[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Pages 20527-20528]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       NOMINATION OF CAROLYN KUHL

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, the Republican leadership's actions this 
week were an attempt to create the impression that Senate Democrats are 
stalling judicial nominations. Rather than work with us to confirm the 
five consensus judicial nominations that have been before the Senate 
and available for action all week, the Republican leadership has chosen 
to schedule cloture vote after cloture vote on the most divisive, 
controversial and extreme of this President's judicial nominees.
  Senators have spoken to the contentious nominations Republicans have 
tried to force through the Senate confirmation process this week. This 
is a striking difference from the days in which more than 60 of 
President Clinton's judicial nominees were stalled and defeated by 
anonymous holds and secret objections. Just as I made Judiciary 
Committee blue slips and the process by which the committee consults 
with home-state Senators public when I chaired the committee in 2001, 
Democratic Senators have not opposed nominees without coming before the 
Senate and making known their concerns.
  During the 17 months a Democratic Senate majority reviewed this 
President's judicial nominees we were able to confirm 100 judges. This 
year, we have cooperated in the confirmation of 45 additional judges. 
The total confirmations already number 145. We

[[Page 20528]]

have worked in good faith to reduce judicial vacancies to the lowest 
level in the last 13 years and to increase the full-time judge on the 
Federal bench across the country to the highest number in our history. 
We continue to work in good faith and the Democratic Senators on the 
Judiciary Committee have joined in reporting at least a dozen 
additional judicial nominations favorably to the Senate. Working 
together the Republican and Democratic leadership will be able to 
schedule debate and votes on those judges.
  There are other nominees I frankly do not support and that large 
numbers of Senators do not support. And yet, as chairman, I did 
something our Republican predecessor never did, I proceeded on judicial 
nominations I opposed. Some were confirmed; a few have been so extreme 
and controversial that they have not been confirmed. Ours is a good 
record and a fair record.
  It is a record that shows we have sought, as Senator Baucus explained 
recently, to protect the essential independence of the judiciary, to 
support fair-minded impartial judges, and to protect the essential 
rights of all Americans.
  This week we have witnessed a number of unsuccessful cloture 
petitions. When the Republicans filed these petitions they knew they 
would be unsuccessful. The Republican leadership was nonetheless 
insistent on diverting hours from debate on the Energy bill in order to 
create partisan talking points. This is another example of how this 
administration and its aides here in the Senate are seeking to use 
judicial nominations for partisan purposes. That is most unfortunate.
  Republican partisans have changed the practices and rules of the 
Senate that have helped over time to encourage the White House to work 
with home-State Senators and to consult with both sides of the aisle in 
the Senate. When judicial nominations were being made by a Democratic 
President, the objection of a single home-State Senator would have 
prevented any action on a judicial nomination. As the chairman of the 
Judiciary Committee acknowledged in 1999, under the practices of the 
committee, no nomination opposed by both home-State Senators would 
proceed. Yet now that the President is a Republican and the home-State 
Senators are Democrats, the rules are changed and traditional practices 
are conveniently abandoned.
  The big picture is that we have the most confrontational President in 
recent history. His administration is committed to a plan to pack the 
Federal courts with nominees of a narrow judicial ideology. Compounding 
the situation, the Republican leadership in the Senate has decided to 
assist the administration in this effort at all costs. Longstanding 
Senate practices and rules have been broken. Home-State Senators are 
being ignored or overridden if they are Democratic Senators, committee 
rules are being breached, committee practices of the last 25 years are 
being ignored in a rush to steamroll the Senate.
  Sadly, the most partisans have made detestable arguments and injected 
religion into the debate. Regrettably, the Senate under its current 
leadership has abandoned its constitutional role as a check on the 
Executive.
  So we have the most aggressive Administration in recent history and 
its efforts to pack the courts are being facilitated by efforts of the 
Republican Senate majority and its willingness to remove all the 
processes and practices that had been available to the Senate to 
provide a check and balance. As they remove the mechanisms that had 
traditionally provided incentives for the Executive to consult with the 
Senate, the administration has refused to moderate its actions. 
Instead, Republican partisans have ratcheted up the points of 
contention and conflict. Rather than work in a bipartisan way to unite 
the country and maintain a balanced and independent federal judiciary, 
Republicans insist on the expedited confirmation of every nomination no 
matter how extreme. With all of the other, traditional screening 
mechanisms removed, only one Senate procedure is left--the filibuster. 
All their talk about supposed obstructionism is just that, partisan 
talking points. The factors that have led to more filibusters than 
usual this week have been the actions of the administration and Senate 
Republicans.
  These matters need not be contentious. The process starts with the 
President. If this administration would work with us, we could avoid 
these situations. We have and will continue to work with the 
administration. We would like to be more helpful in the President's 
identification of nominees and advising him on the selection of 
consensus nominees so that we can join together in adding those 
confirmations to the 145 so far achieved.

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