I referred to on Benning v.
Georgia, that involved a situation when the Georgia prison system
refused an inmate's request to practice his Jewish faith. Judge Pryor
enabled the prisoner to continue to worship in his preferred manner.
The case involving Sarmiento-Cisneros, where Judge Pryor ruled
protecting immigrants' rights, involved a Mexican immigrant who desired
to remain in the United States with his family. Judge Pryor vacated the
deportation order, enabling the family to remain together, and brought
a commonsense interpretation to a harsh ruling by the Bureau of
Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The case of Brown v. Johnson is an illustration of Judge Pryor's
judgment and decision in protecting prisoners' rights. Judge Pryor
recognized the need for improvement in the treatment of an inmate
afflicted with HIV and concluded that prison officials were not
sufficiently concerned about the serious medical needs under the Eighth
and 14th Amendments.
Judge Pryor also stood by the petitioner, permitting him to proceed
in forma pauperis.
Judge Pryor has faced, in his capacity as Attorney General of
Alabama, quite a number of situations where he took positions which
were very unpopular politically and contrary to his own views, but did
so because of his determination and his recognition that he was
supposed to uphold the law of the land.
In a very highly celebrated case nationally and internationally, as
Attorney General for Alabama he proceeded against Alabama Chief Justice
Roy Moore for refusing to remove the large depiction of the Ten
Commandments on display in the Alabama Supreme Court after the Federal
courts ruled the display was unconstitutional. In that case, Judge
Pryor commented that his personal beliefs were contrary to what he was
ruling. He took a lot of criticism from his Alabama constituency and
when asked about his decision to enforce the law against Alabama Chief
Justice Moore, Judge Pryor stated:

This was not a tough call. I believe that our freedom
depends on the rule of law. The reason the American
experiment has been successful is because we are a nation of
laws and not of men. No person is above the law. We have to
abide by the law even when we disagree with it. That is the
guiding principle of my public service.

Hard to structure a response better than that. Cannot do any better
than

[[Page S6271]]

that, when you say you disagree with something and you disagree
strongly, but you recognize your obligation to enforce the law.
On other occasions, then-Attorney General Pryor set aside personal
beliefs and instructed State law enforcement officials to enforce the
Supreme Court rulings. Shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its
ruling in Lawrence v. Texas, he released a press statement through the
Web site of the Office of Attorney General saying that in light of the
Supreme Court ruling in Lawrence:

the law of Alabama . . . which prohibits consensual sodomy
between unmarried persons, is now unenforceable.

Similarly, after the Supreme Court ruled in Stenberg v. Carhart,
which struck down a Nebraska law prohibiting partial-birth abortion,
then-Attorney General Pryor issued a statement to State officials
saying State officials ``are obligated to obey the Stenberg ruling
until it is overruled or otherwise set aside.''
Judge Pryor's record shows commitment to improving race relations and
protecting racial equality. As attorney general, Judge Pryor worked
with President Clinton's U.S. attorney Doug Jones to prosecute former
klansmen who bombed Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church in the
1960s which resulted in the death of four young girls. He helped to
start a drive to rid the Alabama Constitution of its racist prohibition
on interracial marriage and then stepped up to head the effort to end
the ban, ultimately to its victory in November of 2000.
He dedicated much of his career to protecting the interests and the
safety of women. As Attorney General, he supported and lobbied for
legislation that created a State crime of domestic violence.
I ask unanimous consent the summaries of the cases which I referred
to previously be printed in the Record, with a pertinent letter, at the
conclusion of my remarks.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
(See exhibit 2.)
Mr. SPECTER. In conclusion, it is a very healthy situation in that we
are now proceeding to take up these nominees individually. That is
something which I had sought to do since taking over the chairmanship
of the Judiciary Committee. We have moved ahead now with three
controversial nominees. It is my hope we will continue to take up these
nominees, one at a time, and evaluate them on their merits.
As I have said in a number of floor statements, we have reached the
current confrontation because of a practice which goes back almost 20
years, starting with the last 2 years of the Reagan administration and
continuing with 4 years of President Bush, and when the Democrats took
control of the Senate and the Judiciary Committee, they stopped the
processing of judges and slowed it down.
Then when we Republicans won the election in 1994, for the last 6
years of the Clinton administration we slowed down the process and tied
up some 70 judges in committee, a practice that I objected to at the
time, and supported Judge Paez and Judge Berzon and others. Then the
controversy was ratcheted up with the unprecedented systematic
filibustering of judges, and then the unprecedented move by President
Bush in the interim appointment, after the Senate rejected a judge,
albeit by the route of not getting cloture.
My time has expired, and I note the presence of the distinguished
Democratic leader, so I yield the floor in midsentence, Mr. President.

Exhibit 1

Senator Specter. The Chairman has asked about whether you
have made some comments which you now consider intemperate,
and I regret, that I could not be here earlier today, but as
you know, we have many conflicting schedules. But I note the
comment you made after Planned Parenthood v. Casey, where you
were quoted as saying--first I would ask you if this quote is
accurate. I have seen a quote or two not accurate. ``In the
1992 case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey the Court preserved
the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history,''
close quote. Is that an accurate quotation of yours?
Mr. Pryor. Yes.
Senator Specter. Is that one which would fall into the
category that Senator Hatch has commented on, you wish you
had not made?
Mr. Pryor. No, I stand by that comment.
Senator Specter. Why do you consider it an abomination,
Attorney General Pryor?
Mr. Pryor. Well, I believe that not only is the case
unsupported by the text and structure of the Constitution,
but it had led to a morally wrong result. It has led to the
slaughter of millions of innocent unborn children. That's my
personal belief.
Senator Specter. With that personal belief, Attorney
General Pryor, what assurances can you give to the many who
are raising a question as to whether when you characterized
it an abomination and slaughter, that you can follow a
decision of the United States Supreme Court, which you
consider an abomination and having led to slaughter?
Mr. Pryor. I would invite anyone to look at my record as
Attorney General, where I've done just that. We had a partial
birth abortion law in our State that was challenged by
abortion clinics in Alabama in 1997. It could have been
interpreted broadly or it could have been interpreted
narrowly. I ordered the district attorneys of Alabama to give
it its narrowest construction because that was based on my
reading of Roe and Casey. I ordered the district attorneys to
apply that law only to post-viable fetuses. I could have read
it easily more broadly. The governor who appointed me was
governor at the time and a party to the lawsuit, disagreed
with me and openly criticized me. A pro-life activist in
Alabama criticized me. But I did it because I thought that
was the right legal decision. I still had an obligation to
defend Alabama law. This was a recently-passed Alabama law.
When the Supreme Court of the United States later of course
struck down this kind of partial birth abortion law, we
conceded immediately in district court that the decision
was binding, but until then I was making the narrowest
argument I could make, trying to be faithful to the
Supreme Court's precedent, while also being faithful to my
role as Attorney General and my oath of office to defend a
law recently passed by the legislature.
Senator Specter. When you talk about post-viability and you
have the categorization of partial birth or late-term
abortion, is not that statute necessarily directed toward
post-viability?
Mr. Pryor. That was one of the main arguments I made in
construing it, but if you look at the actual language--
Senator Specter. Well, I asked you that question as to
whether there was a basis for construing it to the contrary.
When you talk about partial birth abortion, we are talking
about an event in the birth canal which is definitely post-
viability. When you talk about late-term abortion, we are
also talking about post-viability. So aside from having some
people who will raise a question about anything, whether
there is a question to be raised or not, was it not
reasonably plain on the face of the statute that they were
talking about post-viability?
Mr. Pryor. No, I don't think anyone would contend life. I
believe that abortion is morally wrong. I've never wavered
from that, and in representing the people of Alabama, I have
been a candid, engaged Attorney General, who has been
involved in the type of--
Chairman Hatch. What does that mean with regard to the
Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals? If you get on that court,
how are you going to treat Roe v. Wade?
Mr. Pryor. Well, my record as Attorney General shows that I
am able to put aside my personal beliefs and follow the law,
even when I strongly disagree with it, to look carefully at
precedents and to do my duty. That is the same duty that I
would have as a judge. Now, as an advocate for the State of
Alabama of course I have an obligation to make a reasonable
argument in defense of the law, but as a judge I would have
to do my best to determine from the precedents what the law
actually at the end of the day requires. My record
demonstrates that I can do that.
Chairman Hatch. So even though you disagree with Roe v.
Wade you would act in, accordance with Roe v. Wade on the
Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals?
Mr. Pryor. Even though I strongly disagree with Roe v. Wade
I have acted in accordance with this as Attorney General and
would continue to do so as a Court of Appeals Judge.
Chairman Hatch. Can we rely on that?
Mr. Pryor. You can take it to the bank, Mr. Chairman.
____

U.S. Senate,

Committee on the Judiciary,

Washington, DC, March 3, 2005.
Hon. Harry Reid,
Minority Leader, U.S. Senate, Hart Senate Office Building,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Reid: When we talked earlier this week, we
discussed the question of whether or not Judge Pryor had
testified that he would follow Roe v. Wade. I have had the
transcript reviewed from Judge Pryor's hearing on June 11,
2003. I think that you will find the following exchange
between Senator Hatch and Judge Pryor, which can be found on
page 45 of the transcript, dispositive:
Chairman Hatch: So even though you disagree with Roe v.
Wade you would act in accordance with Roe v. Wade on the
Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals?
Mr. Pryor: Even though I strongly disagree with Roe v. Wade
I have acted in accordance with it as Attorney General and
would continue to do so as a Court of Appeals Judge.
Chairman Hatch: Can we rely on that?
Mr. Pryor: You can take it to the bank, Mr. Chairman.

[[Page S6272]]

I am enclosing a copy of the transcript.
Sincerely,
Arlen Specter.
____

Exhibit 2

U.S. Senate,

Committee on the Judiciary,

Washington, DC, January 12, 2005.
To Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee: As you know,
Judge William Pryor has been sitting on the United States
Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit for the past eleven
months. The President has stated his intention to re-submit
Judge Pryor's name for confirmation to the Eleventh Circuit.
In light of his expected renomination, I have asked my staff
to examine Judge Pryor's Eleventh Circuit opinions.
I thought you might be interested in knowing some more
about these opinions. In particular, I'd like to bring to
your attention several opinions that demonstrate Judge
Pryor's willingness to protect the rights of individuals
often overlooked in the legal system. It is my hope that
these opinions and his record on the Eleventh Circuit for the
past eleven months will be considered by the Committee on
evaluating him on his re-nomination.
Sincerely,
Arlen Specter.
____

