[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 17]
[House]
[Page 24186]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



      REJECTION OF PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE FOR SUPREME COURT JUSTICE

  (Mr. BECERRA asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BECERRA. Mr. Speaker, today we see the injustice that the 
majority party is doing with regard to America's right to be able to go 
to a hospital and get decent health care.
  But yesterday was a further injustice, this time in the other body, 
the Senate, where the Senate, in the first time for some 20 years, 
decided to reject the nomination of the President of the United States 
of a court nomination.
  The gentleman in this case was a gentleman named Ronny White, a 
sitting Supreme Court justice in the State of Missouri. He also 
happened to be African American, the first African American in that 
State to sit on the Supreme Court in that State.
  He was rejected despite the fact that in committee in the Senate he 
passed with Republican support. Yet, when his vote came to the Senate 
floor, the Senators rejected him on the Republican side, including 
those who had voted for him in committee.
  Outrageous because this is the first time in some 20 years that we 
have seen this happen, but outrageous because it is the first time in 
my memory that someone has been rejected for reasons other than his 
qualifications.
  We have seen this happen now yesterday. I am afraid it may happen 
again when we have other judges of minority background who may face the 
same consequences by this Republican Senate. It is outrageous and we 
need to stop that. Hopefully the outrage will stop by the year 2000.

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