[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Pages 20384-20398]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           EXECUTIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

NOMINATION OF WILLIAM H. PRYOR, OF ALABAMA, TO BE UNITED STATES CIRCUIT 
                     JUDGE FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the time until 
10 a.m. shall be equally divided between the Senator from Utah, Mr. 
Hatch, and the Senator from Vermont, Mr. Leahy, for debate prior to a 
vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the nomination of William 
Pryor.
  The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, on Tuesday a cloture motion was filed on 
the nomination of William Pryor for the Eleventh Circuit Court of 
Appeals. I rise today to urge my colleagues to vote for cloture on this 
nomination.
  Why must we seek cloture on this nomination? Unfortunately, we all 
know the answer. A majority of Democratic Senators have developed a 
poor track record of denying a minority of Democratic Senators and the 
entire Republican majority, easily a majority of the Senate, the right 
to vote to confirm two of President Bush's outstanding Circuit Court 
nominees, Miguel Estrada and Priscilla Owen. One filibuster of an 
outstanding Federal circuit court nominee was bad enough--
unprecedented, in fact, in the history of the Senate. A second 
filibuster doubled the ignominy. I fear that the second filibuster will 
not be the last. I wonder whether there is a particular number of 
filibusters that the majority of Democrats has in mind. I, and the 
majority of this Senate would like to know.
  I have heard certain Democrats say that a baseball player would be 
thrilled to have a batting average as good as the percentage of 
President Bush's nominees who have been confirmed since he took office. 
Assuming such an analogy is relevant, let's take it a bit further. I 
wonder if that same baseball player would sit calmly on the bench if, 
in the most important innings of the season, the opposing team invoked 
a rule to prevent that player from even getting into the batter's box. 
And what if the rule invoked had never been used to deny a player the 
right to take his swings? Should that player and his team's manager be 
thankful that most other players were allowed to play? Should the 
opposing manager be able to tell that player and his team, well, I 
understand your manager put your name on the gameday lineup two seasons 
ago, but it is up to us, not him and not your team, when or if you will 
ever play? I submit that they would be as frustrated and disappointed 
as we Senators are today, with the two ongoing filibusters of nominees 
whose names were submitted by the President well over 2 years ago, and 
the real probability of more indefinite delays to come.
  Here is what we know: a majority of Democrats has made it clear to a 
majority of Senators that they are determined to deny it the right to 
vote, and to deny a nominee what he or she deserves, an up or down 
vote.
  By the way, the President deserves an up-or-down vote on his 
nominees. We certainly gave judges up-or-down votes in the Clinton 
administration and during the Carter administration.
  When they got to the floor, they got up-or-down votes. Because we do 
not know when the next filibuster is coming, we must ensure that debate 
on Attorney General Pryor's nomination to the Eleventh Circuit is ample 
but not endless. Unfortunately, we know from the filibusters of Miguel 
Estrada and Justice Owen that meaningful deliberation on these nominees 
is not the goal of those who would deny us the right to vote on their 
confirmation. The goal is to prevent a majority of the Senate from 
fulfilling its constitutional duty. In an effort to keep this from 
happening, we have filed for cloture. I urge my colleagues to support 
cloture on General Pryor's nomination.

[[Page 20385]]

  Over the past 6 months we have heard that a filibuster is justified 
for Miguel Estrada on the grounds that he has not been forthcoming 
enough or that the Senate needed blanket access to all of his legal 
memoranda in order to make an informed choice.
  Well, that is interesting because Democrats have never asked for 
these types of investigations or these types of documents for any other 
Senate nominee. They have not asked for these documents for women. They 
have not asked for these documents for white males but all of a sudden 
we have the first Hispanic nominated to the Circuit Court of Appeals 
for the District of Columbia and all of a sudden they are asking for 
documents that they know the Solicitor General's office cannot give, 
not because there is anything to hide--Miguel Estrada would have given 
them up if he had had the power to do so--but because it is not the 
right thing to do. They are privileged documents.
  In Justice Owen's case, she appeared before the Judiciary Committee 
twice and answered dozens and dozens of oral and written followup 
questions in great detail. Her court opinions are available and have 
been read and scrutinized by Members of the Senate. No one doubts that 
she has a sufficient record. So why is she being held up? I might add, 
why is she being treated differently from Miguel Estrada? Nobody has 
demanded those types of documents from her.
  But not even those most vigorously opposed to Bill Pryor's nomination 
contend that his record is insufficient. He has been a bold, vocal, and 
successful advocate for his State as attorney general, an elected 
office in Alabama.
  Prior to and during his campaign seeking reelection to the attorney 
general position in 1998 and 2002, he made his positions on the 
contentious issues of the day crystal clear, and he won his most recent 
election with almost 60 percent of the vote. Rarely has the Judiciary 
Committee reviewed such a full and unmistakably clear record for an 
appellate nominee. Rarely has the Judiciary Committee reviewed such a 
full and unmistakably clear record for an appellate nominee; rarely has 
a nominee at his hearing been so honest, intelligent and forthright in 
his answers to every Senator's questions, even though he surely knew 
that his legal and policy positions on many, if not most, issues, 
clashed head-on with the positions of those who questioned him. 
Similarly, in his answers to approximately 288 written questions from 
seven different Democratic Senators, he was as clear and complete as he 
had been during his hearing. And even after Bill Pryor answered all of 
these questions, some Democrats regrettably continued to try to dig for 
dirt on him, using unauthenticated and possibly stolen documents as a 
pretext for a so-called investigation, when not a single person has 
made a substantive, authenticated allegation against him. But 
throughout almost a month of this unilateral fishing expedition, 
including phone calls to 20 people, nobody can show that Bill Pryor was 
anything other than truthful with our committee.
  We all know what kind of man Bill Pryor is, and we all know what he 
believes. We even know why he believes what he believes. But therein 
lies the problem, apparently, for those who seek to prevent us from 
voting to confirm him.
  The problem that those opposed to giving Bill Pryor an up or down 
vote in the Senate have is that they cannot credibly make any 
substantive arguments against him--so they oppose him based on what he 
has stated he personally believes. They cannot cast aspersions on his 
legal ability--the undisputed quality of his legal work as attorney 
general of Alabama is reflected in several major cases in which the 
Supreme Court majorities have agreed with his arguments. They cannot 
say he is only a one-party horse--because so many Democrats, and many 
prominent African-American Democrats, in Alabama support him even 
though they disagree with him politically. They cannot really find 
anything substantive that might reflect poorly on his qualifications to 
sit on the Federal bench. So they attack his personal beliefs, even 
though in every instance in which a conflict between those beliefs and 
the law has arisen in Bill Pryor's career, he has unfailingly put the 
law first. In most of the cases they criticize him for, he was won in 
the Supreme Court, making such criticism even more laughable.
  The President has nominated a good an honest man with a sterling 
legal career, a bipartisan reputation for enforcing the law impartially 
as attorney general, and an enviable record of success before the 
Nation's highest Court. Contrary to all available evidence, a minority 
of the Senate may attempt to prevent us from voting on him. Such an 
attempt is profoundly at odds with what the Constitution demands of us 
as Senators. The President and the American people have a right to an 
up or down vote on judicial nominees. That is what the advise and 
consent clause means. Playing political games with judicial nominees 
must stop. We must do our duty to vote on this excellent nominee, Bill 
Pryor.
  Now, if this is another filibuster, we need to ferret it out. That is 
why we will have the cloture vote. For those complaining this 
interrupts the Energy bill, we are here at 9 a.m. in the morning; 
energy can start right after this cloture vote.
  Let's face it, there has been a slow walk on the Energy Bill as there 
has been on almost everything this year. We all know the game that is 
going on. Frankly, in the case of Bill Pryor, it is a very dangerous 
game.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I yield 6 minutes to the senior Senator 
from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to vote against 
cloture on the nomination of William Pryor. Since President Bush came 
into office, the Senate has confirmed 140 of his nominees and so far 
blocked only two. We have blocked these nominees partly because they 
were too extreme for lifetime judicial appointments, and partly because 
the White House and the Senate Majority have tried to jam the 
nominations through the Senate without respect for the Senate's advice 
and consent role under the Constitution, and without respect for the 
Senate's rules and traditions.
  The nomination of Mr. Pryor illustrate all of these issues. His views 
are at the extreme of legal thinking. It is clear from his record that 
does not merit confirmation to a lifetime seat on an appellate court 
that often has the last word on vital issues, not only for the 4.5 
million people of Alabama, but also for the 8 million people of Georgia 
and the 15 million people of Florida.
  Mr. Pryor is not simply a conservative, he is committed to using the 
law to advance a narrow ideological agenda that is at odds with much of 
the Supreme Court's jurisprudence over the last 40 years. An agenda 
that is at odds with important decisions that have made our country 
more inclusive and fair over the past 40 years.
  Mr. Pryor's agenda is clear. He is an aggressive supporter of rolling 
back the power of Congress to remedy violations of civil and individual 
rights; he is a vigorous opponent of the constitutional right to 
privacy and a woman's right to choose; and, he is an aggressive 
advocate of the death penalty, even for individuals with mental 
retardation. He contemptuously dismissive of claims of racial bias in 
the application of the death penalty. He is a ardent opponent of gay 
rights.
  What we are expected to believe is that despite the intensity with 
which he holds these views and the years he has devoted to dismantling 
these legal rights, he will still ``follow the law'' if he's confirmed 
to the Eleventh Circuit. Repeating that mantra again and again in the 
face of his extreme record does not make it credible that he will do 
so.
  Mr. Pryor's supporters say that his views have gained acceptance by 
the Courts, and that his legal positions are well within the legal 
mainstrain. This is simply not true. Mr. Pryor has consistently 
advocated views to narrow individual rights far beyond what any court 
in this land had been willing to hold.

[[Page 20386]]