Memorandum

During his tenure on the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals,
Judge William Pryor has authored several opinions
demonstrative of his willingness to protect the rights of
those often overlooked in the legal system.
Standing up to Corporations: DIRECTV, Inc. v. Treworgy, 373
F.3d 1124 (11th Cir. 2004)
Judge Pryor ruled against a major satellite-transmission
corporation, siding instead with a private citizen to shield
him from liability.
Background: DIRECTV (DTV), a provider of satellite
television, encrypts transmissions of pay-per-view and
premium programming. The security encryption can be illegally
circumvented by using ``pirate access devices,'' which allow
users to intercept and decrypt DTV's transmissions. Mike
Treworgy bought two pirating cards, which enable someone with
a satellite dish to receive signals without paying for the
service. There was no evidence that Treworgy actually
intercepted a signal wth his cards. DTV sued Treworgy for
possessing these devices under the Electronic Communications
Privacy Act of 1986 (Wiretap Act), which criminalizes the
intentional manufacture, distribution, possession and
advertising of piracy devices. Treworgy argued that the
Wiretap Act did not create a private right of action against
persons merely in possession of access devises.
Holding: The Eleventh Circuit, Judge Pryor writing, held
that DTV did not have a private right of action against
Treworgy for mere possession of intercepting technology, and
required that the device must have been used to pirate
programming before private rights of action arise. ``Congress
chose to confine private civil actions to defendants who had
`intercepted, disclosed, or intentionally used' [a
communication] . . . possession of a pirate access device
alone, although a criminal offense, creates nothing more than
conjectural or hypothetical harm.''
Protecting Religious Liberty: Benning v. Georgia, 2004 WL
2749172 (11th Cir. 2004)
When the Georgia prison system refused an inmate's requests
to practice his Jewish faith, Judge Pryor enabled the
prisoner to continue to worship in his preferred manner.
By finding that RLUIPA is a proper exercise of Congress'
Spending authority, the Eleventh Circuit kept viable similar
legal remedies for the elderly, disabled and other victims of
discrimination.
Background: Ralph Benning, an inmate in the Georgia prison
system, asserted that as a ``Torah observant Jew'' he was
being prevented from fulfilling his religious duties, such as
eating only kosher food, and wearing a yarmulke. Georgia
moved to dismiss and argued that Sec. 3 of The Religious Land
Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) exceeds the
authority of Congress under the Spending and Commerce
Clauses, and violates the Tenth Amendment and the
Establishment Clause. RLUIPA imposes strict scrutiny on
federally funded programs or activities that burden the
religious rights of institutionalized persons.
Holding: The Eleventh Circuit, Judge Pryor writing, rule
that Congress did not exceed its authority under the Spending
Clause in enacting Sec. 3 of RLUIPA. The court held that
Congress' spending conditions need meet only a ``minimal
standard of rationality.'' The court found that protecting
religious exercise of prisoners is a rational goal, and the
United States ``has a substantial interest in ensuring that
state prisons that receive federal funds protect the federal
civil rights of prisoners.'' The Eleventh Circuit also
concluded that the statute did not violate the Tenth
Amendment by infringing on areas reserved to the states, nor
did it violate the Establishment Clause. Judge Pryor further
recognized that, ``given the necessarily strict rules that
govern every aspect of prison life, the failure of prison
officials to accommodate religion, even in the absence of
RLUIPA, would not be neutral; it would be hostile to
religion.''
Protecting Civil Rights: Wilson v. B/E Aerospace, Inc., 376
F.3D 1079 (11th Cir. 2004)
When the district court dismissed a female employee's
gender discrimination claims, Judge Pryor reinstated her
claim of bias as to a promotion, and remanded back to the
district court.
Background: Loretta Wilson filed an employment
discrimination action against B/E Aerospace, Inc. (B/E)
alleging sex discrimination in violation of Title VII of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended in 42 U.S.C. sections
2000e et seq., and the Florida Civil Rights Act, Fla. Stat.
sections 760.01 et seq. She claimed that B/E discriminated
against her on the basis of sex by not promoting her to the
position of Site Vice President and by later terminating her.
Procedural Summary: B/E filed a motion for summary judgment
at the conclusion of discovery. The district court granted
the motion in its entirety finding that Wilson failed to both
provide direct evidence of discrimination and establish a
prima facie case of discrimination.
Holding: Judge Pryor, writing for the Eleventh Circuit,
allowed Wilson's case to proceed against the corporation.
Focusing on the two distinct types of conduct alleged--
discrimination in promotion and discharge--the court
concluded that an admission by a supervisor at B/E that
Wilson was ``the obvious choice'' and the ``most qualified''
for the then-pending promotion created a genuine issue of
fact, prompting Judge Pryor to remand as to the failure-to-
promote claim. As to the discharge claim, the court concluded
that Wilson had offered no evidence that her termination was
based on sex.
Protecting Immigrant Rights: Sarmiento-Cisneros v. U.S.
Attorney General, 381 F.3d 1277 (11th Cir. 2004).
Judge Pryor stood up for a Mexican immigrant who desired to
remain in the United States with his family.
By vacating the deportation order, Judge Pryor enabled a
family to remain together and brought a commonsensical
interpretation to the harsh Bureau of Immigration and Customs
Enforcement order.
Background: Jose Sarmiento-Cisneros was an alien from
Mexico who was deported and then reentered the United States
illegally, married an American citizen, and then applied for
an adjustment of status before the effective date of 8 U.S.C.
1231(a)(5). The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(BICE) sought to reinstate a removal order under 8 U.S.C.
1231(a)(5) and argued that the statute's provisions barring
an alien from filing an application for discretionary relief
apply retroactively.
Holding: After examining the statute, Judge Pryor, writing
for the Eleventh Circuit, joined five other circuits in
concluding that 8 U.S.C. 1231(a)(5) does not apply
retroactively. The court therefore granted the petition for
review and vacated the BICE deportation order. Sarmiento
Cisneros was thus able to enjoy discretionary relief
available to him prior to the BICE's rescission of the
previously granted relief.
Protecting Prisoners' Rights: Brown v. Johnson, 387 F.3d
1344 (11th Cir. 2004).
Judge Pryor recognized the need for improved treatment for
an inmate afflicted with HIV, concluding that prison
officials were indifferent to his serious medical needs under
the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
Judge Pryor not only stood up for the prisoner, but enabled
him to proceed in forma pauperis.
Background: John Brown, a prisoner in the Georgia State
Prison, had been prescribed medication for HIV and hepatitis.
Two months after this prescription had been granted, a
different doctor ceased treatment. Eight months later, Brown
filed a Sec. 1983 claim against the second doctor and the
Medical Administrator for the Georgia State Prison alleging
deliberate indifference to his serious medical needs in
violation of the due process clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment and the Eighth Amendment. Additionally, Brown filed
a petition to proceed in forma pauperis.
Procedural Summary: The Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA)
establishes the procedures for courts to use to assess
prisoner complaints brought in forma pauperis. The provision
of the PLRA in question, 28 U.S.C. section 1915(g) (often
referred to as the ``three strikes rule''), bars a prisoner
from proceeding in forma pauperis after he has filed three
meritless lawsuits, unless the prisoner is in imminent danger
of serious medical injury. A magistrate judge recommended
that Brown's petition to proceed in forma pauperis be denied
and that his complaint be dismissed without prejudice because
Brown had filed at least three meritless lawsuits previously,
and had not met the imminent physical injury exception. Brown
then filed timely objections to the recommendation and he
filed a motion to amend his complaint. The district court
denied Brown's motion to amend his complaint because the
complaint was subject to ``three strikes'' dismissal.
Subsequently, the district court adopted the recommendation
of the magistrate judge and dismissed Brown's complaint
without prejudice. Brown then appealed, and the district
court granted him permission to proceed in forma pauperis.
Holding: Judge Pryor, writing for the Eleventh Circuit,
determined that the district court's dismissal of Brown's
motion to amend his complaint under the PLRA, and its
conclusion barring Brown from proceeding in forma pauperis,
were in error. Further, Judge Pryor found that the district
court abused its discretion in denying him the right to amend
his complaint pursuant to FRCP 15. The amended complaint,
sufficiently alleging imminent danger of serious physical
injury under 28 U.S.C. 1915(g), permitted Brown to proceed in
forma pauperis.

[[Page S6273]]

Finally, Judge Pryor found that Brown had stated a valid
claim of deliberate indifference to serious medical needs
under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. Therefore the
district court's judgment was reversed and remanded for
further proceedings, effectively allowing Brown's suit to go
forward, and enabling him to get necessary medical treatment.

(At the request of Mr. Leahy, the following statement was ordered to
be printed in the Record.)
Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I would like to express my
opposition to the nomination of William H. Pryor, Jr., to the Eleventh
Circuit Court of Appeals.
Mr. Pryor has a distinguished legal career. He graduated magna cum
laude from Tulane University Law School, clerked for a judge on the
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, was a law professor at Samford
University, and served as attorney general for the State of Alabama.
While he deserves recognition for his legal background, that alone is
not enough in my estimation to be confirmed for a lifetime appointment
to the Federal bench. In my review of Mr. Pryor's statements, actions,
and writings, I am concerned that Mr. Pryor's personal opinion, rather
than the law, will compel his decisions in some cases.
My areas of concern arise in areas of the law that I have spent my
career working to address, including the environment, reproductive
rights, and gay rights.
On the environment, for example, Mr. Pryor urged the U.S. Supreme
Court to declare unconstitutional Federal efforts to protect wildlife
on private lands under the Endangered Species Act. In regard to this
case, the lower court stated that Mr. Pryor's constitutional arguments
would ``place in peril the entire federal regulatory scheme for
wildlife and natural resource conservation.'' The case is Gibbs v.
Babbitt.
In another important case, Solid Waste Authority of Northern Cook
County v. United States, Mr. Pryor urged the Supreme Court to strike
down Federal efforts to protect waters and wetlands that provide
habitat for migratory birds. Finally, Mr. Pryor has advocated in
testimony before the Senate that States should not be held accountable
in court for failing to enforce minimum Federal standards from the
joint hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and
Public Works and the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, July 16,
2002.
On reproductive rights Mr. Pryor in 1997 called the Roe v. Wade
decision, ``the day seven members of our highest court ripped the
Constitution and ripped out the life of millions of unborn children.''
In a speech during that same year, Mr. Pryor criticized the 1992
Supreme Court decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey by stating that
this decision ``preserved the worst abomination of constitutional law
in our history: Roe v. Wade.''
Finally, during Mr. Pryor's career he has actively worked to oppose
gay rights. In fact, he has gone so far as to seek out cases to file
briefs, or spoken out on the merits of such cases, that have no
connection to the job he was currently performing. For example, even
though Alabama had no similar statute, Mr. Pryor filed an amicus brief
in the Romer v. Evans case supporting Colorado's law prohibiting local
governments from enacting laws protecting gays and lesbians from
discrimination. In addition, despite the fact that the Lawrence v.
Texas case did not involve Alabama law, Mr. Pryor's interest was so
keen that he petitioned the Supreme Court for leave to participate in
the oral argument and filed a brief on the merits of the case.
Some have argued that Mr. Pryor should not be held to all these
briefs and statements because he was just doing his job and protecting
the rights and positions of his client or employer. However, the
problem with this argument is that many of the positions he has taken
have not related to the requirements of the job he was performing, but
were positions he singularly advocated because he believed in them and
sought out cases to express and uphold his beliefs. It is this fact
that concerns me and leads me to believe that Mr. Pryor will use his
personal beliefs rather than settled law to decide cases.
His actions as a recess appointment to the Eleventh Circuit Court of
Appeals have not diminished my concern, especially when Mr. Pryor was
the deciding vote that prohibited the full Eleventh Circuit to consider
the unique Florida law banning gay adoption. Given these facts and Mr.
Pryor's history, I opposed limiting debate on his nomination in 2003,
and continue to do so today.
Unfortunately, I will be necessarily absent for the votes that will
occur related to this nominee. However, I feel it is necessary to
express my position on this important nomination.
Mrs. CLINTON. Mr. President, the nomination of William H. Pryor, Jr.,
to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals is nothing more than a
political promotion cloaked in the thin veil of a judicial nomination.
Judge Pryor has been an active and dutiful soldier in the
administration's systematic assault on the Constitution and individual
rights, effectively making his nomination for a lifetime appointment to
the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals political payback for a job
perceived well done. Given Judge Pryor's disdain for the Constitution
and individual rights, I encourage my colleagues to join me in opposing
Judge Pryor's nomination.
If confirmed for a lifetime appointment to the Eleventh Circuit Court
of Appeals, Judge Pryor would pose an enormous threat to the rights,
protections, and freedoms of all Americans. Judge Pryor's professional
record demonstrates a willingness to contort the law in order to make
it fit his political agenda. During his 7-year tenure as attorney
general of Alabama, Judge Pryor advanced his own personal, conservative
agenda not only through litigation in which Alabama was a party, but
also by filing amicus curiae briefs in cases in which Alabama was
neither an interested party nor under any obligation to participate. As
attorney general of Alabama, Judge Pryor amassed a stunning record
replete with hostility for the rights of Americans and contempt for
constitutionally mandated protections. In addition to attacking the
validity of constitutional freedoms, Judge Pryor advocated for the
dissolution of congressionally required protections intended to
preserve individual rights, to safeguard our environment and to
maintain the barriers that separate church and state.
Judge Pryor has advocated a view that the Constitution does not
harbor some of our most critical individual rights and freedoms. He has
taken the position that these freedoms should be decided by the States,
based on majority vote, regardless of whether constitutional rights are
violated. The danger of this simple thinking is of course to
regionalize the Constitution, making one's constitutional rights
dependent on where one resides. But much more egregious is what this
proposal would do to our Bill of Rights; it effectively makes our
inalienable rights as Americans open to public and political debate.
This surely could not have been what the Framers envisioned when they
drafted our Constitution.
Judge Pryor's general contempt for the Constitution is clear in the
positions he advocated as attorney general of Alabama. In one amicus
brief to the Supreme Court, Judge Pryor defended a State practice of
handcuffing prisoners to a hitching post and exposing them to the hot
sun for 7 hours at a time without water or bathroom breaks. This cruel
and unusual brand of punishment advocated by Judge Pryor was later
rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court, which held that ``the use of the
hitching post under these circumstances violated `the basic concept
underlying the Eighth Amendment, [which] is nothing less than the
dignity of man.' ''
Showing disdain for constitutionally protected reproductive freedom,
Judge Pryor has called Roe v. Wade ``the worst abomination of
constitutional law in our history.'' In this spirit, he has endorsed
the formation of unconstitutional barriers that would thwart the
practice of reproductive freedom, going as far as defending Alabama's
so-called ``partial-birth abortion'' ban despite the fact that it
lacked the constitutionally required exception to protect the health of
the pregnant woman.

