[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 167 (Wednesday, November 13, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6540-S6541]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Judicial Nominations

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I am going to be brief because I know 
Members will be coming in here very shortly for the vote.
  It has been an honor to serve as chairman of the Senate Judiciary 
Committee for 4 years. We had a big job. The biggest assignment was 
filling judicial vacancies. As of this moment, we filled 214 Federal 
vacancies at the court level through activities of the Senate Judiciary 
Committee and the floor.
  It has been a burden, a challenge, but I want to really commend all 
of the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on a bipartisan basis 
for working together to fill these vacancies. Over 90 percent of these 
vacancies were filled on a bipartisan basis. That is saying something, 
isn't it, in today's America, that we were able to find common ground. 
We didn't agree even on all of those nominees, but, certainly, there 
was an effort to reach across the aisle time and time again. When you 
take a look at the situation in the Senate during this period of time, 
it was a 50-50 split in the membership of the U.S. Senate for 2 of 
these years and a very small majority in the other 2 years, yet we were 
able to get this job done.
  This Senate Judiciary Committee, which I have served on for more than 
two decades, has given me the opportunity to review over 1,000 nominees 
for the Federal bench. President Biden's nominees represent some of the 
best I have ever seen and, certainly, achieved great levels of 
sophistication when it came to their background--professional and 
personal.
  For each judicial nominee, we require that the American Bar 
Association do an interview of their peers in the community and find 
out if there is anything that we should know about them before they go 
up for these lifetime appointments. I am happy to report that every 
single nominee from

[[Page S6541]]

the Biden-Harris administration was found at least ``qualified,'' if 
not ``well qualified'' by the ABA review.
  We also have indications that these members represent diversity that 
has never been seen before--both professional and demographic 
diversity--that they bring to the bench. We have confirmed more Black 
women to the Federal circuit courts than all the prior Presidents of 
the United States combined.
  We confirmed the first-ever Black woman to serve on the Supreme 
Court, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson--a point of personal privilege and 
pride for me to be part of that. She is an extraordinary Supreme Court 
Justice.
  Beyond demographic diversity, we have professional diversity. In the 
past 4 years, we have confirmed more former public defenders and 
circuit judges than all prior Presidents combined. We have confirmed 
State court judges, Federal magistrates, bankruptcy judges, and 
prosecutors who have ample experience at the professional level before 
they came to this Federal opportunity.
  We have confirmed jurists with experience protecting the rights of 
voters, workers, civil rights, women's rights, and LGBTQ rights. It is 
quite an array of these 214 qualified individuals.
  And I might remind you that this is the vast majority. Nearly 90 
percent of these confirmations have been bipartisan.
  There is work to be done before we can leave here at the end of the 
year. Senator Schumer, as our leader, is creating opportunities for us 
to vote on the floor of the Senate for these lifetime appointments. 
Even though the work of the 118th Congress is coming to an end, our 
work is not done. We have 16 nominees pending on the Senate floor: 4 
circuit nominees and 12 district nominees, and several more pending in 
committee, including 2 who will have a hearing before Thanksgiving.
  There is no time to waste. The Senate must try to confirm every one 
of these highly qualified, diverse nominees before the sun sets on the 
118th Congress. The American people deserve nothing less.
  I yield the floor.