  Just this past term, the Supreme Court rejected Mr. Pryor's argument 
that States could not be sued for money damages for violating the 
Family and Medical Leave Act. The Court rejected his argument that 
states should be able to criminalize private sexual conduct between 
consenting adults. The Court rejected his far-reaching argument that 
counties should have the same immunity from lawsuits that States have. 
The Court rejected his argument that the right to counsel does not 
apply to defendants with suspended sentences of imprisonment. The Court 
rejected his argument that is was constitutional for Alabama prison 
guards to handcuff prisoners to ``hitching posts'' for hours in the 
summer heat.
  Last term, the Court also rejected Mr. Pryor's view on what 
constituted cruel and unusual punishment in the context of the death 
penalty. The Court held, contrary to Mr. Pryor's arguments, that 
subjecting mentally retarded persons to the death penalty violated the 
Eighth Amendment. And just this Spring, the Eleventh Circuit, a circuit 
dominated by conservative, Republican appointees, rejected Mr. Pryor's 
attempt to evade that Supreme Court's decision. Mr. Pryor attempted to 
prevent a prisoner with an IQ of 65--whom even the prosecution had 
noted was mentally retarded--from raising a claim that he should not be 
executed. Repeatedly, his far-reaching arguments have been rejected by 
the courts. This is not a man within the legal mainstream.
  Mr. Pryor and his supporters simply say that he is ``following the 
law,'' but repeatedly Mr. Pryor attempts to make the law, using the 
Attorney General's office as his own personal ideological platform.
  Mr. Pryor's many intemperate, inflammatory statements show that he 
lacks the temperament to serve on the Federal court. Mr. Pryor 
ridiculed the Supreme Court of the United States for granting a 
temporary stay of execution in a capital punishment case. Alabama is 
one of only 2 States in the Nation that uses the electric chair as its 
sole method of execution. The Court granted review to determine whether 
the use of the electric chair was cruel and unusual punishment. For Mr. 
Pryor, however, the Court should not have even paused to consider this 
Eighth Amendment question. He said the issue ``should not be decided by 
9 octogenarian lawyers who happen to sit on the Supreme Court.'' This 
doesn't reflect the thoughtfulness we seek in our federal judges.
  He is dismissive of concerns about fairness in capital punishment. He 
has stated: ``make no mistake about it, the death penalty moratorium 
movement is headed by an activist minority with little concern for what 
is really going on in our criminal justice system.''
  I have watched my colleagues on the other side bring up every 
argument they can find to save this nominee. Mr. Pryor's record is so 
full of examples of extreme views, and they labor to rebut each one. 
They call Senate Democrats and citizens who question Mr. Pryor's 
fitness--including more than 204 local and national groups--a variety 
of names, and accuse us of bias. The question however is why when there 
are so many qualified Republican attorneys in Alabama, the President 
would choose such a divisive nominee? Why pick one whose record raises 
so much doubt as to whether he will be fair? Why pick one who can only 
muster a rating of partially unqualified from the American Bar 
Association?
  I hope this nominee will not be approved.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Who yields time?
  The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Massachusetts. It 
is interesting that we are in this debate. We are told we want to 
finish the Energy bill, yet we have been talking about everything but 
energy. We have a number of judicial nominations that have been brought 
up that are obviously controversial, obviously not ripe for debate. 
That takes time. At the same time, we have ignored a number of judicial 
nominations that could have been voted on in a series of 10-minute 
rollcall votes had the leadership wanted that.
  Maybe they don't really want to finish the Energy bill before the 
recess. Or perhaps, as we now read in the paper, the White House has 
ordered Republican leadership to have four cloture votes, a very busy 
week.
  When I came here and when the distinguished Presiding Officer, my 
friend from Alaska, and the very highly respected President pro 
tempore, we tended to be more independent around here, independent of 
the White House. The Senate was its own body. Now the White House tends 
to run things, even picking the Republican leadership. It is a strange 
time.
  I am going to yield quickly to the Senator from New York, but I just 
want to say one thing. One of the most despicable things in this debate 
has been the charges made by supporters of the administration that 
Democratic Senators are anti-Catholic because we oppose Mr. Pryor, 
notwithstanding his far right, way out of the mainstream ideology and 
past actions; notwithstanding the fact that we asked questions about 
whether he was soliciting campaign contributions from the same 
companies he was supposed to be suing and prosecuting. Notwithstanding 
that, because we raised these questions, the answers are not given to 
the questions we raise. Instead, we are called anti-Catholic.
  This charge is despicable. I have waited patiently for more than 2 
years for my counterparts on the other side to disavow such charges. 
They stay silent, and of course the best way for a lie to take root is 
for people to stay silent about it. They stayed silent about this lie--
actually that is not true. They haven't just stayed silent about it. 
Many have gone on and repeated it.
  The slander in the ads recently run by a group headed by the 
President's father's former White House counsel and a group whose 
funding includes money raised by Republican Senators and the 
President's family is personally offensive. They have no place in this 
debate or anywhere else.
  I challenged Republican Senators, who are so fond of castigating 
special interest groups and condemning every statement critical of a 
Republican nominee as a partisan smear, to condemn this ad campaign and 
the injection of religion into these matters. Only one of the newest 
Members of the Senate on the Republican side responded to the 
challenge.
  Other Republican members of the Judiciary Committee and of the Senate 
have either stood mute in the case of these obnoxious charges or, 
worse, have fed the flames. Last night, at least three Republican 
Senators came to the floor, not to condemn this campaign of calling 
Democrats anti-Catholic--including this lifelong Catholic--but they 
have come here to fan the flames, to stoke this divisive, harmful, and 
destructive campaign. I have rarely been more disappointed in the 
Senate.
  Where are the fair-minded Republican Senators? What has silenced 
them? Are they so afraid of the White House that they would allow this 
religious McCarthyism to take place? Why are they allowing this to go 
on? The demagoguery, divisive and partisan politics being so cynically 
used by supporters of the President's most extreme judicial nominees 
needs to stop.
  I remember when one of the greatest Senators of Vermont, Ralph 
Flanders, stood up on this floor, even though he was a Republican, sort 
of the quintessential Republican--he stood up and condemned what Joseph 
McCarthy was doing. And it stopped. I hope some will stand up and 
condemn this charge of anti-Catholicism leveled against the members of 
the Senate Judiciary Committee.
  A few days ago we heard from a distinguished group of members of the 
clergy from a variety of churches and synagogues who serve as members 
of the Interfaith Alliance. They were willing to do what the Republican 
Senators will not, and held a forum to discuss the recent injection of 
religion into the judicial nominations process. The Alliance is a 
national, grassroots, non-partisan, faith-based organization of 150,000 
members who come from over 65 religious traditions. These men and women 
of faith promote the positive

[[Page 20387]]

and healing role of religion in public life, and challenges all who 
seek to manipulate or otherwise abuse religion for sectarian or 
partisan political purposes. They came to the United States Capitol to 
denounce the despicable charges made against Senators, and to urge, as 
many of us have, that this involvement of religion in the confirmation 
process come to an end. I would like to enter into the record the 
remarks of participants in the forum on July 29, 2003, including 
statements by Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, the President of the Interfaith 
Alliance, Rabbi Jack Moline, the Vice-chair of the Alliance, and the 
Right Reverend Jane Holmes Dixon, the Immediate Past President of the 
Alliance. These statements are moving and persuasive and important. I 
would hope that my Republican colleagues would read them and take them 
to heart.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print the remarks of the 
Interfaith Alliance forum in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

    Remarks of Forum Participants--The Forum To Discuss the Recent 
 Injection of Religion Into the Judicial Nominations Process, July 29, 
                                  2003


 Participants: Leaders Of The Interfaith Alliance: The Rev. C. Welton 
   Gaddy, Rabbi Jack Moline, Father Robert Drinan, The Rev. Carlton 
 Veazey, and The Right Rev. Jane Holmes Dixon; Senator Patrick Leahy; 
                        Senator Richard Durbin.

       Senator Leahy. First I want to thank everybody who has come 
     here today, and I certainly appreciate so much the religious 
     leaders who have really come together and united on one 
     thing, to condemn the injection of religious smears into the 
     judicial nomination process.
       Partisan political groups have used religious intolerance 
     and bigotry to raise money and to publish and broadcast 
     dishonest ads that falsely accuse Democratic senators of 
     being anti-Catholic. I cannot think of anything in my 29 
     years in the Senate that has angered me or upset me so much 
     as this. One recent Sunday I emerged from Mass to learn later 
     that one of these advocates had been on C-SPAN at the same 
     time that morning to brand me an anti-Christian bigot.
       Now, as an American of Irish and Italian heritage, I 
     remember my parents talking about days I thought were long 
     past, when Irish Catholics were greeted with signs that told 
     them they did not need apply for jobs. Italians were told 
     that Americans did not want them or their religious ways. 
     This is what my parents saw, and a time that they lived to 
     see be long passed. And my parents, rest their souls, thought 
     this time was long past, because it was a horrible part of 
     U.S. history, and it mocks the pain--the smears we see today 
     mock the pain and injustice of what so many American 
     Catholics went through at that time. These partisan hate 
     groups rekindle that divisiveness by digging up past 
     intolerances and breathing life into that shameful history, 
     and they do it for short-term political gains. They want to 
     subvert the very constitutional process designed to protect 
     all Americans from prejudice and injustice.
       It is saddening, and it's an affront to the Senate as well 
     as to so many, when we see senators sit silent when they are 
     invited to disavow these abuses. These smears are lies, and 
     like all lies they depend on the silence of others to live, 
     and to gain root. It is time for the silence to end. The 
     Administration has to accept responsibility for the smear 
     campaign; the process starts with the President. We would not 
     see this stark divisiveness if the President would seek to 
     unite, instead of to divide, the American people and the 
     Senate with his choices for the federal courts. And those 
     senators who join in this kind of a religion smear: they may 
     do it to chill debate on whether Mr. Pryor can be a fair and 
     impartial judge, but they do far more. They hurt the whole 
     country. They hurt Christians and non-Christians. They hurt 
     believers and non-believers. They hurt all of us, because the 
     Constitution requires judges to apply the law, not their 
     political views, and instead they try to subvert the 
     Constitution. And remember, all of us, no matter what our 
     faith--and I'm proud of mine--no matter what our faith, we 
     are able to practice it, or none if we want, because of the 
     Constitution. All of us ought to understand that the 
     Constitution is there to protect us, and it is the protection 
     of the Constitution that has seen this country evolve into a 
     tolerant country. And those who would try to put it back, for 
     short-term political gains, subvert the Constitution, and 
     they damage the country.
       Now this nominee, Mr. Pryor, is an active politician. He 
     has been particularly active on several political issues that 
     divide Americans. And this administration has acknowledged 
     that it selects nominees on the basis of their ideologies. So 
     when this or other nominees are asked about their views and 
     statements, whether it's about Roe v. Wade or the flawed 
     administration of the death penalty, they are being asked 
     legitimate questions that the White House itself has already 
     considered in their selection. Senators of course have an 
     equal right to inform themselves about their ideologies. And 
     those senators do us all a disservice, they do a disservice 
     to this great and wonderful institution, when they charge 
     that there is a religious test for nominees. The record 
     itself reputes that. Democratic senators have joined in 
     confirming 140 of President Bush's judicial nominees. Now 
     you'd have to guess that most of these nominees, chosen by 
     President Bush and confirmed by Democratic senators, have 
     been Republicans. Most, presumably, share the 
     Administration's right-to-life philosophy. No doubt, a large 
     number of the 140 are Christians, and of course, we would 
     have to assume some are Catholics.
       I appreciated Senator Durbin's courage when he spoke the 
     truth about these falsehoods, and I appreciate the courage of 
     the religious leaders we will hear from today, and I welcome 
     Reverend Dr. Welton Gaddy, the president of The Interfaith 
     Alliance. The Alliance has stood up on important legal issues 
     on behalf of Americans of many different faiths. Remember, as 
     Americans, this is one of the things that makes us free and 
     the nation that we are--the diversity that comes from our 
     various religious beliefs. The first Amendment encompasses so 
     many different things: the freedom of speech, the freedom to 
     practice any religion you want, or none if you want. We are 
     not a theocracy, we are a democracy. And because we are a 
     democracy, all of us, especially those who may practice a 
     minority religion, get a chance to practice it. I'm glad to 
     see Father Drinan here. Father Drinan is a professor of law 
     at Georgetown and has been a member of Congress, but more 
     importantly than that he has been a friend of mine since I 
     was a teenager. We first met when I was a college student, 
     and we talked about the fact that I wanted to go to law 
     school. And we're fortunate to have with us today the 
     Reverend Carlton Veazey, and the Right Reverend Jane Holmes 
     Dixon, retired Episcopal Bishop from Washington National 
     Cathedral. And the Bishop has told me she now has a son in 
     Vermont. I admired her before, and I admire her even more 
     now, for that. And Rabbi Jack Moline of Northern Virginia has 
     joined us. So Revered, why don't I turn it over to you now.
       The Rev. C. Welton Gaddy. Welcome to this Press and Hill 
     Staff Briefing. My name is Welton Gaddy. I serve as President 
     of The Interfaith Alliance, a national, grassroots, non-
     partisan, faith-based organization of 150,000 members who 
     come from over 65 different religious traditions. The 
     Interfaith Alliance promotes the positive and healing role of 
     religion in public life and challenges all who seek to 
     manipulate or otherwise abuse religion for sectarian or 
     partisan political purposes.
       Last Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee's discussion 
     on William Pryor's nomination to the 11th Circuit Court of 
     Appeals in Atlanta deteriorated into a dramatic demonstration 
     of the inappropriate intermingling of religion and politics 
     that raised serious concerns about the constitutionally 
     guaranteed separation of the institutions of religion and 
     government. Such a meshing of religion and politics in the 
     rhetoric of the Senate Judiciary Committee cheapens religion 
     and diminishes the recognized authority of the Committee to 
     speak on matters of constitutionality. The debate of that 
     day, though alarming and disturbing, has created a teachable 
     moment in which we will do well to look again at the 
     appropriate role of religion in such a debate. That is why we 
     are here this morning.
       Religion plays a vital role in the life of our nation. Many 
     people enter politics motivated by religious convictions 
     regarding the importance of public service. Religious values 
     inform an appropriate patriotism and inspire political 
     action. But a person's religious identity should stand 
     outside the purview of inquiry related to a judicial 
     nominee's suitability for confirmation. The Constitution is 
     clear: There shall be no religious test for public service.
       Within a partisan political debate, it is out of bounds for 
     anyone to pursue a strategy of establishing the religious 
     identity of a judicial nominee to create divisive 
     partisanship. That, too, is an egregious misuse of religion 
     and a violation of the spirit of the constitution. Even to 
     hint that a judiciary committee member's opposition to a 
     judicial nomination is based on the nominee's religion is 
     cause for alarm. How did we get here?
       In recent years, some religious as well as political 
     leaders have advanced the theory that the authenticity of a 
     person's religion can be determined by that person's support 
     for a specific social-political agenda. So severe has been 
     the application of this approach to defining religious 
     integrity that divergence from an endorsement of any one 
     issue or set of issues can lead to charges of one not being a 
     ``good'' person of faith.
       The relevance of religion to deliberations of the Judiciary 
     Committee should be twofold: one, a concern that every 
     judicial nominee embraces by word and example the religious 
     liberty clause in the constitution that protects the rich 
     religious pluralism that characterizes this nation and, two, 
     a concern that no candidate for the judiciary embraces an 
     intention of using that position to establish a particular 
     religion or religious doctrine. In other words the issue is 
     not religion