But Judge Pryor's attacks against privacy interests are not only
relegated to reproductive rights. Judge Pryor believes that it is
constitutional to imprison gay men and lesbians for having sex in the
privacy of their own homes. In an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court
to uphold Texas' ``Homosexual Conduct'' law, Judge Pryor

[[Page S6274]]

advocated criminalizing homosexual intercourse between consenting
adults, ignoring the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment. In
his brief on behalf of the people of Alabama, Judge Pryor equated sex
between two consenting adults of the same gender with ``activities like
prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child
pornography, and even incest and pedophilia . . .'' This is from a
brief in Support of Respondent at 25, Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558,
2003.
Judge Pryor's disrespect for the rule of law however, is not limited
to his disregard for the Constitution. Judge Pryor has long been a foot
soldier in the conservative movement's attack on the authority of
Congress to enact laws protecting individual and other rights. He and
like-minded conservative ideologues have hidden behind the labels
``States rights'' and ``federalism,'' when what they are truly
advocating is the restriction of Congress to protect Americans' rights
against discrimination and injury based on disability, race, and age.
Again as attorney general of Alabama, Judge Pryor abused his
discretion, making Alabama the only State to file an amicus brief in
support of striking down part of the Violence Against Women Act. As
Alabama's attorney general, Judge Pryor filed briefs calling for the
elimination of protections contained in the Family and Medical Leave
Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Clean Water Act, and
the Endangered Species Act. On two separate occasions, he testified in
Congress against EPA enforcement of the Clean Air Act and against key
provisions of the Voting Rights Act.
In one Supreme Court case in which his office again filed an amicus
brief, Judge Pryor urged the Supreme Court to hold that State employees
cannot sue for damages to protect their rights against discrimination
under the Americans with Disabilities Act. In a narrow 5-to-4 decision,
the Court agreed with Judge Pryor's ``States' rights'' argument. After
the decision, Judge Pryor expressed tremendous satisfaction for his
part in dismantling a portion of one of this generation's seminal
pieces of civil rights legislation. Judge Pryor said he was ``proud''
of his role in ``protecting the hard-earned dollars of Alabama
taxpayers when Congress imposes illegal mandates on our state.''
Americans deserve better than this. They deserve even-tempered
jurists who will not use the bench as a pulpit for the advancement of
their own political agenda. Given Judge Pryor's disregard for
individual rights, the Constitution and congressionally mandated
protections, I cannot in good faith extend my constitutionally required
consent to his nomination, and I encourage my Senate colleagues to
again withhold their support as well.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Thank you, Mr. President.
I would like to discuss the nomination of William Pryor to the
Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. I have closely reviewed Judge
Pryor's record, and based upon it, I believe that Judge Pryor would
have difficulty putting aside his extreme views in interpreting the
law. Consequently, I do not believe that Judge Pryor should be
confirmed to a lifetime appointment on the Eleventh Circuit Court of
Appeals.
Before President Bush's recess appointment of William Pryor to the
Eleventh Circuit in February 2004, Pryor had not been a judge. As a
result, he lacks a record as a sitting judge through which his judicial
temperament and impartiality may be examined. Consequently, one must
look to Judge Pryor's actions and statements throughout his career.
In his career, Judge Pryor has primarily been a politician, and
considering the vehemence with which he has advocated his political
views, I have serious concerns that he can set aside those views and
apply the law in an independent, non-partisan fashion.
First, I want to be very clear about one thing. My objection to
confirming Judge Pryor to a lifetime seat on the Eleventh Circuit Court
of Appeals has nothing to do with Judge Pryor's personal religious
beliefs.
There are those who have been spreading the false statement that some
Democrats vote against judicial nominees because of a nominee's
religious beliefs. And that has been said about me. The majority leader
even had on his Web site a newspaper column that says I voted against
Judge Pryor because of his religious beliefs.
So I went back and I took a look at my statement on the floor, and I
took a look at my statement in the Judiciary Committee markup, and they
are both clear that my concerns with Judge Pryor have nothing to do
with his religious beliefs. As I stated before this body in July of
2003:

Many of us have concerns about nominees sent to the Senate
who feel so very strongly and sometimes stridently and often
intemperately about certain political beliefs, and who make
intemperate statements about those beliefs.

So we raise questions about whether those nominees can truly be
impartial, particularly when the law conflicts with those beliefs.
It is true that abortion rights can often be at the center of these
questions. As a result, accusations have been leveled that, at any time
reproductive choice becomes an issue, it acts as a litmus test against
those whose religion causes them to be anti-choice.
But pro-choice Democrats on the Judiciary Committee have voted for
many nominees who are anti-choice and who believe that abortion should
be illegal--some of whom may . . . have been Catholic. I do not know,
because I have never inquired.
So this is truly not about religion. This is about confirming judges
who can be impartial and fair in the administration of justice.
Before the Judiciary Committee, I said of Judge Pryor that, ``I think
his faith speaks favorably to his nomination and to his commitment to
moral values, which I have no problem with. I would like people in the
judiciary with positive and strong moral values.''
I am troubled that legitimate and serious concerns over Judge Pryor
and other nominees have been brushed aside, and instead it is said that
we on this side are trying to make a case against people of faith. That
simply is not true.
Thomas Jefferson wrote of the establishment clause of the first
amendment, ``I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the
whole American people which declared that their legislature should
`make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the
free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between
church and state.''
The Supreme Court has written that ``the most important of all
aspects of religious freedom in this country is that of the separation
of church and state.''
It is because the separation of church and state ensures religious
freedom, that some of Judge Pryor's actions and statements concern me.
There are those who have minority-held religious views. There are
those who have majority-held religious views. But one of the beautiful
things about America is that it is a pluralistic society and that the
government has stayed out of religion. The founding fathers, looking at
the history of Europe, recognized the sectarian strife and religious
oppression that can arise from favoring one religion over another. They
came here and they founded a government where there was to be a
distinct line drawn between government and religion, and it has served
this country well.
So when people confuse arguments that are made to support the
separation of religion and government with an opposition to people of
faith, they could not be more wrong. And I think this has to be made
increasingly clear. We've all seen the inflammatory ads. We've all
heard the commercials.
I hope that a more responsible tone will be struck, because the value
of the separation between church and state is based on the fact that
once that bright line is broken, what one has to grapple with is which
religion do you put in the courtroom? Which religion do you allow to be
celebrated in a governmental framework?
If the separation of church and state, that has been a part of this
nation since its founding, is abolished, these become very real and
very disturbing questions.
Accordingly, I am extremely concerned by Judge Pryor's actions and
statements promoting the erosion of the division between church and
state.
As deputy attorney general and attorney general of Alabama, Judge
Pryor vigorously defended the display of a statue of the Ten
Commandments

[[Page S6275]]

