[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Page 11536]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           JUDICIAL GRIDLOCK

  Mr. SPECTER. I thank my colleagues. I have sought recognition to 
comment on a couple of subjects. One is the gridlock we are facing now 
in this body on the issue of judicial confirmations.
  It is my hope that we will yet be able to find a formula to break 
this cycle of gridlock. I have spoken on the subject repeatedly--about 
the events of the last 20 years, where in the last 2 years of each 
administration, when the White House is controlled by one party, as was 
the case with President Reagan in his last 2 years, and the nominations 
were gridlocked, and slowed down. Similarly, with President Bush the 
first, the last 2 years were slowed down, and then other devices and 
procedures were employed during the last 2 years of President Clinton's 
administration, procedures employed by the Republican caucus. As I have 
said on a number of occasions, I think the Republican caucus was wrong. 
I said so, and I voted so, in support of President Clinton's 
nominations. And now, I think the Democratic caucus is wrong in what 
the Democratic caucus is doing.
  I am not going to get into all of the nuances of the so-called 
``deal'' about the confirmation of three circuit judges before Memorial 
Day, but that deal could have been accomplished had the judges waiting 
in line the longest been processed as opposed to judges who had not had 
their investigations done and had not had their ABA clearances.
  But, all of that is prologue, as I see it. During an Judiciary 
executive committee meeting, before the recess, I said publicly that I 
hoped to sit down with this chairman to try to work through this. We 
had a meeting scheduled yesterday, and we are going to sit down this 
afternoon. So it is my hope we will find a way through this thicket.
  I have proposed a protocol where we would have a hearing so many days 
after a nomination; then so many days later, we would have executive 
committee action; then so many days later, floor action.
  I think it is time that we reexamined the blue slip situation, a 
concept where an individual who was personally obnoxious to a given 
Senator was objected to. Well, I have grave questions about that 
standard for excluding people. I think it ought to be a matter of 
whether they are publicly obnoxious, but, what we ought to do is we 
ought to vote; we ought to bring these people to the floor for a vote.

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