[[Page 20388]]

     but the constitution. Religion is a matter of concern only as 
     it relates to support for the constitution.
       Make no mistake about it, there are people in this nation 
     who would use the structures of government to establish their 
     particular religion as the official religion of the nation. 
     There are those who would use the legislative and judicial 
     processes to turn the social-moral agenda of their personal 
     sectarian commitment into the general law of the land. The 
     Senate Judiciary Committee has an obligation to serve as a 
     watchdog that sounds no uncertain warning when such a 
     philosophy seeks endorsement within the judiciary.
       It is wrong to establish the identity of a person's 
     religion as a strategy for advancing or defeating that 
     person's nomination for a judgeship. However, it is 
     permissible, even obligatory, to inquire about how a person's 
     religion impacts that person's decisions about upholding the 
     constitution and evaluating legislation. When a candidate for 
     a federal bench has said, as did the candidate under 
     consideration last Wednesday, in an address in the town in 
     which I pastor, ``our political system seems to have lost 
     God'' and declares that the ``political system must remain 
     rooted in a Judeo-Christian perspective of the nature of 
     government and the nature of man,'' there is plenty for this 
     Committee to question.
       Every candidate coming before this Committee should be 
     guaranteed confirmation or disqualification apart from the 
     candidate's religious identity as a Baptist, a Catholic, a 
     Buddhist or a person without religious identification. What 
     is important here is a candidate's pledge to defend the 
     constitution. And, that pledge should be buttressed by a 
     record of words and actions aimed not at attacking the very 
     religious pluralism that the candidate is being asked to 
     defend but rather to continuing a commitment to the highest 
     law of the land.
       I felt grimy after listening to distinctions between a 
     ``good Catholic'' and a ``bad Catholic.'' I know that 
     language; I heard it in the church of my childhood where we 
     defined a ``good Baptist'' as one who tithed to the church, 
     didn't smoke, didn't dance and attended church meetings on 
     Sunday evening and a ``bad Baptist'' as one who didn't fit 
     that profile. The distinctions had nothing to do with the 
     essence of the Christian tradition and the content of Baptist 
     principles. It is not a debate that is appropriate or 
     necessary in the Chamber of the United States Senate.
       The United States is the most religiously pluralistic 
     nation on earth. The Interfaith alliance speaks regularly in 
     commendation of ``One Nation--Many Faiths.'' For the sake of 
     the stability of this nation, the vitality of religion in 
     this nation, and the integrity of the Constitution, we have 
     to get this matter right. Yes, religion is important. 
     Discussions of religion are not out of place in the judiciary 
     committee or any public office. But evaluations of candidates 
     for public office on the basis of religion are wrong and 
     there should be no question that considerations of candidates 
     who would alter the political landscape of America by using 
     the judiciary to turn sectarian values into public laws 
     should end in rejection.
       The crucial line of questioning should revolve not around 
     the issue of the candidate's personal religion but of the 
     candidate's support for this nation's vision of the role of 
     religion. If the door to the judiciary must have a sign 
     posted on it, let the sign read that those who would pursue 
     the development of a nation opposed to religion or committed 
     to a theocracy rather than a democracy need not apply.
       In 1960, then presidential candidate John F. Kennedy 
     addressed the specific matter of Catholicism with surgical 
     precision and political wisdom, stating that the issue was 
     not what kind of church he believed in but what kind of 
     America he believed in. John F. Kennedy left no doubt about 
     that belief: ``I believe in an America where the separation 
     of church and state is absolute.'' Kennedy pledged to address 
     issues of conscience out of a focus on the national interest 
     not out of adherence to the dictates of one religion. He 
     confessed that if at any point a conflict arose between his 
     responsibility to defend the constitution and the dictates of 
     his religious, he would resign from public office. No less a 
     commitment to religious liberty should be acceptable by any 
     judicial nominee or by members of the Senate Judiciary 
     Committee who recommend for confirmation to the bench persons 
     charged with defending the Constitution.
       We have an impressive group of religious leaders here to 
     address various issues relating to this topic. Also, another 
     member of the Senate Judiciary Committee has joined us, 
     Senator Durbin, and I wanted to say, as I recognize him for 
     some comments, Senator how grateful we are, not only for your 
     words in session on this committee, but for the tireless work 
     you've done on charitable choice legislation.
       Senator Durbin. Thank you very much, and I appreciate those 
     who have gathered this morning to address this very timely 
     and very important issue.
       It has been written that patriotism is the refuge of 
     scoundrels. As of last week, we learned that religion is now 
     the refuge of extremists. Those who are bringing us 
     candidates who cannot stand on their own feet when it comes 
     to their political positions, are now saying that hard 
     questions about their politics are actually some sort of 
     criticism about their religion belief. I have said publicly 
     and privately to Senator Hatch, this has to end immediately.
       Americans should understand that a person's religion, as 
     the Constitution requires, should never be a qualification 
     for public office. I am going to join Senator Leahy in 
     offering an amendment to the Senate Judiciary Committee which 
     states categorically that no witness or nominee can ever be 
     asked their religion during the course of a committee 
     hearing. I think we have crossed a line which is extremely 
     sad, and watching last week as several of my colleagues came 
     forward to explain Catholic doctrine was quite a treat, 
     Father Drinan, to have my colleagues who are proud members of 
     the Church of Christ, the Methodist Church, and the Church of 
     Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to explain to me what a 
     ``good Catholic'' believes, was troubling. I think that that 
     kind of conversation has no place in the public marketplace, 
     and that Senator Leahy has led us in this committee, from the 
     beginning objecting to this line of questioning, and we 
     should put down the rule, hard and fast, once and for all, 
     that whether the person who is inspiring this, Mr. Boyden 
     Gray, in his scurrilous advertising campaign, or members of 
     the United States Senate, who would seek to exploit the issue 
     of religion to somehow justify the extremist views of their 
     nominees: whoever the person is, they have no place in this 
     important public debate.
       I am a person of the Catholic faith. I was raised in that 
     religion. I continue to go to Mass, to sometimes debate my 
     church over issues. I believe that's my responsibility and my 
     personal situation. I don't believe that should be part of 
     the public debate, but my position on the issues might be, 
     and for some of the senators to come forward and say, anytime 
     a religious belief somehow reaches over into a political area 
     it's out of bounds, you can't ask questions, well that's just 
     plain wrong. If you happen to be a person who is of the 
     Jewish religion, who keeps kosher in observance of religious 
     belief, that is certainly your right to do and has little 
     relevance to the political debate. But the position of a 
     person on the death penalty, whether they're Jewish, 
     Catholic, Protestant, nonbeliever, whatever their 
     denomination, that certainly does have relevance to the 
     national debate, and to say that we're not going to ask those 
     questions because they somehow cross the line into religious 
     belief, is to disqualify this committee from even considering 
     the most important political issues. We can't let that 
     happen.
       I'm proud of the fact that I have nominated many judges of 
     my own state, and that I have never used a litmus test on any 
     of those judicial nominees. Though I am pro-choice in my 
     belief when it comes to vote on the issues before us, I have 
     successfully nominated, and seen appointed, pro-life judges 
     in my state, and I believe then as I do now that the fact 
     that that's part of their religious belief is irrelevant. I 
     hope that what we are saying and what we are talking about 
     today is heard by members of the entire Senate, and I hope 
     that we will adopt this rules change to say once and for all 
     that we will not return to the shabby episode that we saw 
     played out in the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.
       Rev. Gaddy. Senator Leahy has already introduced the 
     members of the panel who will come and speak now; I will 
     simply recognize them. Rabbi Jack Moline.
       Rabbi Jack Moline. I am Rabbi Jack Moline, vice-chair at-
     large of the Interfaith Alliance. I am also on the back end 
     of a summer cold, so I apologize for the huskiness of my 
     voice.
       The ``Father of our Country,'' George Washington, was a 
     surveyor by trade. Part of his duties included the 
     determination of exactly where the property of one owner left 
     off and the other owner began. You might wonder what possible 
     difference a few inches, even a few feet in either direction 
     would make to a farmer with acres of land. But Washington 
     knew as we all know that crops do not grow only in the center 
     of a field, and that cattle do not graze only a distance from 
     the fence, and that injuries do not always occur close to the 
     barn. Good surveying produces good boundaries. And good 
     boundaries keep good neighbors from unnecessary conflict.
       As a rabbi, I have studied similar boundary issues in the 
     Talmud. Entire sections are taken up discussing the 
     boundaries between properties, between businesses, between 
     Sabbath and weekdays, between the holy and the profane. 
     Violating those boundaries throws a system into turmoil. 
     Preserving them avoid unnecessary conflict.
       We Americans have become experts in testing boundaries. You 
     can make your own list of the boundaries we have tried to 
     survey, and where we have been successful and where we have 
     not. In culture, in business, in public policy and in 
     politics, the lines that separate one domain from another 
     have been confronted by those who wish to preserve them and 
     by those who wish to redraw them.
       When the Bill of Rights of our Constitution established 
     what Thomas Jefferson wisely

[[Page 20389]]