in the Alabama supreme court. However, when questioned about whether it
would be constitutional to display religious artifacts or symbols from
other religions in the court room, Pryor was noticeably silent.
According to an April 4, 1997 Associated Press account, Pryor said
that ``the State has no position on whether the Alabama supreme court
Chief Judge's right to pray and have a religious display in his
courtroom extends to people of other faiths.'' That Judge Pryor did not
take that opportunity to make clear that all religions are equal before
our courts is distressing.
Also while Deputy Attorney General, Judge Pryor defended the Alabama
supreme court Chief Judge's practice of having Christian clergymen give
prayers when jurors first assembled in his courtroom for a trial. Judge
Pryor sought to have an Alabama trial judge declare this practice
constitutional under the U.S. and Alabama constitutions. The trial
judge ruled against Pryor, concluding that the prayer was
unconstitutional.
The judge cited the Chief Judge's own statements that ``acknowledged
that through prayer in his court, he is promoting religion.'' Pryor's
decision to pursue this case despite the Chief Justice's own admission
that the prayer was intended to promote religion--thereby violating the
establishment clause of the Constitution--is perplexing.
It is imperative that our judges--particularly judges on our Courts
of Appeals--respect and follow the law, especially the Constitution. I
do not believe that a lawyer with Judge Pryor's record of consistent
attacks on the establishment clause and the separation of church and
state enshrined therein should be given a lifetime appointment to the
Eleventh Circuit.
Another concern I have with Judge Pryor is the extreme positions he
has advocated regarding a woman's right to choose. I have voted for
numerous anti-choice judicial nominees. However, Judge Pryor's
positions are beyond the mainstream even of those who oppose the right
to choose. Furthermore, his incendiary remarks on the subject
demonstrate not only a lack of appropriate judicial temperament, but a
lack of respect for the Supreme Court.
Judge Pryor opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest and
supports an exception only where a woman's life is endangered. He has
called Roe v. Wade ``the worst abomination of constitutional law in our
history,'' and said, ``I will never forget January 22, 1973, the day
seven members of our highest court ripped the Constitution and ripped
out the life of millions of unborn children.''
As attorney general of Alabama, Judge Pryor called Roe and Miranda v.
Arizona, the well known Supreme Court decision requiring that criminal
defendants be informed of their right to remain silent, ``the worst
examples of judicial activism.'' This depth of hostility to the
established precedent of the Supreme Court is disquieting in an
appellate court nominee.
At his confirmation hearing, Judge Pryor had the opportunity to
clarify or step back from these inflammatory remarks. Nevertheless, he
stood by his statement that Roe is the ``worst abomination of
constitutional law in our history''--worse than Plessy v. Ferguson, the
decision upholding segregation, the Dred Scott decision, which denied
citizenship and court access to all slaves and their descendants, or
the Korematsu case, validating the government's internment of Japanese
citizens during World War II.
That a nominee for a court just below the Supreme Court believes that
an existing precedent of the Supreme Court protecting a woman's right
to choose is worse than long discredited decisions denying blacks
citizenship or permitting segregation is deeply disturbing and out of
line with the last hundred years of American jurisprudence.
In statements addressing the scope of Federal Government, Judge Pryor
has promoted a role so limited that the Federal Government would be
forced to abdicate many of its central responsibilities. For example,
he has stated that Congress ``should not be in the business of public
education nor the control of street crime.''
I do not believe that the Federal Government should ignore critical
matters like education and crime, and neither do most Americans.
However, my larger concern is not that Judge Pryor's position is
contrary to my viewpoint or even that it is contrary to the views of
most Americans, but that it is contrary to binding Supreme Court
precedent establishing the breadth of the Federal Government's powers.
This extremely limited view of the role of Federal Government is
reflected in the positions Judge Pryor has taken on a number of
important issues.
Testifying before the Judiciary Committee as attorney general of
Alabama in 1997, Judge Pryor urged the repeal of Section 5 of the
Voting Rights Act, calling it an ``affront to federalism, and an
expensive burden that has far outlived its usefulness.''
Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act requires any changes in voting
laws in states with a specific history of voting discrimination to be
pre-cleared by the Justice Department or the Federal District Court in
Washington. D.C. to ensure they have no discriminatory purpose or
effect. In this way, Section 5 of the Votings Rights Act has been a
critical tool in guaranteeing the voting rights of minorities.
Today, Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act continues to ensure voting
rights. In the last ten years, Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act has
been applied in more than a half-dozen states to ensure that districts
are not redrawn to intentionally dilute minority votes and that polling
places are not moved for the primary purpose of discouraging minority
voting.
Judge Pryor's strong criticism of this important safeguard of civil
rights, particularly on federalism grounds--meaning he believes that
the Federal Government has no right to intervene, even where a
citizen's right to vote is threatened--concerns me.
One of Judge Pryor's legacies as attorney general of Alabama is his
effort to weaken and undermine the Americans with Disabilities Act,
passed in 1990 to protect the rights of the disabled. For example, in
Tennessee v. Lane, Pryor, then attorney general of Alabama, submitted
an amicus brief seeking to deny a disabled defendant access to his own
trial.
Pryor argued that the constitutional guarantees of equal protection
and due process ``do not require a State to provide unassisted access
to public buildings'' and even took the extraordinary position that
there is no absolute right for a defendant to be present at his own
criminal trial, stating that ``even as to parties in legal proceedings,
there is no absolute right to attendance.'' The Supreme Court rejected
these extreme positions advocated by Pryor.
Pryor's repeated attempts to use judicial means to undo the
legislation protecting basic civil rights raise questions about both
his willingness to protect individual's civil rights and his propensity
to judicial activism-- using the courts as a partisan vehicle to undo
legislation he does not support.
Supporters of Judge Pryor's nomination point to his brief record as a
recess appointee to the Eleventh Circuit as evidence of Judge Pryor's
ability to set aside his strong political views. While Judge Pryor, in
his short tenure on the Eleventh Circuit has not authored any
particularly controversial opinions, decisions he has written addressed
what are largely technical and uncontroversial legal issues.
Judge Pryor's brief stint as a recess appointee may or may not offer
a representative preview of the opinions he would render as a lifetime
member of the Eleventh Circuit.
Ultimately, my concern is that Judge Pryor does not display the
dispassionate, independent view that we want from our judges. While in
private practice, Pryor's commitment to the Republican Party apparently
interfered with his representation of clients. Valstene Stabler, a
partner at the Birmingham firm of Walston, Stabler, Wells, Anderson &
Baines, described Pryor as being ``so interested in what the Republican
Party was doing in the state, he was having trouble devoting attention
to his private clients.''
A Washington Post editorial observed that:

Mr. Pryor's speeches display a disturbingly politicized
view of the role of the courts. He has suggested that
impeachment is an appropriate remedy for judges who
``repeatedly and recklessly . . . overturn popular will and .
. . rewrite constitutional law.'' And he talks publicly about
judging in the vulgarly political terms of the current
judicial culture

[[Page S6276]]

war. He concluded one speech, for example, with the following
prayer: ``Please, God, no more Souters'' a reference to the
betrayal many conservatives feel at the honorable career of
Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter.

Republicans who have worked with Judge Pryor have voiced concerns
over his ability to be an independent, non-partisan judge. Grant Woods,
the former Republican attorney general of Arizona said that ``he would
have great question of whether Mr. Pryor has an ability to be non-
partisan. I would say he was probably the most doctrinaire and most
partisan of any attorney general I dealt with in 8 years. So I think
people would be wise to question whether or not he's the right person
to be non-partisan on the bench.''
A judge must be able to set aside his views and apply the law evenly
and fairly to all. Mr. Pryor's intemperate legal and political beliefs,
and his strident statements and actions in furtherance of those
beliefs, have led me to question whether he can be truly impartial.
Aside from his brief tenure on the Eleventh Circuit as a recess
appointee, Judge Pryor has no judicial record upon which to evaluate
him. Consequently, we must consider his fitness for the Eleventh
Circuit on the basis of his actions and statements as deputy attorney
general and attorney general of Alabama. Looking back on this highly
partisan and controversial tenure, I cannot vote for Judge Pryor's
confirmation to a lifetime appointment on the Eleventh Circuit Court of
Appeals.
Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, I rise today to express my continued
opposition to the nomination of William Pryor to be a judge on the
Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Pryor's record was extensively
considered and examined by the Senate when he was first nominated for
this position in 2003. After he failed to obtain confirmation,
President Bush used a recess appointment to appoint him to the Eleventh
Circuit, an appointment that will expire at the end of the year, and
now has renominated him to a permanent seat on the court. I find no
reason today to alter my earlier conclusion that his record of
extremism makes clear that he falls far outside the mainstream, and
that I have no choice but to vote against his confirmation.
When considering a nominee to a Federal court judgeship, we consider
many things. The nominee should possess exemplary legal skills,
judgment, and acumen. The nominee should be learned in the law. And the
nominee should be well regarded among his peers, and in his or her
community. Perhaps most important of all is the nominee's judicial
temperament.
An appeals court judge's solemn duty and paramount obligation is to
do justice fairly, impartially and without favor. An appeals court
judge must be judicious--that is, he or she must be open minded, must
be willing to set his personal preferences aside, and judge without
predisposition. And, of course, he or she must follow controlling
precedent faithfully, and be able to disregard completely any views he
or she holds to the contrary.
In the case of Judge Pryor, we are presented with a nominee whose
views are so extreme that he fails this basic test. In case after case,
and on issue after issue, Judge Pryor compiled a public record as
Alabama's attorney general of taking the most extreme positions, often
at odds with controlling Supreme Court precedent, and in the most hard-
line and inflexible manner.
Judge Pryor's views are outside of the mainstream on issues affecting
civil rights, women's rights, disability rights, religious freedom, and
the right to privacy. During his confirmation hearings at the Judiciary
Committee 2 years ago, he assured us that despite these views, he would
follow settled law and Supreme Court precedent. But he made this
promise only after making extreme statements to the Committee and
during his hearing and refusing to disavow other zealous positions that
he has taken throughout his career. I concluded then--and do not
believe differently now--that I had no basis to believe Judge Pryor
could put his personal views aside and apply the law of the land as
decided by the Supreme Court.
Judge Pryor's supporters argue that his record in the year since he
has sat as a judge on the Eleventh Circuit as a recess appointee
demonstrates that he is worthy of confirmation. Yet, in each of the
decisions that his supporters rely on for this judgment, Judge Pryor
joined unanimous panels in supporting results virtually mandated by
controlling precedent. Much more relevant than Judge Pryor's short and
temporary tenure on the Eleventh Circuit is his record during all the
years of his professional career prior to his recess appointment,
especially his seven years of service as Alabama's attorney general, as
well as his testimony before our committee in 2003.
And his record of extremism and ideologically motivated decision
making during his years as attorney general could not be more clear.
While attorney general of Alabama, Judge Pryor actively sought out
cases where he could expand on his cramped view of federalism and
challenge the ability of the Federal Government to remedy
discriminatory practices. Many of the cases in which he took his most
extreme legal positions were on behalf of the State of Alabama where he
had the sole decision under State law as to what legal position to
assert. These cases include his assertion of federalism claims to
defeat provisions of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and the
Americans With Disabilities Act; his opposition to Congress's authority
to provide victims of gender-motivated violence to sue their attackers
in federal court; his argument that Congress exceeded its authority in
passing the Family and Medical Leave Act; and many other cases. The
extreme legal positions advanced in these cases were fully and entirely
the responsibility of this nominee while he served as Alabama's
attorney general.
Of course, Judge Pryor has every right to hold his views, whether we
agree with him or not. He can run for office and serve in the
legislative or executive branches should he convince a majority of his
fellow Alabamians that he is fit to represent them. But he has no right
to be a federal appeals court judge. Only those who we are convinced
are impartial, unbiased, fair, and whose only guiding ideology is to
follow the Constitution to apply equal justice to all are fit for this
position. Unfortunately, we can have no confidence that he will set
these views aside and faithfully follow the Constitution and binding
precedent. For these reasons, I must oppose his confirmation.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the time
from 3:15 until 3:30 shall be under the control of the Democrats, and
the time from 3:30 until 3:45 shall be under the control of the
Democratic leader.
The Senator from Nevada.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, the time I have left over from the 15
minutes that is from 3:30 to 3:45 I will leave to Senator Leahy. I am
going to use part of his time now.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I rise to express my strong opposition to
the nomination of William Pryor to the Eleventh Circuit Court of
Appeals.
At the outset, let me note the unusual fact that we are considering
whether to confirm this nominee to a court on which he has been sitting
for over a year as a recess appointee. In my view) this nomination is
entitled to no special deference as a result of the nominee's status as
a sitting federal judge.
There are serious constitutional questions about the validity of Mr.
Pryor's recess appointment, and his confirmation at this time does not
answer those questions with regard to cases heard by this or other
recess appointees. Nor should it embolden President Bush to continue
the questionable practice of appointing judges without the advice and
consent of the Senate.
I oppose this nominee because his views on a wide range of vital
issues are far outside the mainstream of legal thought, and I question
his ability to put those views aside to decide cases impartially.
I said during the floor debate yesterday that Janice Rogers Brown is
President Bush's most objectionable nominee. But I want to be clear: on
the critical issue of civil rights, William Pryor holds views that are
equally offensive as those of Justice Brown. The Pryor nomination
deserves to be defeated just as the Brown nomination deserved to be
defeated.

[[Page S6277]]

Any analysis of Mr. Pryor's judicial philosophy should begin with his
views on federalism. This nominee has been a self-styled leader of the
so-called federalism revolution conservative legal circles, a movement
that challenges the authority of Congress to remedy civil rights
violations.
Now, I am certainly thankful that the Framers of the Constitution had
the wisdom to create a Federal system that divided power between the
national and State governments. But for Mr. Pryor, the word
``federalism'' is more than that--it is a code word or a systematic
effort to undermine important Federal protections for the disabled, the
aged, women, minorities, labor, and the environment.
While attorney general of Alabama, Pryor told a Federalist Society
conference that Congress:

should not be in the business of public education nor the
control of street crimes . . . With real federalism, Congress
would . . . make free trade its main domestic concern.
Congress would not be allowed to subvert the commerce clause
to regulate crime, education, land use, family relations, or
social policy . . .

One proponent of the federalism movement is Michael Greve, a
conservative scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Greve told
the New York Times that:

what is really needed here is a fundamental intellectual
assault on the entire New Deal edifice.

Greve said he thinks this attack on the New Deal will get a good
hearing from judges like William Pryor. Greve says of Pryor:

[he] is the key to this puzzle; there's nobody like him.

