[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12049-12051]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           EXECUTIVE SESSION
NOMINATION OF S. MAURICE HICKS, JR., OF LOUISIANA, TO BE UNITED STATES 
          DISTRICT JUDGE FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will go 
into executive session to consider the Executive Calendar order No. 
172. The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read the nomination of S. Maurice Hicks, Jr., 
of Louisiana, to be United States District Judge for the Western 
District of Louisiana.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

[[Page 12050]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The question is, Will the Senate advise and consent to the nomination 
of S. Maurice Hicks, Jr., of Louisiana, to be United States District 
Judge for the Western District of Louisiana?
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I announce that the Senator from Utah (Mr. Bennett), 
the Senator from Idaho (Mr. Craig), the Senator from Alaska (Ms. 
Murkowski), the Senator from Oregon (Mr. Smith), the Senator from 
Missouri (Mr. Talent), and the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Thomas) are 
necessarily absent.
  Mr. REID. I announce that the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Bayh), the 
Senator from Illinois (Mr. Durbin), the Senator from North Carolina 
(Mr. Edwards), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Graham), the Senator from 
Hawaii (Mr. Inouye), the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry), the 
Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Lautenberg), and the Senator from 
Connecticut (Mr. Lieberman) are necessarily absent.
  I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from 
Indiana (Mr. Bayh) and the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry) would 
each vote ``aye.''
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coleman). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 86, nays 0, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 184 Ex.]

                                YEAS--86

     Akaka
     Alexander
     Allard
     Allen
     Baucus
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Boxer
     Breaux
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burns
     Byrd
     Campbell
     Cantwell
     Carper
     Chafee
     Chambliss
     Clinton
     Cochran
     Coleman
     Collins
     Conrad
     Cornyn
     Corzine
     Crapo
     Daschle
     Dayton
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Dole
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Fitzgerald
     Frist
     Graham (SC)
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Hollings
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Jeffords
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lincoln
     Lott
     Lugar
     McCain
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Miller
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Nelson (NE)
     Nickles
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Roberts
     Rockefeller
     Santorum
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Stevens
     Sununu
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--14