     called the wall of separation between church and state, it 
     created a two-hundred-year-old tradition of surveying that 
     boundary, trying to find the exact place to keep good 
     neighbors from unnecessary conflict.
       The Senate Judiciary Committee failed in their latest 
     attempt last week when Alabama Attorney General William 
     Pryor, nominee for a federal judgeship, was asked by a 
     supporting Senator about his religious affiliation. The 
     result, as you have seen, was an unnecessary conflict between 
     good neighbors. In fact, we are counting our blessings that 
     the Capitol Police were not called to intervene in the 
     ensuing arguments.
       The religious beliefs of a nominee are relevant only to the 
     extent that they interfere with his or her ability to support 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States. Frankly, I 
     would be alarmed to see the influences of religious 
     conviction expunged from any aspect of American government. 
     And I think it is entirely relevant to ask any candidate for 
     the executive, legislative or judiciary if personal 
     convictions would interfere with the ability to support and 
     defend the Constitution and its resultant laws as they exist 
     today.
       Frankly, that is the relevant question--not a question of 
     affiliation. Do the values, beliefs or proclivities that Mr. 
     Pryor or anybody else holds prevent him from meeting the 
     responsibilities of the office. The question is about his 
     beliefs and no one else's. By affixing a label to the 
     question and generalizing the issue, the legitimate business 
     of the Senate Judiciary Committee was catapulted onto the 
     other side of that carefully surveyed boundary. And lest you 
     think the fault lies only on one side, the subsequent 
     responses of opposing senators are a good indication of the 
     reason we rely on articulated rules in our society and not 
     good will.
       It is time to return to the tradition of Washington and 
     Jefferson and survey again that necessary boundary. And once 
     it has been reestablished, then it behooves both the Senators 
     and the nominees they examine to respect the values on which 
     this country was founded.
       Rev. Gaddy. Now I'll recognize Father Robert Drinan.
       Father Robert Drinan. In the Constitution of Massachusetts 
     there's a beautiful sentence about how judges are supposed to 
     be picked. Judges shall be selected from those ``who are as 
     impartial as the lot of humanity will allow.'' Isn't that a 
     nice theological thing; we're all corrupted, ``as the lot of 
     humanity will allow.'' And in the Constitution of the United 
     States there's only one reference to religion, and it's very 
     pertinent this morning, Article six says ``No religious test 
     shall ever be applied for public office''
       Consequently, when we're thinking about what we are trying 
     to decide or think about in the Senate, we must remember the 
     shades of Justice Brandeis. You recall that his confirmation 
     was delayed, they never said openly that he would be the 
     first Jew but it was always there, and I said that shame as a 
     leader of the Americana Bar Association that the ABA opposed 
     Justice Brandeis, and underneath, it was his religion.
       I have here the full hearing on this man who desires to be 
     a judge, and if you read it in full you'd say that the Senate 
     is fully entitled to exercise its constitutional privilege. 
     They have to give advice and consent. Advice and consent. 
     They have broad discretion. And if they think he wouldn't be 
     impartial, that he wouldn't be a good judge, they are fully 
     entitled to say no. And during the centuries the Senate has 
     said no to too many of the president's nominees.
       What shall we say about this individual? You can read it 
     for yourself. He lacks judicial temperament, in my view. He's 
     so scalding and so one-sided. He believes in school prayer. 
     He called the Supreme Court ``nine octogenarian lawyers,'' 
     and at 41 he's a hard-charging conservative activist, and the 
     senators are quite able, under their powers, to say ``we 
     don't think that he is appropriate.'' Mr. Pryor is negative 
     on Section Five of the Voting Rights Act, and has clashed 
     with the Justice Department, so let's take a hypo. Law 
     professors love hypos. Suppose there was a group of Catholics 
     and non-Catholics in this country, who would say that Mr. 
     Pryor is very much in favor of the death penalty and that 
     comes from his religion. Well, it wouldn't be on solid 
     ground, because the Pope has opposed the death penalty, the 
     Catholic catechism and the Catholic bishops with unusual 
     activity and vigor have opposed the death penalty in any 
     form.
       Mr. Pryor defies all of that. Should we say he's a bad 
     Catholic? And I would say that if people use that and his 
     faith saying that he's defying the Church, that would be an 
     appropriate reason to vote no. They have to vote yes or no 
     according to what the Constitution says, and it seems to me 
     that the Senate has many, many reason to say that this 
     individual is not ready or he's not appropriate. They could 
     easily find, they could easily say, in the words of the 
     Massachusetts Constitution, that he is not `as impartial as 
     the lot of humanity will allow.''
       Rev. Gaddy. Now Reverend Carton Veazey.
       The Rev. Carlton Veazey. Thank you, Dr. Gaddy. Thank you 
     also, Senator Durbin and Senator Leahy, for sharing this 
     time. I'm Reverend Carlton Veazey, President of the Religious 
     Coalition for Reproductive Choice, founded in 1973 as a 
     result of the Roe v. Wade decision. We have over forty 
     religious organizations and denominations in our coalition. 
     We represent over 20 million people. But I'm not here to talk 
     about choice. I'm here to talk about religious freedom. 
     Because that is the issue, and that is what we in the 
     coalition strongly believe. Because we are diverse, and all 
     of our denominations, we all agree on a woman's right to 
     choose, but we also understand that we have different 
     theological positions as relates to that issue, and that is 
     the strength of our coalition.
       The Religious Coalition was founded 30 years ago. Men of 
     faith, and who are pro-faith, we work together in harmony 
     because we respect each other's beliefs. We don't hold the 
     same view about abortion rights, but we all agree that this 
     is a matter of conscience and belief. In this pluralistic 
     nation, we agree to respect different views and decisions. 
     The nominee's pronouncements on reproductive choice show no 
     understanding of the pluralism that makes this nation great. 
     He's not unqualified for the bench because of his religion, 
     but because of some views that he lacks judicial temperament, 
     and it's shown he would impose his personal views regardless 
     of the law, and does not respect the basic principle of 
     religious freedom on which this nation was founded.
       Conservatives are arguing that there is a religious litmus 
     test about abortion rights and that determines who gets 
     appointed and who does not. That's nonsense. There is no 
     correct position. Catholics and people of all religions have 
     different views on abortion, as the organization Catholics 
     for Free Choice, which is a part of our coalition. Many 
     Catholics disagree with the church's stance, and many 
     Catholics practice birth control and have abortions. But the 
     main thing is to understand that religion has no place in 
     making this decision. These senators, who have tried so 
     courageously to protect that, to protect us from becoming a 
     theocratic government, to protect us from just one view.
       Catholics today have the freedom to exercise prudential 
     judgment, and to decide how best to interpret the range of 
     teachings and principles contained in the Catholic canon, as 
     Father Drinan pointed out. Thus some Catholics believe that 
     abortion, while a serious moral issue, should not be illegal, 
     while others believe that the taking of human life in war or 
     capital punishment is morally evincible, in spite of Papal 
     pronouncements against both.
       I was interested in Dr. Gaddy when he talked about 
     Baptists. I'm a Baptist; I was trying to measure myself up 
     and see what kind of Baptist. I have become a better Baptist 
     since the time that you were talking about them. But the 
     thing is, that there is no ``good Baptist'' or ``bad 
     Baptist.'' There is no ``Baptist position.'' There's no 
     ``Baptist position.'' That's why you have, and I respect them 
     for what they believe, but on the other hand that's not my 
     position. I am not a Southern Baptist. Sometimes I don't know 
     if I'm a Northern Baptist. Because the basic principle and 
     tenet of the Baptist faith is that we have autonomy to 
     believe in the way we understand God and understand our 
     religious principles. So what I'm saying today is that 
     simply, as it's been stated before, that no one should have a 
     litmus test on their religion. I think he should be judged on 
     his qualifications or her qualifications, and that alone. So 
     the Religious Coalition wanted to come and to stand with you, 
     to say that we also believe that you are doing the courageous 
     thing and protecting religious freedom in our country. Thank 
     you very much.
       Rev. Gaddy. The retired Bishop Pro Tempore of the Episcopal 
     Diocese in Washington is also one who has served as chair of 
     the board of The Interfaith Alliance, Bishop Jane Holmes 
     Dixon, we are eager to hear you.
       The Right Rev. Jane Holmes Dixon. Good morning. It is a 
     pleasure to be here with all of you this morning. I am the 
     Right Reverend Jane Holmes Dixon, Immediate Past President of 
     the Interfaith Alliance and the recently retired Bishop of 
     the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, Pro tempore.
       Before I begin my remarks, I would like to thank Senator 
     Leahy for understanding the grave importance of why this 
     discussion today is not only crucial for the future of the 
     judicial nominations process, but in fact, a necessary 
     reflection on the state of our democracy for all of us 
     gathered here: religious leaders, elected officials, those 
     who seek to serve the nation by entering into civil service, 
     and finally, the countless people of this nation who are 
     brought up to believe that any citizen, no matter what your 
     gender, race or religion, will have an equal opportunity to 
     serve this country, and will have the right to be treated 
     equally under the law. The First Amendment of our 
     Constitution--through its wise and steadfast guarantee that 
     the government of the United States shall make no law to 
     establish a religion and guarantees that it will not 
     interfere with the free exercise of religion--expects nothing 
     less than the religious freedom and liberty that this 
     provides.
       I believe that I speak for many when I say that last week's 
     hearing of Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor did not 
     reflect well on the religious health of our nation and the 
     guarantees of our Constitution.

[[Page 20390]]

       Last week's hearing, a hearing that put on the record 
     certain Senators defining what is true Catholicism--including 
     even references to Rome--and other Senators having to defend 
     their opposition to a nominee against charges of being anti-
     Catholic--was nothing short of a travesty and a major step 
     back for interfaith relations in this nation. This becomes 
     more troubling given the fact that there are indeed Roman 
     Catholics on this committee who, according to their own 
     remarks before the committee, consider themselves to be 
     devout.
       Not only must those who are nominated to become judges 
     respect religious pluralism, equally important, those who are 
     charged with confirming judges must respect the fact that 
     within denominations there remains a wide spectrum of people 
     who all hold varied beliefs. And they are all equally worthy 
     of respect.
       Senators do have an obligation to determine whether a 
     judicial nominee will in fact respect those of all religious 
     beliefs and those citizens amongst us who practice no 
     religion at all. It is fair to ascertain whether a nominee 
     will deliver justice based upon the Constitution of the 
     United States--a document that unites us all and binds us 
     together under a common law--or religious doctrine and sacred 
     texts that were written for those who specifically subscribe 
     to one religious tenet over another. This becomes more 
     necessary when a nominee or his or her supporters take the 
     unfortunate and even dangerous step of couching the nominee's 
     positions on law and justice in terms of abiding by one faith 
     tradition over another.
       I am deeply disappointed that those charged with confirming 
     nominees to serve the federal judiciary and thus the millions 
     of Americans who will depend on those confirmed to uphold the 
     concept of blind justice, would deploy the strategy of 
     playing one religion against another--equating honest 
     differences of opinion with being anti-religion. Whether it 
     is anti-Catholic, anti-Baptist, anti-Sikh, anti-Jew, or anti-
     Muslim, this kind of divisive politics has no place in the 
     Congress of the United States, period. We are a people who 
     are free to choose how and when we worship.

  Mr. LEAHY. I see the Senator from New York. How much time do I have 
remaining?
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator has 16 minutes 10 seconds.
  Mr. LEAHY. I yield 6 minutes to the Senator from New York.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from New York is recognized 
for 6 minutes.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, first let me thank our colleague from 
Vermont for his heartfelt leadership on this issue. Every one of us 
knows how much he cares about these issues and how these charges--
``charges'' is too dignified a word--these scurrilous attacks have 
gotten to him and moved him. We very much appreciate his integrity and 
courage and strength on these issues.
  I rise in strong opposition to the Pryor nomination. This is a 
nomination where there are three strikes and you are out; three strikes 
against Mr. Pryor and he is out.
  First, he is the most extreme nominee we have been asked to support. 
Second, there are questions about his credibility before the committee. 
And, third, the committee rules were violated to bring Mr. Pryor to the 
floor. So three strikes and Mr. Pryor is out.
  Let me talk about each of the three briefly. First on extremism. This 
man is not a mainstream conservative. On issue after issue, he is in 
the most militant, hard, out-of-the-mainstream position, more than any 
judge. His views are an unfortunate stitching together of the worst 
parts of the most troubling nominees we have seen thus far.
  He is not just out of the mainstream and extreme on one subject, he 
is extreme on almost everything. In a sense, he is the Frankenstein 
nominee, a stitching together of the worst parts of the worst nominees 
the President has sent us.
  I will leave the issue of choice aside, other than to say that of the 
120 judges I have voted for, the overwhelming majority were pro-life. 
So anyone on the other side who accuses anyone on this side of having a 
litmus test is just flying in the face of truth and honor and decency.
  But what about other issues? He was the only attorney general who 
filed a brief to overturn parts of the Violence Against Women Act, a 
brief that went too far even for Justice Scalia--1 of 50. He was the 
only attorney general who ever supported Federal intervention in the 
States in Bush v. Gore.
  He has voted to undermine the Clean Water Act. He has voted on issue 
after issue to turn the clock way back. On criminal justice issues, 
where I tend to side with my Republican colleagues at least as often as 
I side with my friends on the Democratic side, even here, he is way off 
the deep end.
  He defended his State's practice of handcuffing prisoners to hitching 
posts in the hot Alabama sun for 7 hours without even giving them a 
drop of water to drink. And then, when the Supreme Court held this 
violated the 8th amendment, he criticized that decision.
  His language is intemperate. He said he prayed to God that there 
would be no more Souters. This is not somebody we should elevate to 
this important part of the bench. He is way off the deep end. He is 
extreme in the extreme.
  On this investigation, someone came forward after the nominee was 
questioned by my colleagues from Massachusetts and Wisconsin on the 
issue of this organization that raised money.
  I don't like the system by which we raise money. But we should not 
hold Mr. Pryor to a different standard than seems to be all around the 
country. It isn't the raising of the money that bothers me. But when 
asked questions about it, there are eight statements he made that are 
highly suspect that are contradicted by documents sent to the 
committee. That doesn't mean he lied, but it means we ought to look 
into it because there is a possibility he did. We have not been able to 
complete that investigation.
  To send this nominee to the bench whose credibility is in some 
suspicion--not proven certainly; he may be exonerated--is wrong and 
unfair. And it is a rush to judgment. I pled with my colleagues: Why 
can't we wait until this investigation is over and get the true facts? 
Maybe they are afraid of the answers because there has been a rush to 
judgment here. There is no danger to the Republic if we wait until 
September. Let the investigation finish, and then proceed with Mr. 
Pryor's nomination.
  That is the second strike.
  First, extreme; second, may not have been truthful with the 
committee; and then, the third--despite the promises of my good friend 
on the Judiciary Committee--we have violated rule 4 again.
  This side of the aisle will not allow the rules of this body to be 
tampered with, and if for no other reason we will not proceed with Mr. 
Pryor's nomination today, and we will get overwhelming support on our 
side because the rules of the committee have been steamrolled at the 
whim of my good friend, the chairman. That is wrong.
  That is the third strike. He is out.
  One final point I would like to make. I am sorry my time is limited.
  The argument about Mr. Pryor's religious background and 
discrimination--I am not going to get into Catholic doctrine. I will 
leave that to far better judges.
  I ask unanimous consent for 2 additional minutes.
  Mr. LEAHY. Yes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Murkowski). The Senator may proceed.
  Mr. SCHUMER. I thank the ranking member and the Chair.
  I am not going to get into Catholic doctrine. That is not my 
bailiwick, that is for sure. But let me say to my colleagues in a 
heartfelt way that you are good people. But the arguments you are using 
are the last refuge of scoundrels. You are not scoundrels. But the 
arguments you are using are debasing of our society and this Chamber. 
They are hits below the belt. You ought to be ashamed of using 
arguments like that.
  When we had Mr. Estrada, we were accused of being anti-Hispanic. When 
we had Mr. Pickering, we were accused of being anti-Baptist. When we 
had Priscilla Owen, we are accused of being anti-women. And now, of 
course, anti-Catholic with Mr. Pryor.
  These arguments are the last refuge of scoundrels.
  Again, my colleagues are not scoundrels, but the arguments they are 
using are, and they ought to look into their hearts before they use 
such arguments again. They are cheap. As my colleague said, they 
represent religious McCarthyism. And one comes to think on this side--
and I think most Americans

[[Page 20391]]

think--they cannot win on the merits, and so they do below-the-belt 
shots.
  Every single nominee who comes up--it is not debating whether that 
nominee deserves to be on the bench but, rather, someone is attacking 
him or her because of their religion, because of their gender, or 
because of their ethnicity. We have gone further than that in this 
wonderful country of ours. Argue on the merits, not in these cheap and 
vulgar arguments which demean people who use them and won't prevail.
  I will tell my colleagues this. Those arguments--I will tell this to 
Mr. Boyden Gray, and all the others as well whom my colleague from 
Illinois did such a good job with on television last night--those 
arguments strengthen resolve. They make us certain that we were right 
because we say to ourselves: They can't win on the merits; try below-
the-belt shots.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used his additional time.
  Mr. SCHUMER. I yield my time to the Senator from Vermont.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  The Senator from Vermont.


