[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 10246]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               THE JUDICIAL NOMINATION OF PRISCILLA OWENS

  (Mr. HENSARLING asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. HENSARLING. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to express my outrage with 
the treatment of Justice Priscilla Owen, a fellow Texan and a highly 
qualified nominee for the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
  Mr. Speaker, despite unanimously receiving the highest possible 
rating from the American Bar Association, despite appearing before the 
Senate Committee on the Judiciary twice to answer every single question 
posed to her, despite the fact that the bench to which she has been 
nominated has been designated a judicial emergency, despite the strong 
bipartisan support of former Texas supreme court judges and 15 past 
presidents of the state bar of Texas, Justice Priscilla Owen has still 
not received an up-or-down vote in the Senate for almost 2 years.
  When Republicans held the majority during President Clinton's term, 
no judicial nominee was ever deprived of a vote due to a filibuster. 
Now Democrats want to undermine our Constitution and change the rules.
  Mr. Speaker, the President has a right to get a vote on his nominee.

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