[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12444-12445]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           EXECUTIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

 ANDREW J. GUILFORD TO BE UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE FOR THE CENTRAL 
                         DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will now 
proceed to executive session to consider the following nomination, 
which the clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read the nomination of Andrew J. 
Guilford, of California, to be United States District Judge for the 
Central District of California.
  Mr. WARNER. I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, today the Senate will confirm two more 
lifetime appointments to our Federal courts. I am glad that we are 
voting on Andrew Guilford, who has been nominated to the District Court 
for the Central District of California and who has the support of his 
Democratic home State Senators, Mrs. Boxer and Mrs. Feinstein. Frank 
Whitney, a nominee for the District Court for the Western District of 
North Carolina, has the support of his Republican home State Senators. 
Both nominations were reported unanimously by the Judiciary Committee.
  I am pleased that the Republican leadership has scheduled debate and 
consideration of these nominations and am glad that the Republican 
leadership is this month taking notice of the fact that we can 
cooperate on swift consideration and confirmation of consensus 
nominations. Working together, we confirmed five judges in 1 week 
earlier this month. We have confirmed three more this week. Many of 
these judges could have been confirmed last month if the Republican 
leadership had chosen to make progress instead of picking a fight on a 
controversial nomination. I look forward to working with the Republican 
leadership to schedule debate and consideration of other 
noncontroversial nominees.
  I, again, commend the Republican Senate leadership for wisely passing 
over the controversial nominations of William Gerry Myers III, Terrence 
W. Boyle, and Norman Randy Smith. The Republican leadership is right to 
have avoided an unnecessarily divisive debate over these nominations 
that were reported on a party-line vote.
  The President and Senate Republican leadership have too often, 
though, chosen to pick fights over judicial nominations rather than 
focus on filling vacancies. Judicial vacancies have now grown to well 
over 40 from the lowest vacancy rate in decades. More than half these 
vacancies are without a nominee. The Congressional Research Service has 
recently released a study showing that this President has been the 
slowest in decades to nominate and the Republican Senate among the 
slowest to act. If they would concentrate on the needs of the courts, 
our Federal justice system, and the needs of the American people, we 
would be much further along.
  Still, we have passed several milestones. When the Senate today 
confirms Andrew Guilford and Frank Whitney as district court judges, 
the Senate will have confirmed 251 of this President's judicial 
nominees, crossing the 250 threshold. This milestone is an indicator of 
how cooperative Senate Democrats have been in confirming this 
President's nominees. Despite the slow pace of the President and the 
Republican leadership in filling the needs of the judiciary, the Senate 
has confirmed more of this President's nominees in the 66 months of his 
Presidency than the Republican-controlled Senate did in the last 66 
months of the Clinton Presidency. During that time, many good nominees 
were never even given a vote in committee, and only 230 judges were 
confirmed. That dubious total was the result of their pocket-filibuster 
strategy to stall and maintain vacancies so that a Republican President 
could pack the courts and tilt them decidedly to the right. It is a 
strategy which has been working.
  Also with these two nominations, the Republican-controlled Senate 
will have this year confirmed 24 judicial nominations. That surpasses 
the number of judges confirmed last year, 22. During the 17 months I 
was chairman of the Judiciary Committee and the Senate was under 
Democratic control, we confirmed 100 of President Bush's nominees. 
After today, in the last 17 months under Republican control, the Senate 
will have confirmed 46. So the fact that the Senate has confirmed more 
nominees in the past 5\1/2\ years than in the last 5\1/2\ years of the 
Clinton administration is due in no small part to the much faster pace 
of confirmations of this President's nominees when Democrats controlled 
the Senate.
  Working together, we could do better. I urge the White House to work 
with us to select nominees with bipartisan support like Andrew 
Guilford, rather than explosive partisan nominees like Terrence Boyle. 
I hope that the Republican-controlled Senate will stop using 
controversial judicial nominations to score partisan political points. 
Our courts are too important.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I regret that I will not be able to vote on 
the nomination of Andrew Guilford. I have been called back to Idaho 
because of a family emergency. Had I been present to vote, I would have 
voted in his favor. It is my understanding that there are no known 
votes against this nominee, so his certain confirmation will not be 
affected by my absence.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is, Will the Senate advise and 
consent to the nomination of Andrew J. Guilford, of California, to be 
United States District Judge for the Central District of California? On 
this question, the yeas and nays have been ordered, and the clerk will 
call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. The following Senators were necessarily absent: the 
Senator from Idaho (Mr. Craig), the Senator from Wyoming (Mr. Enzi), 
the Senator from New Hampshire (Mr. Gregg), and the Senator from New 
Hampshire (Mr. Sununu).
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Connecticut (Mr. 
Lieberman), the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Rockefeller), and the 
Senator from Maryland (Mr. Sarbanes) are necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?

[[Page 12445]]

  The result was announced--yeas 93, nays 0, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 187 Leg.]

                                YEAS--93

     Akaka
     Alexander
     Allard
     Allen
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Boxer
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burns
     Burr
     Byrd
     Cantwell
     Carper
     Chafee
     Chambliss
     Clinton
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Coleman
     Collins
     Conrad
     Cornyn
     Crapo
     Dayton
     DeMint
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Dole
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Ensign
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Frist
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hagel
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Isakson
     Jeffords
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lincoln
     Lott
     Lugar
     Martinez
     McCain
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Nelson (NE)
     Obama
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Roberts
     Salazar
     Santorum
     Schumer
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Stevens
     Talent
     Thomas
     Thune
     Vitter
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--7

     Craig
     Enzi
     Gregg
     Lieberman
     Rockefeller
     Sarbanes
     Sununu
  The nomination was confirmed.
  Mr. WARNER. I move to reconsider the vote, and I move to lay that 
motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

                          ____________________