           Unanimous-Consent Request--Amending Standing Rules

  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I alerted the distinguished Senate floor 
manager on this matter.
  I send a resolution to the desk on behalf of myself and Senator 
Durbin. The resolution says that in any proceeding of a committee 
considering a nomination made by the President to the U.S. Senate, it 
shall not be in order to ask any question of the nominee relating to 
the religious affiliation of the nominee.
  With that, Madam President, I send a resolution to the desk to amend 
the Standing Rules of the Senate to provide that it is not in order in 
a committee to ask questions regarding a Presidential nominee's 
religious affiliation.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the resolution by title.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       A resolution amending the Standing Rules of the Senate to 
     provide that it is not in order in a committee to ask 
     questions regarding a Presidential nominee's religious 
     affiliation.

  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent for its immediate 
consideration; that the resolution be considered and agreed to, and the 
motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.
  Mr. HATCH. Madam President, reserving the right to object--and I will 
object--let me make clear that when the issue of religion is raised, as 
it has been in the Pryor matter, and we think improperly so, and it 
seems to be continuously raised in some of these issues before the 
Judiciary Committee with various nominees--there are questions or 
statements like this: One Senator accused Attorney General Pryor of----
  Mr. REID. Regular order.
  Mr. HATCH. --``asserting an agenda of religious belief of your own.'' 
As long as those types of questions are going to be asked, I am going 
to have to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Regular order has been called for.
  Mr. HATCH. Then I object under those circumstances.
  Mr. REID. Regular order.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  The resolution will go over 1 day under rule 14.
  Who yields time?
  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, how much time is remaining to the Senator 
from Vermont?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. There are 4 minutes 52 seconds remaining.
  Mr. LEAHY. I yield 4 minutes to my distinguished friend from Illinois 
who, incidentally, gave one of the finest speeches I ever heard last 
night on the Senate floor.
  Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Senator from Vermont.
  Madam President, I rise this morning in continuation of the debate 
which occurred last night. What has just occurred on the floor of the 
United States Senate is troubling. An attempt was made by the Senator 
from Vermont in which I joined to make it clear that no nominee of a 
President who appears before a committee of the Senate would ever be 
asked questions related to his or her religious affiliation.
  This clear statement of constitutional principle was just rejected by 
the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. I don't 
understand that.
  If we truly want to take religion out of this debate, if we want the 
debate to be confined to political beliefs and not a person's creed, 
why does the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee 
object? I think the answer is obvious.
  What we have seen in the William Pryor nomination is an attempt to 
use religion as a defense. It is almost part of the art of magic. How 
do you pull off a magic trick? You divert the attention of the audience 
to something else while you move your hand in another direction. In 
this case, what the Republicans are trying to do is to divert our 
attention from the radical political beliefs of William Pryor by saying 
that the real issue isn't politics; it is his Catholic faith. Frankly, 
that is not only an unfair argument. It is inaccurate.
  Time and again, the Judiciary committee has approved President Bush's 
nominees for the Federal bench who have been Catholic, who have been 
pro-life, and, frankly, who have taken positions with which most of the 
Democratic members of the committee disagree. But in this case, despite 
the fact that William Pryor has reached a new level as a nominee in 
terms of his radical views and his experience, we are being accused of 
discriminating against him because of his religion.
  The record will show that it was the Republican chairman of the 
committee who asked that William Pryor's religious affiliation be made 
part of the record. It was the chairman of the committee who used that 
important and now code phrase, ``deeply held religious beliefs,'' on 
more than one occasion. The record will also show that many of us who 
have questioned the background of William Pryor never raised his 
religion as an issue, nor should we.
  I have listened to this debate on the floor of the Senate and in the 
Senate Judiciary Committee, and it troubles me greatly to think this 
body would now ignore the clear instruction and guidance of the U.S. 
Constitution, which says, in Article VI, that ``no religious Test shall 
ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under 
the United States.''
  I would warn my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that there 
is a strong sentiment in America that each of us should have the 
freedom to follow the religion of our conscience, that no one should 
ever be dictated to by this Government or any government as to their 
religious belief. And those who attempt to exploit religion to achieve 
political goals will, frankly, never be favored in this country, nor 
should they. That is what is at issue here. And for them to raise this 
as somehow a condemnation of William Pryor's religion, is troubling. C. 
Boyden Gray, former counsel to President Bush's father, last night on 
television said, although he was an Episcopalian in his own personal 
religious belief, he did not feel any problem running these ads 
suggesting about what a good Catholic believes.
  We have had the same thing in the committee. Members of the committee 
who are not members of the Catholic faith have been professing 
theology.
  Late last night, I spoke on the Floor to explain my deep 
disappointment about the debate in the Judiciary Committee surrounding 
the nomination of William Pryor.
  That negative discourse has now spilled over to the floor of the U.S. 
Senate and in the advertisements placed in our Nation's newspapers and 
on radio airwaves.
  I never thought that we would ever be in the position that we find 
ourselves in today where members of this chamber are debating some of 
the most well settled and fundamental premises upon which our great 
Nation was founded.
  Freedom from religious persecution is one of the pillars upon which 
our Nation and its Constitution rest, and there should be no debate 
about it.

[[Page 20392]]

  In fact, our Founding Fathers thought it necessary to encapsulate 
that concept into the very text of the Constitution itself, in clause 3 
of article VI.
  That clause reads:

     . . . no religious test shall ever be required as a 
     qualification to any office or public trust under the United 
     States.

  It was General Charles Pinckney of South Carolina who, on August 20, 
1787, introduced the provision at the Federal Convention that 
ultimately became part of the Constitution in Article VI. General 
Pinckney, like many of the pioneers, understood that religion can be 
abused by governments in divisive ways.
  As early as the 17th Century, some Americans such as Roger Williams, 
expressed their objection to the common practice inherited from England 
of imposing a religious test for public office. However, by the 
beginning of the 18th Century, just about every Colony had enacted a 
law that limited eligibility for public office solely to members of 
certain denominations.
  In Rhode Island, for example, one had to be a Protestant to become 
eligible for such office. In Pennsylvania, the law required a belief 
that God was ``the rewarder of the good and punisher of the wicked.'' 
North Carolina disqualified from office anyone who denied ``the being 
of God or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority 
of either the Old or New Testament.''
  The words of Oliver Ellsworth, a landholder who participated in the 
debates on December 17, 1787, capture the essence of the need for an 
affirmative prohibition now found in the Constitution. Ellsworth said:

       Some very worthy persons . . . have objected against that 
     clause in the constitution which provides, that no religious 
     test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office 
     or public trust under the United States. They have been 
     afraid that this clause is unfavorable to religion. But my 
     countrymen, the sole purpose and effect of it is to exclude 
     persecution and to secure to you the important right of 
     religious liberty. We are almost the only people in the 
     world, who have a full enjoyment of the important right of 
     human nature. In our country every man has a right to worship 
     God in that way which is most agreeable to his conscience.

  This morning, I am uncomfortable in offering this Resolution with my 
respected colleague, the Senator from Vermont and ranking member of the 
Senate Judiciary Committee, because I believe the rule change we seek 
with this Resolution should never be needed in a Chamber where every 
Member has sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution.
  Yet events of the past few weeks compel us to act today.
  Our resolution would simply state that it is the rule of the Senate 
to prohibit the questioning by any Senator of a presidential nominee's 
religious affiliation. The rule would thus require us to carry out in 
practice the wise admonitions of our Founding Fathers.
  I hope my colleagues will join Senator Leahy and me in adopting this 
resolution.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has used 4 minutes.
  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I hope colleagues will join me in 
opposing this nomination.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I would like to speak about the meeting 
earlier this week with the Interfaith Alliance where they--Catholics, 
Protestants, and Jews--condemned the activities of having any Member of 
the Senate ask somebody their religion in a Senate meeting.
  A few days ago we heard from a distinguished group of members of the 
clergy from a variety of churches and synagogues who serve as members 
of the Interfaith Alliance. The Alliance is a national, grassroots, 
non-partisan, faith-based organization of 150,000 members who come from 
over 65 religious traditions. These men and women of faith promote the 
positive and healing role of religion in public life, and challenges 
all who seek to manipulate or otherwise abuse religion for sectarian or 
partisan political purposes. They came to the United States Capitol to 
denounce the despicable charges made against Senators, and to urge, as 
many of us have, that this involvement of religion in the confirmation 
process come to an end. I would like to enter into the record the 
statements of some of the participants in the event where the 
Alliance's members came together for that purpose.
  Specifically, I would like to have printed in the Record the remarks 
of Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, the President of the Interfaith Alliance, 
the remarks of Rabbi Jack Moline, the Vice-chair of the Alliance, and 
the remarks of the Right Reverend Jane Holmes Dixon, the Immediate Past 
President of the Alliance. These statements are moving and persuasive 
and important. I would hope that my Republican colleagues would read 
them and take them to heart.
  The demagoguery, divisive and partisan politics being so cynically 
used by supporters of the President's most extreme judicial nominees 
needs to stop.
  I ask unanimous consent to have those remarks by clergy printed in 
the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                 (Remarks by Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy)

               Religion and the Senate Judiciary Hearing

                  [From Hill Briefing, July 29, 2003]

       Good morning. Welcome to this Press and Hill Staff 
     Briefing. My name is Welton Gaddy. I serve as President of 
     the Interfaith Alliance, a national, grassroots, non-
     partisan, faith-based organization of 150,000 members who 
     come from over 65 different religious traditions. The 
     Interfaith Alliance promotes the positive and healing role of 
     religion in public life and challenges all who seek to 
     manipulate or otherwise abuse religion for sectarian or 
     partisan political purposes.
       Last Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee's discussion 
     on William Pryor's nomination to the 11th Circuit Court of 
     Appeals in Atlanta deteriorated into a dramatic demonstration 
     of the inappropriate intermingling of religion and politics 
     that raised serious concerns about the constitutionally 
     guaranteed separation of the institutions of religion and 
     government. Such a meshing of religion and politics in the 
     rhetoric of the Senate Judiciary Committee cheapens religion 
     and diminishes the recognized authority of the Committee to 
     speak on matters constitutionality. The debate of that day, 
     though alarming and disturbing, has created a teachable 
     moment in which we will do well to look again at the 
     appropriate role of religion in such a debate. That is why we 
     are here this morning.
       Religion plays a vital role in the life of our Nation. Many 
     people enter politics motivated by religious convictions 
     regarding the importance of public service. Religious values 
     inform an appropriate patriotism and inspire political 
     action. But a person's religious identity should stand 
     outside the purview of inquiry related to a judicial 
     nominee's suitability for confirmation. The Constitution is 
     clear: there shall be no religious test for public service.
       Within a partisan political debate, it is out of bounds for 
     anyone to pursue a strategy of establishing the religious 
     identity of a judicial nominee to create divisive 
     partisanship. That, too, is an egregious misuse of religion 
     and a violation of the spirit of the constitution. Even to 
     hint that a judiciary committee member's opposition to a 
     judicial nomination is based on the nominee's religion is 
     cause for alarm. How did we get here?
       In recent years, some religious as well as political 
     leaders have advanced the theory that the authenticity of a 
     person's religion can be determined by that person's support 
     for a specific social-political agenda. So severe has been 
     the application of this approach to defining religious 
     integrity that divergence from an endorsement of any one 
     issue or set of issues can lead to charges of one not being a 
     ``good'' person of faith.
       The relevance of religion to deliberations of the Judiciary 
     Committee should be twofold: one, a concern that every 
     judicial nominee embraces by word and example the religious 
     liberty clause in the constitution that protects the rich 
     religious pluralism that characterizes this nation and, two, 
     a concern that no candidate for the judiciary embraces an 
     intention of using that position to establish a particular 
     religion or religious doctrine. In other words the issue is 
     not religion but the constitution. Religion is a matter of 
     concern only as it relates to support for the constitution.
       Make no mistake about it, there are people in this nation 
     who would use the structures of government to establish their 
     particular religion as the official religion of the nation. 
     There are those who would use the legislative and judicial 
     processes to turn the social-moral agenda of their personal 
     sectarian commitment into the general law of the land. The 
     Senate Judiciary Committee has an obligation to serve as a 
     watchdog that