Let's look at some of the bedrock laws that Mr. Pryor has challenged
under the banner of federalism. Mr. Pryor has argued that the Federal
courts should narrow, or throw out entirely, all or portions of the
Americans with Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment
Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Clean Water Act, the Fair Labor
Standards Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Violence Against
Women Act, and the Voting Rights Act.

What would America look like if this federalist revolution were to
take hold in the Federal courts? University of Chicago Law Professor
Cass Sunstein describes it well:

Many decisions of the Federal Communications Commission,
the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety
and Health Administration and possibly the National Labor
Relations Board would be unconstitutional. It would mean that
the Social Security Act would not only be under political but
also constitutional stress . . . the Securities and Exchange
Commission and maybe even the Federal Reserve would be in
trouble. Some applications or the Endangered Species Act and
Clean Water Act would be struck down as beyond Congress's
commerce power.

As attorney general of Alabama, Pryor had the sole power to decide
what legal action the State and its agencies would take, and he used
that power to file ``friend of the court'' briefs attacking many of
these statutes. In fact, Alabama was the only State to file a brief
against the Violence Against Women Act, while 36 States submitted
briefs in support of the statute--which had passed Congress with
bipartisan support.
With regard to the Voting Rights Act, Mr. Pryor had the following to
say when he testified before Congress in 1997:

I encourage you to consider seriously, for example, the
repeal or amendment of section 5 of the Voting Rights Act,
which is an affront to federalism and an expensive burden
that has far outlived its usefulness, and consider modifying
other provisions of the Act that have led to extraordinary
abuses of judicial power.

The Voting Rights Act is still of vital importance, and section 5 is
one of its most important sections. I have grave concerns that if Mr.
Pryor cannot understand the continuing need for voting rights
protections for minorities, he is unlikely to rigorously enforce the
act in cases before the Circuit. This is especially important since all
of the States within the circuit are covered, in whole or in part, by
Section 5.
Mr. Pryor has waged an assault on other civil rights laws. In the
case of Alexander v. Sandoval, Pryor filed a brief for Alabama which
urged the Court to drastically restrict title VI of the Civil Rights
Act, which bars discrimination in federally funded programs. In a 5-to-
4 opinion written by Justice Scalia, the Supreme Court agreed with
Pryor and held that there is no private right of action to enforce
title VI regulations. This ruling was a dramatic setback for the civil
rights movement and continues to impede the enforcement of civil rights
laws.
While five Supreme Court Justices agreed with Pryor about title VI,
his outside-the-mainstream views have often been rejected by the
current conservative Supreme Court. In fact, the Court unanimously
rejected three of Mr. Pryor's federalism arguments: that sovereign
immunity applies not only to States but to counties; that the Americans
with Disabilities Act does not apply to State prisons; and that a law
barring a State from selling the personal information of its citizens
without permission is unconstitutional.
It is no wonder that the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, in an
editorial entitled ``Right-wing Zealot is Unfit to Judge,'' wrote that
Mr. Pryor's nomination:

is an affront to the basic premise that a candidate for the
federal bench must exhibit respect for established
constitutional principles and individual liberties. Pryor may
be a good lawyer and a faithful Republican, but his lifelong
extremism disqualifies him for a federal judgeship.

And there is more.
There is Mr. Pryor's view of the equal protection clause, which led
him to oppose a 7-to-1 ruling by the Supreme Court that opened the
Virginia Military Institute, a State-funded university, to women.
Predictably, Mr. Pryor called that case an example of the Supreme Court
being ``both anti-democratic and insensitive to federalism.''
There is Mr. Pryor's contempt for what he called the ``so-called wall
of separation between church and state'' and his belief that this
important doctrine was created by ``errors of case law.'' In fact, Mr.
Pryor remarked at a graduation ceremony that ``the challenge of the
next millennium will be to preserve the American experiment by
restoring its Christian perspective.''
There is his view of the Constitution's prohibition on cruel and
unusual punishment. The Supreme Court--which has not exactly been
liberal on this issue--rejected Mr. Pryor's argument that prison guards
could handcuff prisoners to a hitching post in the Alabama sun and deny
them bathroom breaks or water. It also rejected his argument that it is
permissible to execute the mentally retarded. It also rejected his
argument that counsel need not be provided to indigent defendants
charged with a misdemeanor that carries a jail sentence.
Is this the kind of judge we want to confirm to a lifetime seat on a
Federal appellate court?
Do we want a judge who, when the Supreme Court questioned the
constitutionality of Alabama's use of the electric chair in 2000,
lashed out at the Court by saying ``[T]his issue should not be decided
by nine octogenarian lawyers who happen to sit on the U.S. Supreme
Court''?
Do we want a judge who, on the day after the Supreme Court's final
ruling in Bush v. Gore, said:

I'm probably the only one who wanted it 5-4. I wanted
Governor Bush to have a full appreciation of the judiciary
and judicial selection so we can have no more appointments
like Justice Souter.

On another occasion he said:

Please God, no more Souters.

This kind of temperament served Pryor well as a Republican
politician, but this doesn't represent the kind of judicial temperament
we want on the Federal bench.
The Senate must exercise its advice and consent responsibility with
great care. In fact, we should follow Mr. Pryor's own advice. He once
told a Senate subcommittee that:

your role of advice and consent in judicial nominations
cannot be overstated.

I agree with him on that point. For these reasons, I urge my
colleagues to withhold the in consent to this very unacceptable
nomination.
Mr. President, I apologize to my friend. Since he was not here, I
used my time a little early. So the record is clear, my friend is the
great Senator Pat Leahy from Vermont.
Mr. LEAHY. I thank the Senator.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

[[Page S6278]]

Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, how much time is available?
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the
Senator from Vermont has such time until 3:45 remaining.
Mr. LEAHY. I appreciate that.
Mr. President, last month 80 American service men and women died in
Iraq, along with more than 700 Iraqis. This week, there are reports
that the Army National Guard and the Marines are not meeting their
recruitment goals, in spite of the bonuses and benefits being offered.
The price of gasoline, prescription drugs, health care, and so many
essentials for American working families are rising a lot faster than
their wages. This week, the Washington Times reported that the rate of
increase in the Consumer Price Index doubled in the last year. This
week, we have learned that General Motors has planned to lay off
another 25,000 workers and that other companies are not expanding or
are, even worse, downsizing. The report of only 78,000 jobs created
last month puts us back to the dismal levels that have characterized so
many months during this administration. A loss of our manufacturing
jobs continues at a steady drip. Millions are suffering and dying in
Africa. The British Prime Minister visited to urge greater efforts to
help.
But, of course, we debated none of these issues in the Senate. The
Republican leadership continued to force us to expend our precious days
debating something else. And what is that? The Senate's time has been
focused not on these things that touch the pocketbooks of Americans but
almost exclusively on this administration's divisive and contentious
judicial nominees.
Over the last several months, and for many days and weeks over the
last few years, the work of the Senate has been laid aside by the
Republican leadership to force debate after debate on divisive
nominations, on people who are going to be paid almost $200,000 a year
in lifetime jobs. Those who are barely able to make their week's rent
or their month's mortgage ask what we are doing in the Senate.
Among the matters the Senate has neglected this week in order to
devote its attention to these nominations are many issues that concern
the American people. One matter is the consideration and passage of the
NOPEC bill. It is bipartisan legislation. It affects all Americans,
Republicans and Democrats. Senator DeWine, a Republican of Ohio,
Senator Kohl, a Democrat of Wisconsin, are key sponsors. The sponsors
of the bill include Senator Grassley, Senator Specter, Senator Coburn,
and Senator Snowe.
With an increase in gasoline prices of almost 50 percent during the
four years of the Bush Presidency, with Americans having to pay so much
more to drive to work, to get their kids to school, just to get around
to conduct the daily business of their lives, the Republican leadership
of the Senate is ignoring this substantial burden on American working
families.
This week, the national average price for a gallon of regular
gasoline was $2.12. When the President took office, it was $1.46. We
just heard reports that in Vermont and New Hampshire home heating oil
prices will be up another 30 percent this fall and winter.
The artificial pricing scheme enforced by OPEC affects all of us, and
it is especially tough on our hard-working Vermont farmers. Rising
energy expenses can add thousands of dollars a year to the costs of
operating a 100-head dairy operation, a price that could mean the
difference between keeping the family business alive for another
generation or shutting it down.
With summer coming, many families are going to find that OPEC has put
an expensive crimp in their vacation plans. Some are likely to stay
home; others will pay more to drive or to fly so that they can visit
their families or take their well-deserved vacations.
Americans deserve better. If the White House is not going to
intervene, then Congress has to act. It is past time--it is past the
time--for holding hands and exchanging kisses with Saudi princes,
princes who have artificially inflated the price of gasoline. The
President's jawboning with his close friends in Saudi Arabia has proven
unsuccessful. It is time to act, but the Senate, under Republican
leadership, is choosing instead to revisit another extreme judicial
nomination, one that has already been considered.

The production quota set by OPEC continues to take a debilitating
toll on our economy, our families, our businesses, industry, and
farmers. Last year and again earlier this year, the Judiciary Committee
voted to report favorably to the full Senate the bipartisan NOPEC bill,
which is short for No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act. Our
legislation would apply America's antitrust laws to OPEC's anti-
competitive cartel. It would prohibit foreign states from working
together to limit production and set prices, restrain the trading of
petroleum and natural gas, when such actions affect the United States.
It would give the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade
Commission authority to enforce the law through antitrust actions in
Federal courts.
Why not give the Justice Department clear authority to use our
antitrust laws against the anti-competitive, anti-consumer conduct in
which the OPEC cartel is engaged here in the United States?
This bipartisan bill was reported by the Judiciary Committee more
than a year ago, in April of last year. It was reintroduced this year
and reported, again, in April of this year. It has been stalled on the
Senate Business Calendar for too long. It is a bipartisan initiative
that could help in the fight to reduce gasoline prices now and heating
oil prices in the fall and winter. It deserves a vote. Why not have an
up or down vote on this measure without further delay by the Republican
leadership? Why can't we do that when we have seen gasoline go from
$1.46 to $2.12 in this President's administration? No, instead we spend
weeks and months, not passing legislation that would win the support of
a majority of Republicans and Democrats, but talking about a handful of
people who are going to get lifetime, well-paid jobs.
Another consequence of the Republican leadership's fixation on
carrying out this President's attempt to pack the Federal courts with
activist jurists may be much-needed asbestos compensation reform. For
more than 3 years, I have been working on asbestos reform to provide
compensation to asbestos victims in a fair and more expedited fashion.
Chairman Specter and I have worked closely on S. 852, the FAIR Act. It,
too, is pending on the Senate Business Calendar, even though it was
voted out in a bipartisan effort last month.
Chairman Specter deserves enormous credit for this achievement, even
though we were slowed significantly by the extensive debate on
contentious nominees and the nuclear option the past few months. We
have been working in good faith to achieve a bipartisan legislative
process on this issue. We have done so, despite criticism from the left
and the right. In fact, after the bill was successfully reported by the
committee, Senator Hatch called it the most important measure the
Senate would consider this year for the American economy. Are we
debating it on the floor? No. We are debating a handful of right-wing
activist judges for lifetime, highly paid jobs.
There are many items that need prompt attention. The Armed Services
Committee completed its work on the Department of Defense authorization
bill. But we are seeing the Republican leadership delay action on the
Defense authorization bill at a time when we have so many of our men
and women under arms overseas. I don't know why they are doing it,
unless it is to allow more activist judges to come through. At a time
when we have young men and women serving their country around the
world, and we are talking about the recently recommended base closings,
I would have thought the Defense authorization would be more of a
priority than three or four activist judges.
The Senate Energy Committee successfully completed its consideration
of an Energy bill, and it was reported to the Senate with a strong
bipartisan majority. Despite its balance and a bipartisan vote, the
Senate Republican leadership said, no, we can't talk about it. We have
to talk about a couple more right-wing activist judges.

