[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 16]
[Senate]
[Pages 22805-22806]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       JUDGE TIMOTHY D. DeGIUSTI

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, this morning we did a great thing in the 
confirmation of Tim DeGiusti to the Federal court. Understandably, we 
are short of time this morning because of what is happening at the 
White House, but let me finalize a couple of ideas and some comments I 
was going to make.
  First, when you have someone who has the highest rating, whether it 
is from Martin Dale Hubbell or the American Bar Association, which this 
candidate did and does, and he also as a military lawyer is familiar 
with courts-martial procedures--there are a lot of people out there 
with these qualifications. This individual goes far beyond that. It is 
interesting that while he is a Republican, our Democratic Governor in 
Oklahoma, Gov. Brad Henry, is a very strong supporter of this now-
confirmed nominee. Also, my predecessor, David Boren, who is now 
President of the University of Oklahoma, was a very strong supporter of 
this individual. I quoted him a few times during this process, as to 
how outstanding this candidate is.
  I would like to share an experience I had 41 years ago. A man named 
Ralph Thompson, who is currently a senior

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status Federal judge in Oklahoma in the same Western District in which 
his son-in-law has been confirmed this morning, and I, and another 
person named David Boren, 41 years ago, were elected to the Oklahoma 
House of Representatives. I remember it so well because in February of 
1967, 40 years ago this year, we all three came to Washington, DC, for 
the first time. That is, State legislators Ralph Thompson, Dave Boren, 
and of course myself. David Boren's father was a Congressman so he had 
a pretty good entree into the Capitol. I remember so well the three of 
us were walking around the Capitol at night--my first time ever being 
in the Capitol area of Washington. I remember, after walking through 
Statuary Hall and all these great features we have in our Capitol, that 
we kind of professed to each other, we decided one day--Ralph Thompson 
and David Boren and I--we said we would like to be Members of the 
Congress, either in the House or in the Senate. But Ralph Thompson 
said: Or a judge in the U.S. district court.
  As it turned out, David Boren was a Member of the Senate; I am a 
Member of the Senate; and Ralph Thompson became--I believe he will go 
down in history as maybe being the outstanding Federal district judge 
in the history of Oklahoma. I have heard so many people talk about 
that.
  I knew Ralph so well at that time--keep in mind, this is 40 years 
ago--and his beautiful wife Barbara, whom I might add has been Mother 
of the Year and received every possible honor you could have. Lisa, 
Maria and Elaine--they cranked out three little girls, and Elaine was 
the girl who later married Timothy DeGiusti. Get the connection? You 
have a great judge and then you have a son-in-law who is going into the 
same Western District of Oklahoma to replace him. It is an unusual 
situation. But this is one of these wonderful things that can happen in 
this country of ours. I am so happy this is behind us now and it 
happened prior to the August recess.

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