[[Page 20393]]

     sounds no uncertain warning when such a philosophy seeks 
     endorsement within the judiciary.
        It is wrong to establish the identity of a person's 
     religion as a strategy for advancing or defeating that 
     person's nomination for a judgeship. However, it is 
     permissible, even obligatory, to inquire about how a person's 
     religion impacts that person's decisions about upholding the 
     constitution and evaluating legislation. When a candidate for 
     a federal bench has said, as did the candidate under 
     consideration last Wednesday, in an address in the town in 
     which I pastor, ``our political system seems to have lost 
     God'' and declares that the ``political system must remain 
     rooted in a Judeo-Christian perspective of the nature of 
     government and the nature of man,'' there is plenty for this 
     Committee to question.
       Every candidate coming before this Committee should be 
     guaranteed confirmation or disqualification apart from the 
     candidate's religious identity as a Baptist, a Catholic, a 
     Buddhist or a person without religious identification. What 
     is important here is a candidate's pledge to defend the 
     constitution. And, that pledge should be buttressed by a 
     record of words and actions aimed not at attacking the very 
     religious pluralism that the candidate is being asked to 
     defend but rather to continuing a commitment to the highest 
     law of the land.
       I felt grimy after listening to distinctions between a 
     ``good Catholic'' and ``bad Catholic.'' I know that language; 
     I heard it in the church of my childhood where we defined a 
     ``good Baptist'' as one who tithed to the church, didn't 
     smoke, didn't dance and attended church meetings on Sunday 
     evening and a ``bad Baptist'' as one who didn't fit that 
     profile. The distinctions had nothing to do with the essence 
     of the Christian tradition and the content of Baptist 
     principles. It is not a debate that is appropriate or 
     necessary in the Chamber of the United States Senate.
       The United States is the most religiously pluralistic 
     nation on earth. The Interfaith Alliance speaks regularly in 
     commendation of ``One Nation--Many Faiths.'' For the sake of 
     the stability of this nation, the vitality of religion in 
     this nation, and the integrity of the Constitution, we have 
     to get this matter right. Yes, religion is important. 
     Discussions of religion are not out of place in the judiciary 
     committee or any public office. But evaluations of candidates 
     for public office on the basis of religion are wrong and 
     there should be no question that considerations of candidates 
     who would alter the political landscape of America by using 
     the judiciary to turn sectarian values into public laws 
     should end in rejection.
       The crucial line of questioning should revolve not around 
     the issue of the candidate's personal religion but of the 
     candidate's support for this nation's vision of the role of 
     religion. If the door to the judiciary must have a sign 
     posted on it, let the sign read that those who would pursue 
     the development of a nation opposed to religion or committed 
     to a theocracy rather than a democracy need not apply.
       In 1960, then presidential candidate John F. Kennedy 
     addressed the specific matter of Catholicism with surgical 
     precision and political wisdom, stating that the issue was 
     not what kind of church he believed in but what kind of 
     America he believed in. John F. Kennedy left no doubt about 
     that belief: ``I believe in an America where the separation 
     of church and state is absolute.'' Kennedy pledged to address 
     issues of conscience out of a focus on the national interest 
     not out of adherence to the dictates of one religion. He 
     confessed that if at any point a conflict arose between his 
     responsibility to defend the constitution and the dictates of 
     his religion, he would resign from public office. No less a 
     commitment to religious liberty should be acceptable by any 
     judicial nominee or by members of the Senate Judiciary 
     Committee who recommend for confirmation to the bench persons 
     charged with defending the Constitution.
                                  ____


 Statement of Rabbi Jack Moline, of the Interfaith Alliance, July 29, 
                                  2003

       I am Rabbi Jack Moline, Vice-chair at-large of The 
     Interfaith Alliance. I am also on the back end of a summer 
     cold, so please forgive the huskiness of my voice.
       The father of our country, George Washington, was a 
     surveyor by trade. Part of his duties included the 
     determination of exactly where the property of one owner left 
     off and the other owner began. You might wonder what possible 
     difference a few inches, even a few feet in either direction 
     would make to a farmer with acres of land. But Washington 
     knew as we all know that crops do not grow only in the center 
     of a field, and that cattle do not graze only a distance from 
     the fence, and that injuries do not always occur close to the 
     barn. Good surveying produces good boundaries. And good 
     boundaries keep good neighbors from unnecessary conflict.
       As a rabbi, I have studied similar boundary issues in the 
     Talmud. Entire sections are taken up discussing the 
     boundaries between properties, between businesses, between 
     Sabbath and weekdays, between the holy and the profane. 
     Violating those boundaries throws a system into turmoil. 
     Preserving them avoids unnecessary conflict.
       We Americans have become experts in testing boundaries. You 
     can make your own list of the boundaries we have tried to 
     survey, and where we have been successful and where we have 
     not. In culture, in business, in public policy and in 
     politics, the lines that separate one domain from another 
     have been confronted by those who wish to preserve them and 
     by those who wish to redraw them.
       When the Bill of Rights of our Constitution established 
     what Thomas Jefferson wisely called the wall of separation 
     between church and state, it created a two-hundred-year-old 
     tradition of surveying that boundary, trying to find the 
     exact place to keep good neighbors from unnecessary conflict.
       The Senate Judiciary Committee failed in their latest 
     attempt last week when Alabama Attorney General William 
     Pryor, nominee for a Federal judgeship, was asked by a 
     supporting Senator about his religious affiliation. The 
     result, as you have seen, was an unnecessary conflict between 
     good neighbors. In fact, we are counting our blessings that 
     the Capitol Police were not called to intervene in the 
     ensuing arguments.
       The religious beliefs of a nominee are relevant only to the 
     extent that they interfere with his or her ability to support 
     and defend the Constitution of the United States. Frankly, I 
     would be alarmed to see the influences of religious 
     conviction expunged from any aspect of American government. 
     And I think it is entirely relevant to ask any candidate for 
     the executive, legislative or judiciary if personal 
     convictions would interfere with the ability to support and 
     defend the Constitution and its resultant laws as they exist 
     today.
       Frankly, that is the relevant quesion--not a question of 
     affiliation. Do the values, beliefs or proclivities that Mr. 
     Pryor or anybody else holds prevent him from meeting the 
     responsibilities of the office. The question is about his 
     beliefs and no one else's. By affixing a label to the 
     question and generalizing the issue, the legitimate business 
     of the Senate Judiciary Committee was catapulted onto the 
     other side of that carefully surveyed boundary. And lest you 
     think the fault lies only on one side, the subsequent 
     responses of opposing Senators are a good indication of the 
     reason we rely on articulated rules in our society and not 
     good will.
       It is time to return to the tradition of Washington and 
     Jefferson and survey again that necessary boundary. And once 
     it has been reestablished, then it behooves both the Senators 
     and the nominees they examine to respect the values on which 
     this country was founded.
                                  ____


     Remarks of the Right Reverend Jane Holmes Dixon, July 29, 2003

       Good morning. It is a pleasure to be here with all of you 
     this morning. I am the Right Reverend Jane Holmes Dixon, 
     Immediate Past President of The Interfaith Alliance and the 
     recently retired Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of 
     Washington, Pro tempore.
       Before I begin my remarks, I would like to thank Senator 
     Leahy for understanding the grave importance of why this 
     discussion today is not only crucial for the future of the 
     judicial nominations process, but in fact, a necessary 
     reflection on the state of our democracy for all of us 
     gathered here: religious leaders, elected officials, those 
     who seek to serve the nation by entering into civil service, 
     and finally, the countless people of this Nation who are 
     brought up to believe that any citizen, no matter what your 
     gender, race or religion, will have an equal opportunity to 
     serve this country, and will have the right to be treated 
     equally under the law. The First Amendment of our 
     Constitution--through its wise and steadfast guarantee that 
     the government of the United States shall make no law to 
     establish a religion and guarantees that it will not 
     interfere with the free exercise of religion--expects nothing 
     less than the religious freedom and liberty that this 
     provides.
       I believe that I speak for many when I say that last week's 
     hearing of Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor did not 
     reflect well on the religious health of our nation and the 
     guarantees of our Constitution.
       Last week's hearing, a hearing that put on the record 
     certain Senators defining what is true Catholicism--including 
     even references to Rome--and other Senators having to defend 
     their opposition to a nominee against charges of being anti-
     Catholic--was nothing short of a travesty and a major step 
     back for interfaith relations in this nation. This becomes 
     more troubling given the fact that there are indeed Roman 
     Catholics on this committee who, according to their own 
     remarks before the committee, consider themselves to be 
     devout.
       Not only must those who are nominated to become judges 
     respect religious pluralism, equally important, those who are 
     charged with confirming judges must respect the fact that 
     within denominations there remains a wide spectrum of people 
     who all hold varied beliefs. And they are all equally worthy 
     of respect.
       Senators do have an obligation to determine whether a 
     judicial nominee will in fact respect those of all religious 
     beliefs and those citizens amongst us who practice no 
     religion at all. It is fair to ascertain whether a nominee 
     will deliver justice based upon the Constitution of the 
     United States--a document that unites us all and binds us 
     together

[[Page 20394]]

     under a common law--or religious doctrine and sacred texts 
     that were written for those who specifically subscribe to one 
     religious tenet over another. This becomes more necessary 
     when a nominee or his or her supporters take the unfortunate 
     and even dangerous step of couching the nominee's positions 
     on law and justice in terms of abiding by one faith tradition 
     over another.
       I am deeply disappointed that those charged with confirming 
     nominees to serve the federal judiciary and thus the millions 
     of Americans who will depend on those confirmed to uphold the 
     concept of blind justice, would deploy the strategy of 
     playing one religion against another--equating honest 
     differences of opinion with being anti-religion. Whether it 
     is anti-Catholic, anti-Baptist, anti-Sikh, anti-Jew, or anti-
     Muslim, this kind of divisive politics has no place in the 
     Congress of the United States, period. We are a people who 
     are free to choose how and when we worship.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah controls the remainder 
of the time.
  The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. HATCH. Madam President, I have been listening to this. I have to 
tell you, it is apparent that my friends on the other side who are 
stung a little bit by this. They should be. They should be. Naturally, 
they don't want religion mentioned because they are referring to it all 
the time, and it is almost always in the context of abortion.
  Almost every question that Democrats ask those whom they consider 
controversial nominees is about abortion. Naturally, they cannot do 
that to every nominee, even though I believe some of them would like 
to. So they are selective in choosing certain nominees who have deeply 
held religious beliefs.
  But let me just give you a few examples of why I am convinced General 
Pryor's religion was put squarely at issue during his hearing, and why, 
at the end of the hearing, I brought up the issue of religion--because 
I was sick and tired of hearing this kind of stuff, because when 
Democrats were questioning his deeply held beliefs, they really were 
questioning his religious beliefs.
  One Senator--I believe it was Senator Durbin from Illinois--accused 
General Pryor, during the hearing, of ``asserting an agenda of your 
own, a religious belief of your own. . . .''
  In his opening statement, Senator Schumer stated:

       [I]n General Pryor's case his beliefs are so well known, so 
     deeply held, that it is very hard to believe, very hard to 
     believe that they are not going to deeply influence the way 
     he comes about saying, ``I will follow the law.'' And that 
     would be true of anybody who had very, very deeply held 
     views.

  I think he had a right to say that, but the point is, there isn't 
anybody who doesn't understand, when you talk about deeply held views, 
what those are are religious beliefs. If they don't understand it, then 
they--well, I will not comment about that.
  At another point, on the subject of Roe v. Wade--which came up in 
almost every question to Pryor from a Democratic questioner--Senator 
Schumer said:

       I for one believe that a judge can be pro-life, yet be 
     fair, balanced, and uphold a woman's right to choose, but for 
     a judge to set aside his or her personal view, the commitment 
     to the rule of law must clearly supersede his or her personal 
     agenda. . . . But based on the comments Attorney General 
     Pryor has made on this subject, I have got some real concerns 
     that he cannot, because he feels these views so deeply and so 
     passionately.

  There is only one reason he feels those views so deeply and 
passionately, and that is because of his religion and his religious 
beliefs. He is a traditional, conservative pro-life Catholic. I don't 
think my colleagues are against the Catholic Church, but it sure seems 
as if they are against the traditional pro-life conservative Catholic--
on a selective basis, of course, because they cannot do this to 
everybody.
  Another Senator told General Pryor:

     . . . I think the very legitimate issue in question with your 
     nomination is whether you have an agenda, that many of the 
     positions which you have taken reflect not just an advocacy 
     but a very deeply held view and a philosophy, which you are 
     entitled to have, but you are also not entitled to get 
     everyone's vote.

