[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Pages 14891-14893]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  NOMINATION OF CHRISTOPHER C. CONNER, OF PENNSYLVANIA, TO BE UNITED 
                         STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, under the previous order, the Senate will 
now proceed to the consideration of Executive Calendar No. 826.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will state the nomination.
  The legislative clerk read the nomination of Christopher C. Conner, 
of Pennsylvania, to be United States District Judge for the Middle 
District of Pennsylvania.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator 
from Pennsylvania be recognized for up to 3 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The 
Senator from Pennsylvania is recognized for 3 minutes.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Nevada for 
agreeing to recognize me.
  Now that the nomination has been confirmed by the Senate, I 
congratulate Kit Conner from outside of Harrisburg, PA, for filling the 
vacancy in the Middle District. Judge Conner is one of six members from 
Pennsylvania who are on the Executive Calendar in the Senate. Including 
him, there are five district judges and one Third Circuit nominee, and 
I am very gratified we have been able to unlock the logjam on judges 
and begin the process of moving forward.
  Kit Conner is a very distinguished member of the bar in the Middle 
District in Pennsylvania. He is a tremendous lawyer and advocate, 
someone who has made substantial contributions to his community and is 
going to be an excellent Middle District judge. I look forward to his 
swearing in ceremony very soon.

[[Page 14892]]

