[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Page 15565]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       SUPREME COURT NOMINATIONS

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I was listening to our majority leader's 
words on consultation and the process thus far. I will make a couple of 
points.
  The first is that we are off to a good start. I certainly agree with 
the majority leader. The phone calls that have been made and this 
morning's meeting with Senators Frist, Reid, Specter, and Leahy are a 
good first start. That is how it should be. But simply phone calls or 
meetings, if they are devoid of substance, are not going to lead to 
real consultation.
  I certainly agree with the majority leader's point. The Senate is not 
a conominee. It is the President who has to do the nominating. The way 
consultation has successfully worked in the past is for the President 
to quietly, privately, offer some of the names he is considering to 
those on both sides of the aisle and get opinions about those names: 
How would this one fare? How would that one fare? Would this one cause 
a fight? How about that one?
  It is not that we would be conominators at all. Consultation is that. 
The President is the nominator, and a good consultation means that 
nominator discusses who he is thinking of nominating, takes the 
temperature, if you will, of the Senate, particularly of the other 
party, to see if a consensus nominee could come about. Thus far, 
neither the President nor any of the people working for him--I had one 
call with Andrew Card, the Chief of Staff--has offered a single name. 
From what I understand this morning, the President did not offer a 
single name.
  So we are off to a good first start. Make no mistake about it--it is 
a first start to begin the consultation process. But the consultation 
process, for it to work, is not going to be, Okay, who do you think is 
a good name, and that is that and we do not have a back and forth. In 
fact, for consultation to work--and we all want it to work--the 
President should suggest some names and get the opinion of those in the 
Senate.
  This is how it worked with President Clinton. It was not simply that 
President Clinton called up Orrin Hatch and said, Give me some names, 
and didn't have a discussion. President Clinton bounced off names. In 
Orrin Hatch's book, he states that one of the names offered who 
President Clinton very much wanted to nominate was Bruce Babbitt, the 
former Interior Secretary and Governor of Arizona. While Orrin Hatch 
did not state how he would vote--and I have talked to Orrin a little 
about this--he said: I think Babbitt would cause a big fight. And 
wisely, President Clinton did not offer his name. So that is how the 
consultation process, to be successful, ought to go.
  In my call with Andrew Card, I told him something I have said 
repeatedly. And I think I speak for just about every member of this 
caucus on this side of the aisle. We do not want a fight. We certainly 
do not relish a fight. We would much prefer a consensus nominee. 
Furthermore, we know that nominee is not going to be a liberal or even 
a moderate. It is likely to be a conservative. But our view is--again, 
this time I am speaking for myself, but I think a lot of my colleagues 
share this view--our view is very simple: that nominee, though 
conservative, will interpret law, not make it; will be thoughtful, will 
be pragmatic, will understand the other point of view. If that happens, 
I think we can have a process that works well.
  So in summary, Mr. President, the consultation we have had is great. 
The number of phone calls may exceed any others that have been named. 
But so far, at least according to my phone call and the ones of many of 
my colleagues with whom I have talked, and from what I have been told 
about the meeting this morning, we have not gotten into the real nitty-
gritty of consultation--not co-nomination, absolutely not. The 
President is the nominator. But the nitty-gritty means offering some 
names. The President offers some names and gets the opinion before he 
makes his decision--and the decision, of course, by the Constitution is 
solely his--as to whether that nominee would get broad acceptance or 
whether that nominee is likely to cause quite a stir in the Senate.
  Let us hope this is not the end of the consultation process but the 
beginning. Let us hope there will be that kind of dialog. I reiterate 
my call to the President to have a summit, to call a good number of 
Democrats and Republicans together for a day at Camp David or an 
evening or dinner at the White House and have a real back-and-forth 
where we roll up our sleeves and really get into a serious, detailed 
discussion of how we all feel. Who will benefit if that happens? Who 
will benefit if there is real consultation? Certainly the President, 
certainly the Senate, certainly the Supreme Court, but, most of all, 
certainly the American people.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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