  General Pryor is an openly pro-life Catholic. To me, these questions 
and comments about his deeply held personal views put his religious 
beliefs squarely in issue.
  Some Democrats say that they have, generally, voted to confirm about 
140 of President Bush's judicial nominees. And they say some may have 
been pro-life Catholics, so our charges that they refuse to confirm 
pro-life Catholics are baseless. But here's what they're really saying: 
if you're a pro-life Catholic, you'd better keep quiet during your 
entire legal or political career before you come before us on the 
Judiciary Committee, because if you have made public statements that 
indicate you actually believe in official Catholic doctrine or are 
actually pro-life, that's when you are in real trouble with us. If you 
are smart, you will keep your religious beliefs to yourself, and maybe 
we won't ask about them directly or indirectly. So at best, what some 
Democrats seem to want is a gag order enforced on nominees who have 
publicly espoused pro-life positions, even in the context of political 
campaigns. At worse, maybe some would rather that those publicly 
profess pro-life sentiments be excluded from public service--certainly 
service on the federal bench--altogether.
  Let's assume that, as various polls seem to show, the American people 
are roughly equally divided on the policy questions regarding abortion. 
There's no question that tens of millions of Catholics, following the 
official doctrine of the church, and millions of other religious 
believers of all denominations in this country are on the pro-life side 
of that divide. An abortion litmus test--which is really a religious 
litmus test, where pro-life views arise from a person's faith--
effectively excludes judicial nominees from that side, from service on 
the Federal bench. That is wrong, particularly in the case of Bill 
Pryor, whose record of subordinating his personal beliefs to the law 
could not be clearer, and who, like Justice Owen, affirmed to our 
Committee that he would follow Roe v. Wade and other Supreme Court 
precedents with which he personally disagrees. He understands his role 
as a federal judge. It's time we act on a proper understanding of our 
role as Senators and vote for or against his confirmation.
  We know that our Constitution prohibits religious tests for public 
office. Nobody would propose a law that excluded persons of certain 
religions from certain federal offices. But what can't be done overtly 
is no less objectionable when done indirectly.
  Article VI of the Constitution states, ``[N]o religious test shall 
ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under 
the United States.'' I do not believe that any Senator would 
intentionally impose a religious test on the President's judicial 
nominees, and I do not think any Senators are guilty of anti-religion 
bias. However, I am deeply concerned that some are indirectly putting 
at issue the religious beliefs of several judicial nominees--nominees 
who are avowedly pro-life as a result of their religious beliefs.
  The most recent example emerged during the debate on the nomination 
of Bill Pryor to the Eleventh Circuit. During his confirmation hearing, 
General Pryor was asked repeatedly by some Committee Democrats about 
what one senator called his ``very, very deeply held views.'' In fact, 
in the portion of his opening statement addressing Roe v. Wade, one of 
my Democratic colleagues on the judiciary Committee stated

       I for one believe that a judge can be pro-life, yet be 
     fair, balanced, and uphold a woman's right to choose, but for 
     a judge to set aside his or her personal view, the commitment 
     to the rule of law must clearly supersede his or her personal 
     agenda. . . . But based on the comments Attorney General 
     Pryor has made on this subject, I have got some real concerns 
     that he cannot, because he feels these views so deeply and so 
     passionately.

  Another Senator accused General Pryor during the hearing of 
``asserting an agenda of your own, a religious belief of your own. . . 
.'' And yet another Senator told General Pryor during the hearing:

     . . . I think the very legitimate issue in question with your 
     nomination is whether you have an agenda, that many of the 
     positions which you have taken reflect not just an advocacy 
     but a very deeply held view and

[[Page 20395]]

     a philosophy, which you are entitled to have, but you are 
     also not entitled to get everyone's vote.

  Another colleague remarked:

       Virtually in every area you have extraordinarily strong 
     views which continue and come out in a number of different 
     ways. Your comments about Roe make one believe, could he 
     really, suddenly, move away from those comments and be a 
     judge?

  I became concerned after these comments that General Pryor was 
essentially being questioned about his deeply held religious beliefs, 
and that is the only reason I myself questioned General Pryor on the 
subject of religion during his hearing. In my view, it was time to call 
it like I saw it. But let me make one thing absolutely clear: My 
questions were an attempt to prevent General Pryor, and any other 
judicial nominees, from being subjected to a religious test. In no way, 
shape or form did I attempt, or would I ever attempt, to impose such a 
test.
  General Pryor is an openly pro-life Catholic, so there is little 
doubt in my mind about the nature or source of his ``deeply held 
views.'' He has publicly stated on numerous occasions, including during 
his confirmation hearing, that he believes abortion is the taking of 
innocent human life. My colleagues seem to be arguing that because 
General Pryor feels passionately that abortion is morally wrong and has 
publicly expressed his views, he will be unable to set aside his 
personal views on the subject and follow binding Supreme Court 
precedent as a judge. But General Pryor's record on the subject of 
abortion is crystal clear and beyond dispute. He has enforced the law 
despite his publicly expressed and conflicting personal beliefs.
  For example, after the Alabama legislature passed a partial-birth 
abortion ban in 1997, General Pryor issued guidance to state law 
enforcement officials to ensure that the law was enforced consistent 
with the Supreme Court's 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. 
Although there was considerable outcry against his decision from the 
pro-life community, the ACLU praised General Pryor's decision, 
emphasizing that his order had ``[s]everly [l]imited'' Alabama's ban. 
He issued similar guidance after the Supreme Court's 2000 ruling in 
Stenberg v. Carhart, which struck down another state's ban on partial-
birth abortion.
  I doubt that any Supreme Court decision could be more personally 
distasteful to General Pryor than Stenberg v. Carhart. And he 
specifically said he disagreed with the decision while emphasizing that 
it was the law and he would enforce it. Can we ask more of a judicial 
nominee, than to demonstrate such objectivity and enforce a law so at 
odds with his personal beliefs? I urge my colleagues to judge General 
Pryor and other pro-life nominees on their record as it relates to 
abortion and not on the nominees' person beliefs on the subject.
  By the way, I am certainly not alone in my concern that the debate 
over General Pryor's nomination has put his religious beliefs at issue. 
The Mobile Register in a July 26 editorial wrote that :

       . . . the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have 
     repeatedly asserted that Mr. Pryor would be incapable of 
     enforcing the law . . . That's a serious charge, in effect 
     saying that if somebody believes deeply, because of his 
     religious faith, that abortion is morally wrong, then that 
     person is unfit for a judgeship. But that onus is on the 
     accusers to prove from Bill Pryor's record that he is thus 
     hampered from enforcing the law. Mr. Pryor has much evidence 
     on his side, but where is their evidence to the contrary? . . 
     . To look at that record and still assert, as the Senate 
     Democrats do, that the strength of Mr. Pryor's personal 
     beliefs disqualifies him, is indeed, effectively, to say that 
     his faith makes him ineligible for office. Their stance 
     against him should anger all people of deep faith, of all 
     religions.

  In addition, Austin Rusc, President of the Catholic Family & Human 
Rights Institute, wrote in a letter dated July 29:

       I am deeply troubled by the recent turns of events in the 
     U.S. Senate regarding Catholic nominees to the Federal Court. 
     It appears to me that a faithful Catholic, that is one who 
     upholds the Catholic teaching on the inviolability of 
     innocent human life from conception onward, cannot be 
     confirmed for the Federal bench by this Senate. It very 
     clearly is a religious test for office, and therefore a 
     violation of our Constitution. Moreover, it is an insult to 
     millions of faithful Catholics in this country.

  I also received a July 23 letter from the president and three other 
leaders of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America that 
stated:

       As a community of religious believers committed to full 
     engagement with modern American society, we are deeply 
     troubled by those who have implied that a person of faith 
     cannot serve in a high level government post that may raise 
     issues at odds with his or her personal beliefs. There is 
     little question in our minds that this view has been the 
     subtext for some of the criticism of Mr. Pryor. We urge you 
     and your colleagues to empathetically reject this aspersion 
     and send a clear message that such suggestions, whether 
     explicit or implied, are beyond the pale of our politics.

  I ask unanimous consent that a copy of the Register editorial be 
printed in the Record. 
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. HATCH. Any suggestions that a person with deeply held religious 
beliefs cannot be trusted to follow the law, despite a proven track 
record of doing just that, is unconstitutional. I will continue to 
fight any form of religious test, direct or indirect, as long as I am a 
Member of this Senate. I have stood up for the free exercise of 
religion time and time again, through such measures as the Religious 
Freedom Restoration Act. I am proud of my accomplishments, and I will 
continue in my quest to ensure that the free exercise of religion is a 
right that remains uncompromised for everyone--including judicial 
nominees.
  I yield the floor.

                               Exhibit 1

               [From the Mobile Register, July 26, 2003]

                To Denigrate Pryor, How Low Can They Go?

       On the matter of the judicial nomination of Alabama 
     Attorney General Bill Pryor, it's time for his Democratic 
     opponents to put up or shut up.
       When all the smokescreens dissipate, the Senate Democrats' 
     objections to Mr. Pryor come down to two: First, that his 
     pro-life views are too ``extreme'' for him to be trusted to 
     uphold laws that contradict those views, and second, that 
     they have been denied ample time to investigate his fund-
     raising activities.
       Let's take them one at a time. Much has been made of Mr. 
     Pryor's supporters supposedly accusing his opponents of 
     deliberate anti-Catholic bias. But that's not what the 
     supporters have claimed. Instead, they've asserted--quite 
     believably--that the critics' pro-choice litmus test amounts 
     to the kind of ``religious test'' that, whether applied to 
     Catholics (such as Mr. Pryor) or conservative Protestants, or 
     for that matter members of any faith, are explicitly 
     prohibited by the Constitution.
       Too Catholic?: It's not merely Catholics who say Bill 
     Pryor's faith is being unfairly used against him. The 
     president and three other leaders of the Orthodox Jewish 
     Union wrote this in a July 23 letter: ``As a community of 
     religious believers committed to full engagement with modern 
     American society, we are deeply troubled by those who have 
     implied that a person of faith cannot serve in a high level 
     government post that may raise issues at odds with his or her 
     personal beliefs. There is little question in our minds that 
     this view has been the subtext for some of the criticism of 
     Mr. Pryor. . . . In our view, Mr. Pryor's record as Alabama's 
     attorney general demonstrates his ability to faithfully 
     enforce the law, even when it may conflict with his personal 
     beliefs.''
       Indeed, the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee 
     have repeatedly asserted that Mr. Pryor would be incapable of 
     enforcing the law. Here's Senator Charles Schumer of New 
     York: ``In General Pryor's case his beliefs are so well 
     known, so deeply held, that it is very hard to believe--very 
     hard to believe--that they are not going to deeply influence 
     the way he comes about saying, `I will follow the law,' and 
     that would be true of anybody who had very, very deeply held 
     views.''
       Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois even suggested to Mr. 
     Pryor directly that he was ``asserting an agenda of your own, 
     a religious belief of your own, inconsistent with separation 
     of church and state.''
       That's a serious charge, in effect saying that if somebody 
     believes deeply, because of his religious faith, that 
     abortion is morally wrong, then that person is unfit for a 
     judgeship.
       But the onus is on the accusers to prove from Bill Pryor's 
     record that he is thus hampered from enforcing the law. Mr. 
     Pryor has much evidence on his side, but where is their 
     evidence to the contrary? The Alabama AG, after all, is a 
     white Republican who has taken the side of black Democrats in 
     a suit filed by white Republicans. He is a man who has 
     publicly intervened against the very Republican governor, Fob 
     James, who first appointed him. And on two separate occasions

[[Page 20396]]

     he took stances, as the state's top legal officer, that 
     angered some of his anti-abortion allies.
       To look at that record and still assert, as the Senate 
     Democrats do, that the strength of Mr. Pryor's personal 
     beliefs disqualifies him, is indeed, effectively, to say that 
     his faith makes him ineligible for office. Their stance 
     against him should anger all people of deep faith, of all 
     religions.
       False testimony?: Senate Democrats also contend that 
     Republicans have unfairly cut off their ``investigation'' 
     into whether Mr. Pryor testified truthfully about fund-
     raising activities for the Republican Attorneys General 
     Association--activities the Democrats themselves acknowledge 
     were legal.
       The truth is that the anti-Pryor forces are the ones whose 
     tactics should be in question. Using a close associate of a 
     man from whom Mr. Pryor recently secured a guilty plea to 
     bribery charges, the Democratic committee staff obtained 
     documents on July 2 that they claim raise questions about the 
     AG's own committee testimony. (It is not clear how long they 
     had been in contact with that associate, but some Republican 
     senators accused them of knowing weeks in advance.)
       The Democrats did not bother to tell Republicans about the 
     documents until July 8. They did not interview former 
     staffers of the Republican group until July 15, two days 
     before the vote on Mr. Pryor was scheduled. They have not yet 
     put the original source under oath. And, despite being given 
     three opportunities to question Mr. Pryor himself about the 
     charges, Democrats declined all three times to question him.
       On July 17, the day the committee was scheduled to vote on 
     the nomination, the Democrats presented an ``investigation 
     plan'' that did not include giving Mr. Pryor himself a chance 
     to answer his accusers.
       Not only that, but Republican Judiciary Committee Chairman 
     Orrin Hatch announced that, as of yesterday, the committee 
     had interviewed 20 witnesses, and that every one of them 
     ``corroborated the testimony of General Pryor.''
       In fact, said Chairman Hatch, ``what's notable'' is the 
     Democrats'' ``complete failure to specify any evidence that 
     General Pryor misled the committee.''
       Indeed, they haven't even specified exactly what their 
     charges against him are. There is good reason, then, to agree 
     with Chairman Hatch that the Pryor opponents are engaged in a 
     ``full-scale fishing expedition.''
       Enough is enough. The campaign against Bill Pryor has sunk 
     to tawdry depths. Unless the Democrats ``put up'' a 
     legitimate reason to delay, instead of these faith-based and 
     procedural smears, they owe him an up-or-down confirmation 
     vote on the Senate floor, with no filibusters and no more 
     subterfuge.