  If we go down the listing of judges in the order in which they appear 
on the calendar, the next judges to be confirmed are also Pennsylvania 
judges, at least nominees for judicial vacancies, and they would be Joy 
Flowers Conti from the Western District of Pennsylvania, John Jones 
from the Middle District, and then D. Brooks Smith, who is a judge from 
the Western District who has been nominated for the Third Circuit. 
Hopefully next week, maybe as early as Monday or Tuesday, we can get to 
these nominations in the order in which they appear on the calendar. 
That seems to be the way the Senate is proceeding, and so we can begin 
to fill some of these vacancies we have in Pennsylvania, and in 
particular the Judge Brooks Smith vacancy to the Third Circuit, so we 
can begin to get the expeditious justice that people in Pennsylvania 
and the Third Circuit deserve.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is, Will the Senate advise and 
consent to the nomination of Christopher C. Conner, of Pennsylvania, to 
be United States District Judge for the Middle District of 
Pennsylvania?
  The nomination was confirmed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the motion to 
reconsider is laid upon the table, and the President will be notified 
of the Senate's action.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, with today's confirmation of Mr. 
Christopher Conner to the District Court for the Middle District of 
Pennsylvania, the Democratic-led Senate will have confirmed a total of 
60 judicial nominees since the change in Senate majority a little over 
one year ago and 49 district court nominees.
  Today's nominee has not proven to be very controversial and the 
Senate has acted quickly on this nomination.
  Mr. Conner was nominated in March of this year to a relatively recent 
vacancy and received a hearing in May, shortly after his paperwork was 
completed.
  With today's confirmation, the Judiciary Committee will have held 
hearings for a total of 10 District Court nominees from Pennsylvania, 
including Judge Davis, Judge Baylson and Judge Rufe, who were confirmed 
in April. Those confirmations illustrate the progress being made under 
Democratic leadership and the fair and expeditious way this President's 
nominees are being treated.
  With today's confirmation, we will have confirmed four nominees to 
the District Courts in Pennsylvania. I think that the Senate Judiciary 
Committee and the Senate as a whole have done well by Pennsylvania, 
despite some of the obstructionist practices during Republican control 
of the Senate, particularly regarding nominees in the Western half of 
the State.
  Nominees from Philadelphia were not immune from Republican 
obstructionist tactics, despite the best efforts and diligence of my 
good friend from Pennsylvania, Senator Specter, to secure confirmation 
of all of the judicial nominees from all parts of his home State, 
without regard to which party controlled the White House.
  For example, Judge Legrome Davis was first nominated to the position 
of U.S. District Court Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania 
by President Clinton on July 30, 1998. The Republican-controlled Senate 
took no action on his nomination and it was returned to the President 
at the end of 1998. On January 26, 1999, President Clinton renominated 
Judge Davis for the same vacancy. The Senate again failed to hold a 
hearing for Judge Davis and his nomination was returned after two more 
years.
  Under Republican leadership, Judge Davis' nomination languished 
before the Committee for 868 days without a hearing.
  Unfortunately, Judge Davis was subjected to the kind of inappropriate 
partisan rancor that befell so many other nominees to the district 
courts in Pennsylvania and to the Third Circuit during the Republican 
control of the Senate. I want to note emphatically, however, that I 
know personally that the senior Senator from Pennsylvania, strongly 
supported Judge Davis's nomination and worked hard to get him a hearing 
and a vote.
  The lack of Senate action on Judge Davis's initial nominations are in 
no way attributable to a lack of support from the senior Senator from 
Pennsylvania. Far from it.
  In fact, I give Senator Specter full credit for getting President 
Bush to renominate Judge Davis earlier this year and commended him 
publicly for all he has done to support this nomination from the 
outset.
  This year we moved expeditiously to consider Judge Davis, and he was 
confirmed within a few months of his renomination by President Bush. 
The saga of Judge Davis recalls for us so many nominees from the period 
of January 1995 through July 10, 2001, who never received a hearing or 
a vote and who were the subject of secret anonymous holds by 
Republicans for reasons that were never explained.
  At Judge Davis' recent confirmation hearing Senator Santorum 
testified that Judge Davis did not get a hearing because local 
Democrats objected. I was the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary 
Committee during those years and never heard that before. My 
understanding at the time, from July 1998 until the end of 2000, was 
that Judge Legrome Davis would have had the support of Senator Specter 
as well as every Democrat on the Judiciary Committee and in the Senate. 
Despite that bipartisan support, he was not included by the then-
Chairman of the Committee in the May 2000 hearing for a few other 
Pennsylvania nominees.
  In contrast, the hearing we had earlier this year for Ms. Conti was 
the very first hearing on a nominee to the Western District of 
Pennsylvania since 1994, in almost a decade, despite qualified nominees 
of President Clinton. No nominee to the Western District of 
Pennsylvania received a hearing during the entire period that 
Republicans controlled the Senate in the Clinton Administration. One of 
the nominees to the Western District, Lynette Norton, waited for almost 
1,000 days, and she was never given the courtesy of a hearing or a 
vote. Unfortunately, Ms. Norton died earlier this year, having never 
fulfilled her dream of serving on the Federal bench.
  Large numbers of vacancies continue to exist, in large measure 
because the recent Republican majority was not willing to hold hearings 
or vote on more than 50 of President Clinton's judicial nominees, many 
of whom waited for years and never received a vote on their nomination. 
It is the Democrats, not the Republicans, who have broken with that 
history of inaction from the Republican era of control, delay and 
obstruction.
  With today's confirmations of Mr. Conner to the Federal district 
courts in Pennsylvania, the Senate will have confirmed 49 district 
court nominees, meaning that more than 8 percent of the district court 
nominees confirmed so far are from Pennsylvania.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise to support the nomination of 
Christopher Conner to be U.S. District Judge for the Middle District of 
Pennsylvania.
  I have enjoyed looking over the record of Mr. Conner's broad 
litigation background, and I have concluded that he will bring to the 
bench the necessary legal experience and temperament for an effective 
Federal judge.
  Christopher Conner is a native of Harrisburg, PA, and a highly 
respected civil litigator. Upon graduation from Dickinson School of Law 
in 1982, Mr. Conner joined the Harrisburg firm today known as Mette, 
Evans and Woodside. He was named a shareholder in 1988.
  He currently serves as chair of his firm's Corporate & Commercial 
Litigation Practice Group. His practice has focused on civil 
litigation, primarily business litigation, employment law, mediation, 
and Federal civil rights litigation. He has handled contract disputes, 
employment discrimination suits, Lanham Act claims, large-scale class-
action cases, sexual harassment cases, and insurance coverage matters.
  Mr. Conner is certified as a mediator in Federal and State courts, 
and he has experience in providing human resources training for 
businesses and associations, including diversity training.
  The ABA has awarded him a unanimous Well Qualified rating, and I rate 
him highly as well. I strongly believe

[[Page 14893]]

Mr. Conner will make an excellent Federal judge in Pennsylvania.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.

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