[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 2167-2168]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              NOMINATIONS

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I thank the majority leader for what he 
said on these nominations. As he knows, we have an awful lot of them 
that have come out, and then every time he has tried to move them 
quickly on the Senate floor there has been opposition from the other 
side.
  It has been frustrating when we actually had nominations that waited 
months, or will have a cloture vote, and then they will get 90 or 95 
votes for confirmation.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, would my friend yield for a question?
  Mr. LEAHY. Of course.
  Mr. REID. I ask the chairman of the Judiciary Committee to explain to 
everyone within the sound of our voices

[[Page 2168]]

how important the DC Circuit is to our country.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, it would be hard to state it any better 
than the Senator from Nevada has. But so many of the issues we grapple 
with every single day on this floor--regulatory issues, issues that 
affect the various departments of government--when there are appeals of 
those issues, when there are questions of what the Departments do, they 
invariably go to the DC Circuit. They don't go to the U.S. Supreme 
Court.
  The U.S. Supreme Court, as the distinguished Presiding Officer and 
the distinguished majority leader know, takes only a tiny percentage of 
cases that are appealed. But every one of these major legal issues that 
are appealed are heard by the DC Circuit, and it is frustrating to know 
there is a concerted effort on the other side to try to stop having a 
balance in the DC Circuit.
  Every one of us as lawyers would hope we could come into a courtroom 
and know that if we have a good case, we would win it; and if we have a 
bad case, we would lose but that the cards aren't stacked against us 
because we are a Republican or Democrat. Because of the makeup of the 
DC Circuit, more and more people are getting the view--rightly or 
wrongly--it is stacked. The efforts of the Republican Party to block 
anybody else from going down there except for people they have vetted 
increase that impression that the court is stacked. That doesn't help 
the system of justice in the United States. It actually doesn't help 
whether you are a Republican or a Democrat because it destroys the idea 
of the impartiality of the courts.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask for permission to ask one more 
question of the senior Senator.
  Mr. LEAHY. Of course.
  Mr. REID. Legal scholars have said, and I have read, that they 
believe the DC Circuit is just a little bit below the Supreme Court; 
that it hears cases of such significance. That is why it was 
established some 65 years ago: to take care of cases the Supreme Court 
couldn't.
  Is that true?
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, the Senator from Nevada is absolutely 
correct. I would even argue that in some areas it is more important 
than the Supreme Court because on so many of the issues that go there, 
they will have the final word. The Supreme Court could never hear all 
of the requests for appeals from the DC Circuit, and they become the 
final word.
  So on the issues that involve average Americans based on what their 
government does, they will be decided in that circuit court, not in the 
Supreme Court. So it is extraordinarily important that we have a 
balanced court there.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________