  Mr. HATCH. Now, look, it is a little late to start saying we should 
have a rule that you can never mention religion. That means you could 
never mention Roe v. Wade. But that would take away the biggest 
argument that Democrats have against these people. I don't like to 
mention religion either--never have except in General Pryor's case, 
after Democrats had not so subtly raised the issue.
  Now, with regard to the criticism of Boyden Gray's group, those terms 
were used first by People for the American Way in formal ads and 
letters, and then used by, I think, the Americans United for Separation 
of Church and State. These are two liberal groups.
  Here is Americans United for Separation of Church and State, 
criticizing the nomination of John Ashcroft because he was for 
charitable choice legislation:

       Ashcroft charitable choice provisions allow a Government-
     funded program to hang a sign that says ``Catholics need not 
     apply.''

  Where did that come from? That was long before Boyden Gray's group 
used such language--after all of Democrats' attacks on Pryor's deeply 
held beliefs during his hearing.
  What about People for the American Way? People for the American Way, 
again, criticizing John Ashcroft because of the charitable choice 
legislation and saying:

       An evangelical church running a Government-funded welfare 
     program could state that ``Catholics need not apply'' in a 
     help wanted ad.

  Which I doubt any of them would do.
  Now, leftist groups used such language, and all of a sudden we hear 
this screaming and shouting that Boyden Gray's group used the same 
language--after Democrats put Pryor's religious beliefs squarely at 
issue during his hearing and markup. Now some will say: Well, I 
certainly didn't mean for my questions to put his religion at issue. 
Well, what do you mean it to be? Religious beliefs are his deeply held 
beliefs and personal beliefs.
  Now, look, my colleagues have a right to ask questions, but I also 
have a right to point out that I think those questions have led us into 
some very tender areas.
  Frankly, what it all comes down to--I hate to say this, but it is 
true--is Roe v. Wade. That is what it comes down to. It is the be-all 
and end-all issue to most of our colleagues over here.
  Now, it has been to a couple of my colleagues over here, too, but we 
stopped our side from using it as a litmus test. In fact, I don't know 
of anybody over here who has used it as a litmus test. But in virtually 
every case, that is the chief issue Democrats use against President 
Bush's nominees and the chief gripe about what kind of people they 
are--because they are traditional pro-life religious people. I don't 
know what other conclusion you can come to.
  So to bring this resolution up is just a political show, because 
nobody in their right mind is going to let them get away with that type 
of treatment--or should I say mistreatment--of any President's judicial 
nominees. I do not want anybody on our side doing it either.
  Also, frankly, for my colleague from Vermont, I know he is concerned 
about this. And I don't think any of these groups, including the 
conservative groups, should use this type of ``Catholics need not 
apply'' language. I don't think it is right. I don't think it should be 
done. But the ones who did it first, the ones who were never criticized 
by our media in this country, the ones who were never criticized by my 
colleagues on the other side, who are now decrying all of this, were 
the Democratic, liberal inside-the-beltway groups. And all of a sudden 
Boyden Gray's group is a very bad group because they have used the same 
language as People for the American Way and the group Americans United 
for Separation of Church and State.
  I yield the remainder of my time to the distinguished Senator from 
Alabama.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I thank the distinguished chairman of 
the Judiciary Committee.
  I was taught by my parents from early on never to laugh at somebody's 
religion, never to make fun of it, respect people's personal faith. I 
think that is a classic American principle we ought to live by. I would 
say that is what is happening in a subtle but very practical way is 
that Bill Pryor's strongly held beliefs, pro-life beliefs, are being 
attacked. Therefore, they are suggesting he is not fit for the bench 
because he has these beliefs and those beliefs just happen to be the 
same beliefs of the Catholic Church and many other church groups 
throughout America.
  We cannot have that kind of test. We cannot expect nominees to come 
before this Judiciary Committee and renounce their beliefs as a 
condition to be confirmed. The question simply is, will they obey the 
law that is afoot in the United States by either statute, Constitution, 
or Supreme Court interpretation.
  With regard to the resolution that has been proposed, that is just a 
political gimmick. It has no meaning whatsoever. I am surprised it has 
been offered in a body that considers itself serious. I believe, as was 
discussed last night between Senator McConnell and Senator Hatch and 
others before, that you have a right to ask nominees questions. If a 
nominee has a religious belief and his church he supports has a certain 
belief that has been not the law of the land, it is all right to ask 
that person about it. It is all right to say, your church believes this 
or that, the Supreme Court has held differently. Will you follow 
Supreme Court law. That is the question. We have every right to ask 
that.
  What we cannot say is, because your beliefs are contrary to maybe a 
Supreme Court ruling or a temporary majority in the Congress, that you 
are no longer fit for the bench. Everybody has beliefs. Everybody has 
ideas and concepts. They are free to do so in this country. What you 
should ask and determine is whether or not the nominee will follow the 
law.
  Bill Pryor has a demonstrated record of that. And on abortion, where 
he has

[[Page 20397]]

strong beliefs, the only thing I have found he has ever done involving 
the manner of abortion was to use his power as attorney general. I was 
a former Attorney General of Alabama. I know the attorney general can 
define the law for prosecuting attorneys throughout the entire State, 
the district attorneys. And Bill Pryor, after Alabama passed a partial-
birth abortion statute--a procedure I abhor, most Americans abhor and 
Bill Pryor abhors--he wrote them and said: Large portions of that bill 
are unconstitutional and cannot be enforced by you. He directed them 
not to enforce substantial portions of it.
  A pro-life leader in the State criticized him and said he gutted the 
bill. The only other thing I have ever heard him say about abortion was 
that he would prosecute to the fullest extent of the law those who 
violate and protest abortion clinics in violation of the law. He has 
never abused his position to further his personal views about abortion 
or any other, for that matter.
  It is unbelievably frustrating to me to be on this floor and have 
Senators from New York and Massachusetts and Vermont stand up and say: 
This man is radical. He is out of the mainstream. He is unfit for the 
bench--just say those words about one of the most decent, caring, 
honest public servants I have ever met, a public servant who has 
demonstrated without any doubt his capacity to do the right thing under 
the most tough political circumstances. I talked about that in depth 
last night but nobody seems to care. He has been accused of not being 
for civil rights.
  The former county commissioner from Jefferson County, the largest 
county in the State, Chris McNair, whose daughter was killed in the 
16th Street church bombing by the Klan many years ago, has written in 
support of Bill Pryor. He strongly supports him. Bill Pryor helped 
complete prosecutions in that case recently. Doug Jones, the prosecutor 
in that case, a Clinton U.S. Attorney, supports Bill Pryor. Artur 
Davis, Alabama Congressman, Harvard graduate, assistant United States 
Attorney, brilliant young congressman, supports Bill Pryor.
  Joe Reed, chairman of the Alabama Democratic Conference, probably the 
most powerful political individual in Alabama, every Presidential 
candidate for the Democratic nomination knows Joe Reed personally and 
has probably talked to him a half a dozen times, a member of the 
Democratic National Committee, he writes a letter and says:

     . . . I am a member of the Democratic National Committee and, 
     of course, Mr. Pryor is a Republican, but these are only 
     party labels. I am persuaded that in Mr. Pryor's eyes, 
     Justice has only one label--Justice!
       I am satisfied that if you appoint Mr. Pryor . . . he will 
     be a credit to the Judiciary and will be a guardian of 
     justice.

  He goes on to say other things.
  I want to share this letter from Alvin Holmes, a State Representative 
in Alabama for many years. He says:

       I am a black member of the Alabama House of Representatives 
     having served for 28 years. During my time of service in the 
     Alabama House of Representatives, I have led most of the 
     fights for civil rights of blacks, women, lesbians and gays 
     and other minorities.
       I consider Bill Pryor a moderate on race.

  We have had Senators Kennedy and Schumer and others saying Bill Pryor 
is unfair on the question of race. They say he questioned some portion 
of the Civil Rights Act. But he questioned section 5, the same portion 
Attorney General Thurbert Baker of Georgia, an African-American 
Democrat, has also criticized. This African-American Attorney General 
in Georgia has explicitly written in support of Bill Pryor for his 
confirmation.
  This is what Mr. Holmes says:

       From 1998 to 2000, Bill Pryor sided with the NAACP against 
     a white Republican lawsuit that challenged the districts [in 
     Alabama] for the Legislature. Pryor fought the case all the 
     way to the U.S. Supreme Court and won . . . The lawsuit was 
     filed by Attorney Mark Montiel--

  I know Mr. Montiel, as does Mr. Pryor.

       --a white Republican, and the 3-judge district court ruled 
     2 to 1 in favor of Mr. Montiel.

  Bill Pryor took it to the Supreme Court on behalf of the existing 
districts and won the case.

       In 2001, [he] sided with the Legislature when it redrew 
     districts for Congress, the Legislature, and the State Board 
     of Education.

  Mark Montiel challenged that in Federal court. Bill Pryor defended 
the legislature, and the reapportionment plans that favored the 
Democrats in the State because it was a duly enacted legislative plan 
of Alabama.
  He worked with Doug Jones to prosecute the KKK murderers at the 16th 
Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. As I said, Mr. Chris McNair, the 
father of one of those young girls who was killed, strongly supports 
Bill Pryor. He created the sentencing commission in Alabama for ending 
interracial disparities in sentences. In 2000, he started Mentor 
Alabama, a program to recruit positive adult role models for at-risk 
youth.
  This is Mr. Alvin Holmes talking:

       In 2001, I introduced a bill . . . to amend the Alabama 
     Constitution repealing Alabama's racist ban on interracial 
     marriage.

  This was an amendment that had been declared unconstitutional but was 
still in the State Constitution. He continues:

       It was passed with a slim majority among the voters and 
     Bill Pryor later successfully defended that repeal . . .

  Every prominent white political leader in Alabama, Republicans and 
Democrats, opposed or remained silent on the bill except Bill Pryor who 
openly and publicly asked white and black citizens to repeal the law.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Will the Senator from Alabama yield for a question?
  Mr. SESSIONS. I am pleased to yield.
  Mr. SANTORUM. Is the Senator from Alabama familiar with an op-ed in 
this morning's Manchester Union Leader: ``Judging judges: 
Conservatives, Catholics needn't apply.''
  Mr. SESSIONS. I have not seen that editorial, but we are receiving a 
flood of those kinds of communications.
  Mr. SANTORUM. I would like to hear the Senator from Alabama's comment 
on just a couple of things the Union Leader says. In talking about some 
ads running about Catholics not needing to apply for judicial 
vacancies, it says:

       Democratic Senators opposing President Bush's nomination of 
     Alabama Attorney General William Pryor to the 11th Circuit 
     Court of Appeals because of his ``deeply held'' belief that 
     abortion is wrong.
  I just suggest that a deeply held belief is rooted in his Catholic 
faith. That is where beliefs come from; they come from your moral 
teachings, much of which is through the faith that you were brought up 
on.
  I return to the article:

       In opposing Pryor's nomination on the grounds that he 
     believes strongly that abortion is immoral, the Democrats are 
     doing nothing more than playing sleazy partisan politics.

  The last comment is:

       What Senate Democrats are doing to the judicial nominations 
     process is a disgrace to their party and to the country.

                             cloture motion

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has expired. Under the previous 
order, the clerk will report the motion to invoke cloture.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of Rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on Executive 
     Calendar No. 310, the nomination of William H. Pryor, Jr., to 
     be United States Circuit Judge for the Eleventh Circuit.
         Bill Frist, Orrin Hatch, Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Craig 
           Thomas, Charles Grassley, John Cornyn, Chuck Hagel, Jim 
           Talent, Richard Shelby, Wayne Allard, Elizabeth Dole, 
           Conrad Burns, Larry Craig, Jeff Sessions, Lindsey 
           Graham, Rick Santorum, and Thad Cochran.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the 
nomination of William H. Pryor, Jr., of Alabama, to be United States 
Circuit Judge for the Eleventh Circuit shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.

[[Page 20398]]


  Mr. REID. I announce that the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Jeffords), 
the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry), and the Senator from 
Connecticut (Mr. Lieberman) are necessarily absent.
  I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry) would vote ``nay.''
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 53, nays 44, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 316 Ex.]

                                YEAS--53

     Alexander
     Allard
     Allen
     Bennett
     Bond
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burns
     Campbell
     Chafee
     Chambliss
     Cochran
     Coleman
     Collins
     Cornyn
     Craig
     Crapo
     DeWine
     Dole
     Domenici
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Fitzgerald
     Frist
     Graham (SC)
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Kyl
     Lott
     Lugar
     McCain
     McConnell
     Miller
     Murkowski
     Nelson (NE)
     Nickles
     Roberts
     Santorum
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stevens
     Sununu
     Talent
     Thomas
     Voinovich
     Warner

                                NAYS--44

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Breaux
     Byrd
     Cantwell
     Carper
     Clinton
     Conrad
     Corzine
     Daschle
     Dayton
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Edwards
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Graham (FL)
     Harkin
     Hollings
     Inouye
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lincoln
     Mikulski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Stabenow
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--3

     Jeffords
     Kerry
     Lieberman
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 53, the nays are 
44. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted 
in the affirmative, the motion is rejected.

                          ____________________