[[Page S6279]]

Another matter that deserves timely attention is the Stem Cell
Research Enhancement Act which was just passed by the House of
Representatives. It is another bipartisan effort that deserves our
attention. It had 200 House sponsors, led by Congressman Castle and
Congresswoman DeGette. It passed with 238 votes. It is critically
important. It authorizes work on embryonic stem cells which otherwise
would be discarded, work which holds great promise and hope for those
families suffering from debilitating disease and injury. More effective
treatments for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, for spinal
cord injuries, for many other diseases are all possibilities. Why are
we not debating that? We have three or four more activist right-wing
judgeships for lifetime, highly paid positions. That is far more
important than stem cell research.
While the administration continues to talk about its efforts to
weaken Social Security, there is bipartisan legislation we should be
considering, the Social Security Fairness Act. Are we going to talk
about that? No. Will we talk about the fact that the administration is
raiding the Social Security fund to pay for their war in Iraq? That is
something they don't want to talk about. They want to talk about Social
Security failing, but they don't talk about the fact that they have to
take the money out of the Social Security fund to pay for the war in
Iraq. We can't talk about the Social Security Fairness Act here on the
floor because we have to take the time for three or four more right-
wing activist judges.
The bill I talked about is a bill that Republican and Democratic
Senators have cosponsored over the years to protect the Social Security
retirement of police officers. Those on the front lines protecting all
of us from crime and violence should not see their Social Security
benefits reduced. That needs fixing. We could have done that easily
this week. But, no, we can't protect our police officers. Instead, we
will make sure that a handful of right-wing activist judges get highly
paid lifetime jobs.

These are merely examples of some of the business matters the
Republican majority of the Senate has cast aside to force more debate
on more contentious nominees. The Senate could be making significant
legislative progress on an agenda that would result in much-needed and
tangible relief to the American people on a number of important fronts.
We could be acting to lower gas prices, authorize actions against
illegal cartels, make asbestos compensation efficient and effective,
authorize vital scientific research, provide fairness to police
officers and to make health care more affordable, create new and better
jobs and give our veterans and their families the support they need and
deserve. Instead, the Republican leadership of the Senate continues its
narrow focus on helping this Administration pack the federal courts
with extreme nominees.
For more than four years, we have seen the Republican congressional
leadership and the administration ignore the problems of Americans with
a single-minded effort to pack and control the Federal courts.
Unemployment, gas prices, the number of uninsured, the Nation's budget,
the trade deficit were all lower when President Bush assumed office.
Through Republican Senate obstruction of more than 60 of President
Clinton's moderate and qualified judicial nominees, more than 60 of
President Clinton's nominees who were subjected to a pocket filibuster
by Republicans, judicial vacancies went up. But let's take a look.
Since President Bush came in, what are the things that have gone up?
Unemployment has gone up 21 percent. Since President Bush came in, what
has gone up? The budget deficit has gone up. It has gone from a $236
billion surplus under President Clinton to a $427 billion deficit under
President Bush--$663 billion down the rat hole. What else has gone up?
The price of gas has gone from $1.42 to $2.10. That is not helping the
average American. Let's take a look at the trade deficit. It has gone
up from $36 billion to $55 billion. How about the percentage of the
uninsured? That has gone up another 10 percent.
But the full-time, highly paid positions of judgeships is the one
thing that has come down. Judicial vacancies have come down 49 percent.
It seems that is far more important than seeing projected trillions
of dollars in surpluses go to trillions of dollars in projected
deficits, far more important than the problem we create when we allow
the Saudis, the Chinese, the South Koreans, the Japanese, and others to
pay our bills but then be able to manipulate our economy. It seems
wrong.
We helped the President confirm a record number of his judges, but we
Democrats would like to see us talk about the people who are out of
work, the price of gasoline, the huge deficits that have been created
by this presidency.
We know that yesterday the Senate confirmed Janice Rogers Brown to
the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, despite the fact she is a
divisive and controversial nominee. She was opposed by both her home
State Senators because she had a record so extreme it marked her as one
of the most activist judicial nominees ever chosen by any President.
In the past, when both Senators from a nominee's State opposed them,
the person, even if highly qualified, would be turned down. In this
case, we have somebody who is not qualified, an activist judge opposed
by both of her State's Senators, who still passed. I mention that
because I remember Justice Ronnie White, now the first African American
to serve as Chief Justice of the Missouri Supreme Court. When the two
Senators from his home State, Republican Senators, said they were
opposed to him, what happened? In 1999, every Republican Senator came
on to the floor and voted down Justice Ronnie White, even though he had
been voted out of the Judiciary Committee with heavy support. They
said: Whoops, he may be this distinguished African-American jurist from
Missouri. But we have two Senators from his State who oppose him so we
will vote him down. And they did.

But yesterday, what a difference. What a difference if you have a
Republican in the White House. Those same Republican Senators, joined
by new Republican Senators, the same Republican Senators who told me,
``We know that Justice Ronnie White is well qualified, but, after all,
we have to follow the fact that the two Senators from his State say
they don't want him, so we have to vote him down,'' those same Senators
come up here and meekly come in, in lockstep, and vote for Judge Brown,
even though the two home-state Senators, for very good reasons, opposed
her.
Last week, all but one Republican Senator voted to confirm Priscilla
Owen.
Yesterday's vote on the Brown nomination apparently indicates
Republican Party discipline has been restored. For all the talk about
profiles in courage and Senators voting their conscience, the
Republican majority has reduced the Senate to a rubberstamp of this
President's extreme and activist nominees. Even though Senators will
tell you privately they would vote against this person if it was secret
ballot, the White House tells them what to do.
William Pryor has argued that Federal courts should cut back on the
protections of important and well-supported Federal laws, including the
Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Americans with Disabilities
Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Clean Water Act, the Violence
Against Women Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act. That should be
enough to vote against him, but it won't be, not with this rubberstamp.
He has repudiated decades of legal precedents that permitted
individuals to sue States to prevent violations of Federal civil rights
regulations. Is that going to cause us to vote him down? Heck no.
His aggressive involvement in the Federalist revolution shows he is a
goals-oriented activist who has used his official position to advance
his cause. While his advocacy is a sign to most people of the
extremism, he trumpets his involvement. He is unabashedly proud of his
repeated work to limit congressional authority to promote the health,
safety, and welfare of all Americans.
His passion is not some obscure legal theory but a legal crusade that
has driven his actions since he was a student and something that guides
his actions as a lawyer. His speeches and his testimony before Congress
demonstrate just how rooted his views are, how much he wants to effect
a fundamental change in this country.

[[Page S6280]]

Just remember this: These judicial nominees are being confirmed for
life. They do not leave or get reconsidered after the congressional
elections next year or after this administration ends. They serve as
lifetime appointments to the Federal court.
It is one thing for us to ignore all the things we should be doing
for the American people, but I urge all Senators, on both sides of the
aisle, to end this up-or-down rubberstamp, fulfill the Senate's
constitutionally mandated duty to evaluate with clear eyes the fitness
of judicial nominees, even President Bush's nominees, when they are for
lifetime appointments. Stop telling me privately how you would vote if
it was a secret ballot. Have the courage to vote in an open ballot the
same way.
In the last Congress, following one of the most divisive debates I
have seen on the floor of the Senate, I explained why I felt strongly
about voting against the nomination of William Pryor to the U.S. Court
of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit--in committee and in two
unsuccessful cloture attempts. The President disregarded the advice
given to him by the Senators opposing this nomination, and he installed
Mr. Pryor as a recess-appointed judge on the Eleventh Circuit where he
will serve until the end of this year. Today, because the President
continues to insist on pushing his most divisive nominees in a group
that he renominated to the Senate, we are here voting yet one more time
on this nomination.
I expect some will try to point to the few cases he has worked on
during his time ``auditioning'' on the circuit court as evidence that
he should be confirmed. But nothing Judge Pryor has done in the
intervening period has changed my view that based on his entire career
and record, if he were to receive life tenure on the Federal bench, he
would put ideology above the law. I cannot support him.
In the course of their march toward the ``nuclear option''--a
development thankfully averted--the President and the Republican
leadership escalated the rhetoric surrounding this issue in alarming
ways. The majority leader last month participated in a telecast
smearing opponents of the most extreme judicial nominees as ``against
people of faith.'' Arrayed behind the podium at that gathering were
photos of the filibustered nominees, and speaker after speaker accused
Democrats of opposing nominees such as Judge Pryor because of his
faith. These are baseless and despicable accusations, and it is time
the Republican leadership and other Republicans in and out of the
Senate disavow them.
Senate Democrats do not oppose William Pryor because of his faith. We
oppose the nomination of William Pryor to the Eleventh Circuit because
of his extreme--some, with good reason, use the word ``radical''--ideas
about what the Constitution says about federalism, criminal justice and
the death penalty, violence against women, the Americans with
Disabilities Act, and the Government's ability to protect the
environment on behalf of the American people. Of course, those
substantive concerns will not do much to advance Republicans' political
ambitions and the agendas of polarizing interest groups. So some
Republican partisans are putting the truth to one side. They dismiss
the views of Democratic Senators doing their duty under the
Constitution to examine the fitness of every nominee to a lifetime
position on the Federal bench and choose, instead, to use smears and
accusations.
The last time Judge Pryor came before this committee and the Senate,
slanderous accusations were made by Republican Senators, and scurrilous
newspaper advertisements were run by a group headed by the President's
father's former White House counsel and a group whose funding includes
money raised by Republican Senators and even by the President's family.
Other Republican members of the Judiciary Committee and of the Senate
stood mute in the face of these McCarthyite charges, or, worse, fed the
flames. Now, the same type of rhetoric--identifying opponents as
against faith--has again reared its ugly head.
This kind of religious smear campaign hurts the whole country. It
hurts Christians and non-Christians. It hurts all of us, because the
Constitution requires judges to apply the law, not their personal
views. Remember that all of us, no matter what our faith--and I am
proud of mine--are able to practice our religion as we choose or not to
practice a religion. That is a fundamental guarantee of our
Constitution. The Constitution's prohibition against a ``religious
test'' in Article VI is consistent with that fundamental freedom. I
hope that Republican Senators will debate this nomination absent the
scurrilous charges that marked it the past and the discourse during the
``nuclear option'' last month.
Instead, the Senate's debate should center on the nominee's
qualifications for this lifetime post in the Federal judiciary. There
is an abundance of substantive and compelling reasons why William Pryor
should not be a judge on the Eleventh Circuit. Opposition to Judge
Pryor's nomination is shared by a wide spectrum of objective observers.
Judge Pryor's record is so out of the mainstream that a vast number of
editorial boards and others have weighed in with significant
opposition.
Even The Washington Post, which has been exceedingly generous to the
Administration's efforts to pack the courts, has termed Judge Pryor
``unfit'' and consistently opposed his nomination. In Alabama, both the
Tuscaloosa News and the Hunstville Times wrote against the nomination.
Other editorial boards across the country have spoken out, including
the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The New
York Times, the Charleston Gazette, the Arizona Daily Star, and The Los
Angeles Times.
We have also heard from a large number of organizations and
individuals concerned about justice before the federal courts. The Log
Cabin Republicans, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the AFL-
CIO, the National Partnership for Women and Families and many others
have provided the Committee with their concerns and the basis for their
opposition. We have received letters of opposition from organizations
that rarely take positions on nominations but feel so strongly about
this one that they are compelled to publicly oppose it, including the
National Senior Citizens' Law Center, the Anti-Defamation League and
the Sierra Club.
The ABA's evaluation also indicates concern about this nomination.
Their Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary gave Mr. Pryor a
partial rating of ``not qualified'' to sit on the Federal bench. Of
course this is not the first ``not qualified'' rating or partial ``not
qualified'' rating that this administration's judicial nominees have
received. More than two dozen of President Bush's nominees have
received indications of concerns about their qualifications from the
ABA's peer reviews, which have been less exacting and much more
accommodating to this administration than to previous ones. I would
note that this softer treatment follows the changes in the process
imposed by the Bush administration.
Judge Pryor has long been a leader of the federalist movement,
promoting State power over the Federal Government. A leading proponent
of what he refers to as the ``federalism revolution,'' Judge Pryor
seeks to revitalize state power at the expense of Federal protections,
seeking opportunities to attack Federal laws and programs designed to
guarantee civil rights protections. He has urged that Federal laws on
behalf of the disabled, the aged, women, minorities, and the
environment all be limited. Not long ago, in a New York Times Magazine
article about the so-called ``Constitution-in-Exile'' movement, Michael
Greve, was quoted as saying, ``Bill Pryor is the key to this puzzle;
there's nobody like him. I think he's sensational. He gets almost all
of it.'' That is precisely why he should not be confirmed.
William Pryor has argued that the Federal courts should cut back on
the protections of important and well-supported Federal laws including
the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Americans with
Disabilities Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Clean Water Act,
the Violence Against Women Act, and the Family and Medical Leave Act.
He has repudiated decades of legal precedents that permitted
individuals to sue states to prevent violations of Federal civil rights
regulations. His aggressive involvement in this ``federalist
revolution'' shows that he is a goal-oriented, activist conservative
who has used his official position

