[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 2912-2913]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              IN SUPPORT OF MIGUEL ESTRADA'S CONFIRMATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, the history of our Nation was forged in the 
balmy summer of 1787 in what was at the time the statehouse of 
Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. There the geniuses who created the 
Constitution of the United States created three separate branches of 
government and a system of checks and balances within that government 
that would provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, 
and ensure the blessings of liberty for not only themselves but we, 
their posterity.
  Central to that balance of power, Mr. Speaker, was the notion of an 
independent judiciary, which, at the level of the Federal Court, would 
be governed by the appointment of the President of the United States. 
But again it was not without checks and balances, Mr. Speaker, because 
the Senate itself, under the Constitution, was given the authority to 
review the qualifications of individuals that the chief executive would 
appoint for the judiciary.
  And so our Nation proceeded from the basement home of the Supreme 
Court, which is still in this building today, back when it met just off 
the House Chamber for one day a year, to the august building and the 
awesome legacy of the U.S. Supreme Court today. And yet, Mr. Speaker, 
somewhere along the way, about the time of my youth, our Supreme Court 
seems, as it has done at different times in its history, the Dred Scott 
case comes to mind, the Supreme Court seems to have gotten out of step 
with the American people, banning innocuous voluntary prayer in the 
schools in the 1960s; and, as a pro-life American, striking down the 
laws against abortions in all 50 States in 1973.
  Many, and me included, Mr. Speaker, believe that we have a judiciary 
that has begun to move left when America stayed as a center-right 
Nation in its philosophies. But we counted on the checks and balances, 
Mr. Speaker. We counted on the ability, through elections, to correct 
that imbalance for these lifetime-appointed jurists. When 1980 came 
along, a center-right majority elected Ronald Reagan President of the 
United States, and that President nominated to the Court individuals 
who reflected that philosophy, that center-right majority philosophy in 
America.
  And that is when we all heard of Judge Bork. Because that was at a 
time, it seems to me, Mr. Speaker, and we are seeing it lived out again 
at the other end of this building this very night, when the Senate of 
the United States as an institution departed from its historic role of 
evaluating the qualifications of appointees to the Court to evaluating 
their thoughts, evaluating their ideology. Before, throughout American 
history, the ideology or the views of appointees to the Court were 
decided in elections. The President's values would no doubt be 
reflected in his appointees to all parts of the government. But 
beginning in the 1980s, with Judge Bork's defeat as a Supreme Court 
nominee, we saw a different impact on the process, an activist Senate 
joining with an activist Court.
  This plays out again today in the nomination of an extraordinary man, 
Miguel Estrada, President Bush's nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals 
for the District of Columbia, without a doubt the second most powerful 
court

[[Page 2913]]

in the United States of America. This young man, an immigrant born and 
raised in Honduras, law degree, magna cum laude from Harvard Law, is an 
American success story, no less than my own immigrant grandfather was, 
who came to these shores, worked hard, and lived the American Dream. 
Miguel Estrada is an extraordinary example of the American Dream.
  I rise today, Mr. Speaker, to, however impolite, simply urge his 
confirmation in the Senate and his expeditious review by our 
colleagues.

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