     Bayh
     Bennett
     Craig
     Durbin
     Edwards
     Graham (FL)
     Inouye
     Kerry
     Lautenberg
     Lieberman
     Murkowski
     Smith
     Talent
     Thomas
  The nomination was confirmed.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote, and move 
to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the President will 
be notified of the Senate's action.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I am pleased today to rise in support of S. 
Maurice Hicks, who has been confirmed to be a nominee to the U.S. 
District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.
  Mr. Hicks has had a distinguished legal career. Upon graduation from 
Louisiana State University Law School, he worked for the Louisiana 
Legislative Council. Soon afterwards, he began his 25-year career in 
private practice as an associate in a Shreveport law firm. He 
subsequently founded his own law firm and developed an expertise in 
commercial and insurance-related litigation in State and Federal 
courts, including general aviation accidents, automobile accidents, 
product liability, lender liability claims, construction disputes, 
intellectual property claims, and insurance coverage questions, as well 
as oil and gas accident and contamination claims. He also has a great 
deal of experience representing individuals on a wide variety of 
personal matters including estate planning, personal injury claims, 
contract negotiations, copyright issues, and general legal matters. All 
told, he has tried an estimated 150 cases to judgment, acting as sole 
or lead counsel in the vast majority of them. He has also devoted time 
in his legal career to pro bono work, including preparing wills for the 
elderly and working with adjudicated juveniles.
  He is a member of the Louisiana State Bar, the American Bar 
Association, and the Shreveport Bar Association.
  I am confident that Mr. Hicks's extensive litigation experience will 
make him an excellent addition to the Federal bench.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, the Senate has confirmed the nomination of 
Maurice Hicks to be a United States District Court Judge for the 
Western District of Louisiana. Maurice Hicks has spent 25 years as a 
litigator in Shreveport, LA, where he has appeared frequently in State 
and Federal courts. He comes to us with the support of his home State 
Senators. Mr. Hicks is the seventh nominee of President Bush to be 
confirmed to the Federal courts in Louisiana. Just this year, the 
Senate already confirmed Dee Drell and Patricia Minaldi to the United 
States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana. With these 
confirmations, there are no longer any current vacancies in the Federal 
courts in Louisiana.
  Under my chairmanship last Congress, the Senate Judiciary Committee 
held the first hearing for a Fifth Circuit nominee in 7 years. Judge 
Edith Brown Clement of Louisiana was promptly given a hearing in 
October 2001 and confirmed in November 2001, despite the fact that 
three of President Clinton's Fifth Circuit nominees never received a 
hearing, including H. Alston Johnson of Louisiana. The Democrats turned 
the other cheek on past obstruction by the Republicans in order to move 
forward. In fact, with Democratic support, the Senate recently 
confirmed another nominee to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge 
Edward Prado, despite the fact that President Clinton's Hispanic 
nominees to that court, Enrique Moreno and Jorge Rangel, never received 
a hearing or a vote.
  With the confirmation of Mr. Hicks, the Senate will have confirmed 25 
of President Bush's judicial nominees so far this year and 125 overall. 
So far this year we have confirmed more judicial nominees of President 
Bush than the Republican majority was willing to confirm in the entire 
1996 session when President Clinton was in the White House. That entire 
year only 17 judges were confirmed all year and that included none to 
the circuit courts, not one. In contrast, already this session, 5 
circuit court nominees, including several highly controversial 
nominees, have been confirmed among the 25 judges the Senate has 
approved to date. Those confirmations--including two that had more 
negative votes than the required number to be filibustered but who were 
not filibustered never get acknowledged in partisan Republican talking 
points.
  We are also almost 6 months ahead of the pace the Republican majority 
set in 1999 when it considered President Clinton's judicial nominees. 
It was not until October that the Senate confirmed as many as 25 
judicial nominees in 1999.
  In the 17 months when I chaired the Judiciary Committee, we were able 
to confirm 100 judges and vastly reduce the judicial vacancies that 
Republicans had stored up by refusing to allow scores of judicial 
nominees of President Clinton to be considered. We were able to do so 
despite the White House's refusal to work with Democrats on circuit 
court vacancies and many district court vacancies.
  With Mr. Hicks' confirmation, the Senate will have succeeded in 
reducing the number of Federal judicial vacancies to the lowest level 
it has been in 13 years. The 110 vacancies that I inherited in the 
summer of 2001 have been more than cut in half. In the 17 months that I 
chaired the Judiciary Committee we not only kept up with attrition, but 
reduced those vacancies from 110 to 60 and with Mr. Hicks's 
confirmation we will only have 46 vacancies for the entire Federal 
judiciary. I congratulate Mr. Hicks and his family on his confirmation.
  Republican talking points will likely focus on the impasse on 2 of 
the most extreme of the President's nominations

[[Page 12051]]

rather than the 125 confirmations and the lowest judicial vacancy rate 
in 13 years. They will ignore their own recent filibusters against 
President Clinton's executive and judicial nominees in so doing and 
their own delays in considering some of this President's judicial 
nominees.
  I continue to be disappointed that the Republican leadership has not 
found time to proceed to the nomination of Judge Consuelo Callahan to 
the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. This is 
another of the judicial nominees that Senate Democrats has strongly 
supported and whose consideration we had expedited through the 
Judiciary Committee weeks ago.
  Just as Senate Democrats cleared the nomination of Judge Edward Prado 
to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit without 
delay, so, too, the nomination of Judge Callahan, another Hispanic 
nominee to another circuit court, was cleared on the Democratic side. 
All Democratic Senators serving on the Judiciary Committee voted to 
report this nomination favorably. All Democratic Senators had indicated 
that they are prepared to proceed to this nomination and, after a 
reasonable period of debate, vote on the nomination. I am confident 
this nomination will be confirmed by an extraordinary majority--maybe 
unanimously.
  It is most unfortunate that so many partisans in this administration 
and on the other side of the aisle insist on bogging down consensus 
matters and consensus nominees in order to focus exclusively on the 
most divisive and controversial of this President's nominees as he 
continues his efforts to pack the courts. Democratic Senators have 
worked very hard to cooperate with this administration in order to fill 
judicial vacancies. What the other side seeks to obscure is that 
effort, that fairness and the progress we have been able to achieve 
without much help from the other side or the administration. Judge 
Callahan's nomination has been delayed on the Senate Executive Calendar 
unnecessarily in my view. It is time to act on this nomination and make 
progress.

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