[[Page S6281]]

to advance his ``cause.'' Alabama was the only state to file an amicus
brief arguing that Congress lacked authority to enforce the Clean Water
Act. He argued that the Constitution's commerce clause does not grant
the Federal Government authority to prevent destruction of waters and
wetlands that serve as a critical habitat for migratory birds. The
Supreme Court did not adopt his narrow view of the commerce clause
powers of Congress. While his advocacy in this case is a sign to most
people of the extremism, he trumpets his involvement in this case. He
is unabashedly proud of his repeated work to limit congressional
authority to promote the health, safety and welfare of all Americans.
His passion is not some obscure legal theory but a legal crusade that
has driven his actions since he was a student and something that guides
his actions as a lawyer. His speeches and testimony before Congress
demonstrate just how rooted his views are, how much he seeks to effect
a fundamental change in the country, and how far outside the mainstream
he is.
Judge Pryor is candid about the fact that his view of federalism is
different from the current operation of the Federal Government--and
that he is on a mission to change the government to fit his vision. His
goal is to continue to limit Congress's authority to enact laws under
the Fourteenth Amendment and the commerce clause--laws that protect
women, ethnic and racial minorities, senior citizens, the disabled, and
the environment--in the name of sovereign immunity. Is there any
question that he will pursue his agenda as a judge on the Eleventh
Circuit Court of Appeals reversing equal rights progress and affecting
the lives of millions of Americans for decades to come?
Judge Pryor's comments have revealed insensitivity to the barriers
that disadvantaged persons and members of minority groups and women
continue to face in the criminal justice system. This is what is at
stake for Americans, the consumers of our justice system. This is the
type of judge this President and this Republican leadership are intent
on permanently installing in our justice system.
In testimony before Congress, William Pryor has urged repeal of
Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act--the centerpiece of that landmark
statute--because, he says, it ``is an affront to federalism and an
expensive burden that has far outlived its usefulness.'' That testimony
demonstrates that Judge Pryor is more concerned with preventing an
``affront'' to the States' dignity than with guaranteeing all citizens
the right to cast an equal vote. It also reflects a long-discredited
view of the Voting Rights Act. Since the enactment of the statute in
1965, every Supreme Court case to address the question has rejected the
claim that Section 5 is an ``affront'' to our system of federalism.
Whether under Earl Warren, Warren Burger, or William Rehnquist, the
United States Supreme Court has recognized that guaranteeing all
citizens the right to cast an equal vote is essential to our democracy
not a ``burden'' that has ``outlived its usefulness.''
His strong views against providing counsel and fair procedures for
death row inmates have led William Pryor to doomsday predictions about
the modest reforms in the Innocence Protection Act that would create a
system to ensure competent counsel in death penalty cases. When the
United States Supreme Court questioned the constitutionality of
Alabama's method of execution in 2000, William Pryor lashed out at the
Supreme Court, saying: ``[T]his issue should not be decided by nine
octogenarian lawyers who happen to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court.''
Aside from the obvious disrespect this comment shows for the Nation's
highest court, it shows again how results-oriented Judge Pryor is in
his approach to the law and to the Constitution. Of course an issue
about cruel and unusual punishment ought to be decided by the Supreme
Court. It is addressed in the Eighth Amendment, and whether or not we
agree on the ruling, it is an elementary principle of constitutional
law that it be decided by the Supreme Court, no matter how old its
members.
Judge Pryor has also vigorously opposed an exemption for persons with
mental retardation from receiving the death penalty, exhibiting more
certainty than understanding or sober reflection. He authored an amicus
curiae brief to the Supreme Court arguing that the Court should not
declare that executing mentally retarded persons violated the Eighth
Amendment. After losing on that issue, Judge Pryor made an unsuccessful
argument to the Eleventh Circuit that an Alabama death-row defendant is
not mentally retarded.
Judge Pryor has spoken harshly about the moratorium imposed by former
Illinois Governor George Ryan, calling it a ``spectacle.'' Can someone
so dismissive of evidence that challenges his views be expected to hear
these cases fairly? Over the last few years, many prominent Americans
have begun raising concerns about the death penalty including current
and former supporters of capital punishment. For example, Justice
O'Connor recently said there were ``serious questions'' about whether
the death penalty is fairly administered in the United States, and
added: ``[T]he system may well be allowing some innocent defendants to
be executed.'' In response to this uncertainty, Judge Pryor offers us
nothing but his obstinate view that there is no problem with the
application of the death penalty. This is a position that is not likely
to afford a fair hearing to a defendant on death row.
Judge Pryor's troubling views on the criminal justice system are not
limited to capital punishment. He has advocated that counsel need not
be provided to indigent defendants charged with an offense that carries
a sentence of imprisonment if the offense is classified as a
misdemeanor. The Supreme Court nonetheless ruled that it was a
violation of the Sixth Amendment to impose a sentence that included a
possibility of imprisonment if indigent persons were not afforded
counsel.
Judge Pryor is overwhelmingly hostile to a woman's right to choose.
There is every indication from his record and statements that he is
committed to reversing Roe v. Wade. Judge Pryor describes the Supreme
Court's decision in Roe v. Wade as the creation ``out of thin air [of]
a constitutional right,'' and opposes abortion even in cases of rape or
incest.
Judge Pryor does not believe Roe is sound law, neither does he give
credence to Planned Parenthood v. Casey. He has said that ``Roe is not
constitutional law,'' and that in Casey, ``the court preserved the
worst abomination of constitutional law in our history.'' When Judge
Pryor appeared before the Committee, he repeated the mantra suggested
by White House coaches that he would ``follow the law.'' But his
willingness to circumvent established Supreme Court precedent that
protects fundamental privacy rights seems much more likely.
Judge Pryor has expressed his opposition to fair treatment of all
people regardless of their sexual orientation. The positions he took in
a brief he filed in the Supreme Court case of Lawrence v. Texas were
entirely repudiated by the Supreme Court majority two years ago when it
declared that: ``The petitioners are entitled to respect for their
private lives. The State cannot demean their existence or control their
destiny by making their private conduct a crime.'' Judge Pryor's view
is the opposite. He would deny certain Americans the equal protection
of the laws, and would subject the most private of their behaviors to
public regulation.

Capping Judge Pryor's record of extreme activism were sworn
statements made by former Alabama Governor Fob James and his son, both
Republicans, explaining that Judge Pryor was only chosen by James to be
the State's Attorney General after promising that he would defy court
orders, up through and including orders of the Supreme Court of the
United States. In sworn affidavits, Governor James and his son recount
how Pryor persuaded them he was right for the job by showing them
research papers he had supervised in law school about
``nonacquiesence'' to court orders. Indeed, under penalty of perjury,
the former Republican Governor and his son say that Judge Pryor's
position on defying court orders changed only when he decided he wanted
to be a Federal judge.
If true, this information, consistent with the activism and extremism
present elsewhere in Judge Pryor's record, is revealing. To think that
this

[[Page S6282]]

man would come before the Senate after having made a promise like
that--to undermine the very basis of our legal system--and ask to be
confirmed to a lifetime position on the Federal bench, is beyond
belief.
Indeed, William Pryor's activism has often transcended judicial
philosophy and entered the realm of pure partisan politics to the point
where it appeared political concerns openly affected his legal views.
As Attorney General of Alabama, Pryor was one of the founders of the
Republican Attorneys General Association, or RAGA, an organization
which raised money from corporations for Republican candidates for
state Attorney General positions. Before RAGA was founded, Attorney
General candidates usually shied away from corporate fundraising
because of the potential for conflicts of interest with an Attorney
General's duty to go after any corporate wrongdoing.
But William Pryor not only ignored the tradition of keeping Attorney
General's races above politics, he embraced with both hands the mixing
of law and politics. He spoke out, vocally and often, against state
attorneys general bringing aggressive cases against the tobacco
industry, the gun industry, and other corporate interests. And then
RAGA, Pryor's organization, raised money for attorney general campaigns
from these very industries and others like them that hoped to avoid
lawsuits and prosecution. Pryor's philosophy of opposing mainstream
government regulation of corporations advanced his politics and his
organization's fundraising, and his political interests in turn
informed his pro-corporation legal philosophy. Curiously, when asked
about RAGA at his hearing, Mr. Pryor could remember very little about
the organization or his role in it.
His partisan, political worldview colors the way he thinks about the
role of the courts as well. He ended one speech with the prayer,
``Please God, no more Souters!''--a slap at a Supreme Court Justice
seen by some as insufficiently conservative. And he said he was pleased
the Court's vote in Bush v. Gore was a 5-4 split because that vote
would give President Bush ``a full appreciation of the judiciary and
judicial selection;'' in other words, it would show the president that
he needed to appoint partisan conservatives to the bench. These are the
sentiments of an activist and a politician. They are not the considered
deliberations that all of us, as Republican or Democrat would expect
from an impartial judge.

