[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Page 24130]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                          JUDICIAL NOMINATIONS

  Mr. BUNNING. Mr. President, I voted yesterday to oppose the 
nominations of Ronnie White to serve as District Court Judge for the 
Eastern District of Missouri, and Raymond C. Fisher to sit on the Ninth 
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
  As a newly elected member of the Senate, I am acutely aware of our 
obligation to confirm judges to sit on the Federal courts who will 
enforce the law without fear or favor.
  But, after carefully considering Judge White's record, I am compelled 
to vote ``no.'' I believe that he has evidenced bias against the death 
penalty from his seat on the Missouri Supreme Court, even though it is 
the law in that State. He has voted against the death penalty more than 
any other judge on that panel, and I am afraid that he would use a 
lifetime appointment to the Federal bench to push the law in a 
procriminal direction rather than deferring interpreting the law as 
written and adhering to the legislative will of the people.
  Although Judge Fisher has been recognized as ``thoughtful liberal,'' 
I cannot in good conscience vote to appoint him to serve a lifetime 
appointment to the Ninth Circuit Court. Over the last decade, the Ninth 
Circuit has been a fertile breeding ground for liberal judges to 
advance their activist agenda--a fact evidenced by the Supreme Court's 
consistent reversal of cases referred to them from the Ninth Circuit--
and I am afraid that Judge Fisher would continue this disturbing trend. 
Probably more than any other circuit in the America, the views of the 
Ninth Circuit are unquestionably out of alignment with mainstream 
America, and I believe the panel badly needs a sense of judicial 
balance. I do not believe that Judge Fisher would have helped to 
provide that balance.

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