[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 83 (Tuesday, May 20, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4429-S4430]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         JUDICIAL CONFIRMATIONS

  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, yesterday on the Senate floor the 
distinguished majority leader mentioned my name and repeated a claim 
about my service as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which I once 
again am compelled to correct. He said: ``Sixty of President Clinton's 
nominees were denied hearings.''
  In a letter to the distinguished minority leader and the 
distinguished ranking member of the Judiciary Committee dated April 30, 
2008, he similarly stated that:

       Senator Hatch exercised the chairman's prerogatives freely 
     during the years in which more than 60 of President Clinton's 
     nominees were denied hearings or floor consideration.

  The claim--and it has been repeated in various forms by others--is 
that all these nominees could have been confirmed but were not because 
I simply blocked them.
  What is not mentioned is President Clinton came within seven of 
setting an all-time judicial appointment record while I was chairman. 
He was treated fairly. I had hearings and moved people to the floor 
that many on our side had real qualms about. It is true that 
approximately 60 of his judicial nominees were not confirmed, not in 1 
year, as the distinguished majority leader said yesterday, but in all 8 
years. They were not confirmed for a host of different reasons, most 
having nothing to do with the chairman's prerogatives.
  President Clinton, for example, withdrew a dozen of those nominees 
himself--actually withdrew them. That was not my prerogative as 
chairman; it was his prerogative as President. These withdrawn nominees 
included a nominee to the U.S. District Court whose record as a State 
court judge in criminal cases was so troubling that prosecutors in her 
own State, led by a Democrat, opposed her. Instead of certain defeat on 
the Senate floor, the Republican leader at the time allowed President 
Clinton to withdraw her nomination. She was not denied a hearing; she 
had a hearing and was reported to the floor. She was not denied floor 
consideration; she was spared floor defeat.
  The unconfirmed Clinton nominees included an appeals court nominee 
who, though he had raised millions for the Democratic Party, admitted 
in his hearing that he knew virtually nothing about such basic areas as 
criminal or constitutional law. President Clinton wisely withdrew him. 
These unconfirmed nominees included an appeals court nominee who had 
lied about his background, making claims that were politically potent 
but patently false. President Clinton withdrew him. Was he unconfirmed? 
Yes. Was he blocked by Republicans? No. These and others like them were 
not what some on the other side of the aisle have called pocket 
filibusters. They were not, as the distinguished majority leader has 
said, simply denied consideration at the chairman's prerogative.
  The unconfirmed Clinton nominees include many who did not have the 
support of their home State Senators. Nominees in this situation did 
not receive hearings under the chairmen before me as well as those who 
succeeded me, including the current Democrat chairman who will not call 
them up if a home State Senator opposes them. That is the policy and 
tradition of the Judiciary Committee, not simply the chairman's 
prerogative. Nor is it a pocket filibuster. That is a phony term. Yet, 
these nominees were unconfirmed and are, therefore, lumped into this 
category. So are nominees who were not confirmed in the Congress during 
which they were nominated and President Clinton chose not to 
renominate. That was his choice, not mine. For these and other reasons, 
the vast majority of President Clinton's unconfirmed nominees did not 
make it all the way through the confirmation process for reasons having 
nothing to do with my chairmanship of the committee.
  Now, there are always, at the end of every Presidency, those nominees 
who are put up too late, where you could not get the FBI work done or 
you could not get the investigatory work done or you couldn't get the 
ABA report done or there were nominees who had problems in their FBI 
reports. There were further reasons nominees could not make it at the 
end of President Clinton's term. I might add that is true of every 
Presidential term that I recall in my 32 years in the Senate. It is 
also true that I put through nominees that my side had a lot of angst 
over because I believed, as I always did in my chairmanship, the 
President had the power of nomination. We had the power to vote, up or 
down, against those nominees. So I brought up people who caused a lot 
of angst on our side because I believed the President deserved that--
unlike some on our side who have been very badly mistreated. I will 
cite Peter Keisler as a perfect illustration.
  So I had to come here and set the record straight once again. Some 
judicial nominees of every President are not eventually confirmed. My 
friends on the other side of the aisle returned more than 50 
unconfirmed judicial nominees to President Bush at the

[[Page S4430]]

close of the 102nd Congress. But when the reasons nominees are not 
confirmed are accurately considered, the claim that some 60 Clinton 
nominees were simply pocket filibustered or were blocked at the 
chairman's prerogative is simply not true.
  I believe it to be a gross misrepresentation. I don't blame the 
majority leader. He is a personal friend of mine. He read from a staff-
prepared speech. Nevertheless, that speech was wrong.
  Let me give you an illustration. These are people sitting right now 
on the calendar. Peter Keisler has been waiting 691 days for a vote in 
the Judiciary Committee. By any measure, he is highly competent, 
decent, and honorable. He has the highest rating from the American Bar 
Association. Judge Robert Conrad has been waiting 308 days for a 
Judiciary Committee hearing. He also has the highest ABA rating. This 
body confirmed him just three years, without a dissenting vote, to the 
district court, where he is now chief judge. Steve Matthews has been 
waiting 257 days for a hearing. He too has first-rate qualifications 
and a positive ABA rating. Many others are still awaiting a vote, as we 
have been sitting in the Senate not doing very much regarding judicial 
nominees.

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