[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 171 (Tuesday, November 19, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6615-S6616]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Judicial Nominations
Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, today, the Senate moves forward on
confirming more of President Biden's judicial nominees.
Yesterday, the Senate confirmed Judge Embry Kidd to serve a lifetime
appointment as a circuit judge to the Eleventh Circuit. Judge Kidd will
be an excellent addition to the bench. He is exceptionally qualified.
He has extensive experience as a judge, a prosecutor, and an attorney
in private practice.
I thank my colleagues for supporting his nomination and for moving
him through the Chamber.
Last night, I also filed cloture on another nine nominees to serve as
district judges across the country, including Arizona, California,
Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia. If you
include these nominations with those I filed last week, I will now have
filed cloture on a total of 12 district court judges since the end of
last week.
[[Page S6616]]
We will keep working to confirm these nominations as quickly as we
can, starting this morning with the cloture vote on the nomination of
Mustafa Kasubhai to be a district judge for the District of Oregon.
For the information of Senators, we expect to vote on as many as
three judges today. Members should be prepared for another late night
on Wednesday to vote on the nominations I filed last night.
Voting on the President's judicial nominees is a core function of the
Senate. It is one of our basic responsibilities, and we are going to
carry out that responsibility as long as this majority continues.
I am very proud of the judges we have confirmed over the past 4 years
under this administration. They have all been highly qualified
individuals, and together they represent a wide range of experiences
and areas of expertise.
For a long time, this Chamber primarily focused on confirming
nominees with backgrounds as prosecutors or from big law firms. Of
course, many of these individuals have gone on to serve as excellent
judges, but this majority and this administration have cast a wider
net. For 4 years, we have expanded the sort of backgrounds and resumes
that make for a qualified nominee to the Federal bench. We have more
judges from backgrounds in consumer protection and civil rights and
voting rights. We have confirmed more women and people of color too.
All of these individuals are highly qualified by their own merits, but
their broad range of backgrounds and experiences is an additional asset
to the bench.
But we are not done. There are more judges to consider and confirm.
We are going to spend the rest of the week and the rest of this year
focused on confirming them, and I thank all of my colleagues for their
continued good work. Let us continue.