On a full slate of issues--the environment, voting rights, women's
rights, gay rights, federalism, and more--William Pryor's record of
activism and advocacy is clear. That is his right as an American
citizen, but it does not make him qualified to be a judge. As a judge,
it is his duty impartially to hear and weigh the evidence and to impart
just and fair decisions to all who come before the court. In their
hands, we entrust to the judges in our independent Federal judiciary
the rights that all of us are entitled to enjoy through our birthright
as Americans.
Judge Pryor's time on the Eleventh Circuit brings out the very
problem with recess appointments of controversial judges. The
Constitution sets out that Article III judges receive lifetime
appointments precisely so that they can be independent. Judge Pryor, in
contrast, cannot be independent during the pendency of his recess
appointment because he is dependent on the Senate for confirmation to a
lifetime position. He is, in essence, trying out for the job.
Accordingly, the opinions he writes while temporarily on the court are
not much of a predictor for what he would do if he did receive a
lifetime appointment and became truly independent.
What is a good predictor for what he would do as a permanent Eleventh
Circuit judge? Quite simply, his actions and statements in the many
years of his professional life before he was appointed provide the best
insight. And these actions and statements paint a clear and consistent
picture of a judicial activist whose extreme views place him far
outside the mainstream. A year of self-serving restraint does little to
alter this picture.
The President has said he is against what he calls ``judicial
activism.'' How ironic, then, that he has chosen several of the most
committed and opinionated judicial activists ever to be nominated to
our courts.
The question posed by this controversial nomination is not whether
Judge Pryor is a skilled and capable politician and advocate. He
certainly is. The question is whether--not for a two-year term but for
a lifetime--he would be a fair and impartial judge. Could every person
whose rights or whose life, liberty or livelihood were at issue before
his court, have faith in being fairly heard? Could every person rightly
have faith in receiving a just verdict, a verdict not swayed by or
yoked to the legal philosophy of a self-described legal crusader? To
see Judge Pryor's record and his extreme views about the law is to see
the stark answer to that question.
I oppose giving Judge Pryor a lifetime appointment to the Eleventh
Circuit where he can impose his radical activist vision on the many
people whose lives and disputes come before him. I believe the
President owes them a nominee who can unite the American people.
Mr. President, I believe my time has expired.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator is correct.
Mr. LEAHY. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Under the previous order, the time until 4 o'clock is under the
control of the majority leader.
The Senator from Alabama is recognized.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, it is a great honor for me to stand in
this great Senate Chamber to share a few thoughts about my friend, one
of the best lawyers I have ever known, now Judge Bill Pryor, serving on
the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, to speak in favor of his
confirmation.
He is principled. He is highly intelligent. He is committed to doing
the right thing. He has won the support, respect, friendship, and
admiration of people on both sides of the aisle--African Americans,
Whites, Democrats--throughout our State of Alabama. He has virtually
unanimous support among those groups, and he has earned that by his
principled approach to being attorney general, his love and respect for
the law, his courageous commitment to doing the right thing.
He has views about the law and public policy in America, and he
expresses those, but he absolutely understands that there is a
difference between advocacy and being on a bench and having to judge,
that you are not then an advocate, you are a referee, you are a judge,
a person who is supposed to fairly and objectively decide how the
dispute should be settled. He understands that totally. That is true
with most good lawyers in America, but I think he understands it more
than even most good lawyers. Most good lawyers have been good
advocates, and they have become good judges. Certainly we understand
that.
Criticism has been raised against him that is painful to me. I think
much of it is a result of misinformation. For example, my colleague
from Iowa, who is such a champion of the disabled, always is a champion
of the interests of the disabled, suggested that Bill Pryor is not a
believer in rights for the disabled because in a disabilities act that
was passed by this Congress it allowed people to sue their employers
for back pay, for injunction, and for damages if they were wronged by
an employer. But the Congress never thought at that time what it meant
if it involved a State.
Three percent of the people in Alabama work for the State of Alabama.
He understood, as a skilled constitutional lawyer, that the Congress
would have then undertaken, if the law was to be interpreted so that
damages could be rendered against the State, to wipe out the doctrine
of sovereign immunity. That is a doctrine that prohibits States from
being sued for money damages. He said, yes, the employee can get the
job back, yes, the employee can receive back pay if they were
discriminated in any way as a result of that disability, but they
cannot, in a case against the State of Alabama or any State, get money
damages because that violates the constitutional principle of sovereign
immunity.

[[Page S6283]]

He took that to the Supreme Court and won. Nobody in Alabama or
anywhere else who knows anything about disabilities would think this
represented an action by him to harm the disabled. It was simply to
clarify this important principle as to what power the Congress has
under these kinds of legislation to wipe out the traditional historic
right of a State under sovereign immunity.
That is how these issues become confused. That is what hurts me about
this debate process. So often nominees are accused of things based on
results or maybe outcome of any one given case, and they are said to be
against poor people or against education or against the disabled.
I will offer for the Record an editorial from the Mobile Press that
totally analyzes the complaints and allegations that were raised by
Senator Kennedy about fundraising for the Attorney Generals
Association. It completely refutes those allegations. We had a full
look at it. I think everybody who was involved in the Judiciary
Committee and the staff people who made lots of phone calls found there
was absolutely nothing to show any wrongdoing.
How do we decide what a good person is or a good nominee is? I do not
know. You may know them and respect them personally. You have seen
their integrity and their courage in trying to do the right thing
daily. What do others say who may have a different political
philosophy? Let me read a letter from Alvin Holmes, a member of the
State House of Alabama.
I see the majority leader here. I will be willing to yield to him or
take a couple minutes, if he allows me.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The majority leader.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, we will start voting about 4. If I can
start in a couple minutes, that will be good.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I will state what Representative Alvin
Holmes said. He is an African American. He starts off saying:

Please accept this as my full support and endorsement of
Alabama's Attorney General Bill Pryor to the United States
Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.
I am a black member of the Alabama House of Representatives
having serving for 28 years. During my service . . . I have
led most of the fights for civil rights of blacks, women,
lesbians and gays and other minorities.

He lists seven different points where Attorney General Bill Pryor has
stood up for minority rights and African-American rights in the State,
including a mentor program where he for 3 years worked every week
reading as a tutor to Black children.
He goes on to note a number of points. He finally concludes this way:

Finally, as one of the key civil rights leaders in Alabama
who has participated in basically every major civil rights
demonstration in America, who has been arrested for civil
rights causes on many occasions, as one who was a field staff
member of Dr. Martin Luther King's SCLC, as one who has been
brutally beaten by vicious police officers for participating
in civil rights marches and demonstrations, as one who has
had crosses burned in his yard by the KKK . . . as one who
has lived under constant threats day in and day out because
of his [stands] . . . I request your swift confirmation of
Bill Pryor to the 11th Circuit because of his constant
efforts to help the causes of blacks in Alabama.

Bill Pryor has the support of every Democratic official in the State,
the top African-American leaders, the people of Alabama. They know him
and respect him to an extraordinary degree.
I am pleased to now yield the floor. I see the majority leader is
here.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cornyn). The majority leader.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I thank my distinguished colleague from
Alabama for his leadership. I mentioned to him yesterday it was just a
few weeks ago that it was uncertain whether we would ever reach this
moment--about 3\1/2\ weeks ago and I remember the conversation. We
committed to have an up-or-down vote, whatever it took. Indeed, I am
delighted to say that in a few moments we will vote up or down on
William Pryor's nomination to serve on the Eleventh Circuit Court of
Appeals. This body will be allowed that opportunity to give Judge Pryor
what he deserves, and that is the respect of an up-or-down vote.
He was first nominated to the Federal bench on April 9, 2003, over 2
years ago. So it has been a long time coming. That wait is almost over.
It will be over in about 6 or 7 minutes. The partisan charges and
obstruction leveled against him are going to be brought to a close.
Soon William Pryor will get the fairness and the respect he deserves
with that vote.
Judge Pryor's experience and achievements in the legal profession
have prepared him well to serve on the Federal bench. He graduated
magna cum laude from Tulane University School of Law where he served as
editor in chief of the Law Review.
He began his legal career as a law clerk for a legendary civil rights
advocate, the late Judge John Minor Wisdom of the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit.
While practicing law at two of Alabama's most prestigious firms,
Judge Pryor also taught several years as adjunct professor at Samford
University's Cumberland School of Law.
Later he served as deputy attorney general and then attorney general
of Alabama. As attorney general, he was overwhelmingly reelected by the
people of Alabama in 2002.
Two years later, President Bush, in 2004, recess appointed Judge
Pryor to the Eleventh Circuit. During this time, Judge Pryor has served
with distinction. While on the appellate bench, many of Judge Pryor's
opinions have been supported by judges appointed by both Democrats and
Republicans.
But this should not come as a surprise. His rulings as a Federal
judge are entirely consistent with his past record. William Pryor
believes in interpretation of the law, not rewriting the law according
to his own political views.
He has an outstanding record on civil rights. Dr. Joe Reed, chairman
of the African-American caucus for Alabama's Democratic Conference,
said of Judge Pryor: He ``will uphold the law without fear or favor. I
believe all races and colors will get a fair shake when their cases
come before him.''
Many other prominent African-American leaders have submitted letters
of support for Judge Pryor praising him for his commitment to upholding
civil rights and equality for all Americans. It is simple. Those who
criticize Judge Pryor's record have not examined it with the care and
respect that every nominee's record deserves.

His record consistently proves his unwavering dedication to the
protection of individual liberties and his commitment to treating all
people fairly.
Further, those who study his record, as I have, know that Judge Pryor
understands and appreciates the obligation of the judiciary branch to
interpret the law, not to write the law. He stated in his hearing
before the Judiciary Committee the following:

I understand my obligation to follow the law, and I have a
record of doing it. You don't have to take my word that I
will follow the law. You can look at my record as Attorney
General and see where I have done it.

It has been over 2 years since the President sent William Pryor's
nomination to the Senate. In that time, he has endured a hearing before
the Senate Judiciary Committee lasting 4 hours where he answered over
185 questions.
Judge Pryor answered another 45 written questions from Senators and
submitted over 26 pages in response.
On two separate occasions, his nomination has been favorably voted
out of the Judiciary Committee, consuming another 4 hours of debate.
Two times his nomination has come to the Senate floor for a cloture
vote, and twice the motion to invoke cloture failed because of partisan
obstruction.
But that day is over. During the last 2 days, we have continued to
debate the nomination of Judge Pryor, and now it is time to give him
that long overdue vote. With the confirmation of Justice Owen and
Justice Brown, and the upcoming vote on Judge Pryor, the Senate does
continue to make good progress, placing principle before partisan
politics and results before rhetoric.
I hope and I know we will continue working together. As the debate on
judicial nominees has shown, we can disagree on whether individual
nominees deserve confirmation, but we can all agree on the principle
that each nominee deserves a fair up-or-down vote.
I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the confirmation of
Judge William H. Pryor.
Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

[[Page S6284]]

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
Under the previous order, the hour of 4 o'clock having arrived, the
question is, Will the Senate advise and consent to the nomination of
William H. Pryor, Jr., of Alabama, to be United States Circuit Judge
for the Eleventh Circuit? The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. The following Senator was necessarily absent: the
Senator from Alaska (Ms. Murkowski).
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Jeffords)
is necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Chafee). Are there any other Senators in
the Chamber desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 53, nays 45, as follows:

[Rollcall Vote No. 133 Ex.]

YEAS--53

Alexander
Allard
Allen
Bennett
Bond
Brownback
Bunning
Burns
Burr
Chambliss
Coburn
Cochran
Coleman
Cornyn
Craig
Crapo
DeMint
DeWine
Dole
Domenici
Ensign
Enzi
Frist
Graham
Grassley
Gregg
Hagel
Hatch
Hutchison
Inhofe
Isakson
Kyl
Lott
Lugar
Martinez
McCain
McConnell
Nelson (NE)
Roberts
Salazar
Santorum
Sessions
Shelby
Smith
Specter
Stevens
Sununu
Talent
Thomas
Thune
Vitter
Voinovich
Warner

NAYS--45

Akaka
Baucus
Bayh
Biden
Bingaman
Boxer
Byrd
Cantwell
Carper
Chafee
Clinton
Collins
Conrad
Corzine
Dayton
Dodd
Dorgan
Durbin
Feingold
Feinstein
Harkin
Inouye
Johnson
Kennedy
Kerry
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lincoln
Mikulski
Murray
Nelson (FL)
Obama
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Rockefeller
Sarbanes
Schumer
Snowe
Stabenow
Wyden

NOT VOTING--2

Jeffords
Murkowski

The nomination was confirmed.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Chafee). The President will be immediately
notified of the Senate's action.

____________________