[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5185-5189]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           EXECUTIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

NOMINATION OF BEVERLY REID O'CONNELL TO BE UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE 
                 FOR THE CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
proceed to executive session to consider the following nomination, 
which the clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read the nomination of Beverly Reid 
O'Connell, of California, to be United

[[Page 5186]]

States District Judge for the Central District of California.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will be 30 
minutes of debate equally divided in the usual form.
  The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, since the American people first elected 
President Obama, Senate Republicans have been engaged in a concerted 
effort to filibuster, obstruct and delay his moderate judicial 
nominees. They have already, during the last 4 years, filibustered more 
of President Obama's moderate judicial nominees than were filibustered 
during President Bush's entire 8 years--67 percent more, in fact--and 
there is no dispute that President Bush was engaged in an effort to 
pack the courts with ideological extremists.
  In connection with the wrongheaded filibuster of the nomination of 
Caitlin Halligan, an outstanding nominee to the D.C. Circuit, I urged 
them to abandon their misguided efforts that sacrifice outstanding 
judges for purposes of partisan payback. Regrettably, their response 
seems to be to expand their efforts through a ``wholesale filibuster'' 
of nominations to the D.C. Circuit and a legislative proposal to strip 
three judgeships from the D.C. Circuit.
  I am tempted to suggest that they amend their bill to make it 
effective whenever the next Republican President is elected. I say that 
to point out that they had no concerns with supporting President Bush's 
four Senate-confirmed nominees to the D.C. Circuit. Those nominees 
filled the very vacancies for the 9th, 10th and even the 11th judgeship 
on the court that Senate Republicans are demanding be eliminated now 
that President Obama has been reelected by the American people. The 
target of this legislation seems apparent when its sponsors emphasize 
that it is designed to take effect immediately and acknowledge that 
``[h]istorically, legislation introduced in the Senate altering the 
number of judgeships has most often postponed enactment until the 
beginning of the next President's term'' but that their legislation 
``does not do this.'' It is just another foray in their concerted 
efforts to block this President from appointing judges to the D.C. 
Circuit.
  In its April 5, 2013 letter, the Judicial Conference of the United 
States, chaired by Chief Justice John Roberts, sent us recommendations 
``based on our current caseload needs.'' They do not recommend 
stripping judgeships from the D.C. Circuit but state that they should 
continue at 11. Four are currently vacant. According to the 
Administrative Office of U.S. Courts, the caseload per active judge for 
the D.C. Circuit has actually increased by 50 percent since 2005, when 
the Senate confirmed President Bush's nominee to fill the 11th seat on 
the D.C. Circuit. When the Senate confirmed Thomas Griffith, President 
Bush's nominee to the 11th seat in 2005, the confirmation resulted in 
there being approximately 119 pending cases per active D.C. Circuit 
judge. There are currently 188 pending cases for each active judge on 
the D.C. Circuit, more than 50 percent higher.
  Senate Republicans also seek to misuse caseload numbers. The D.C. 
Circuit Court of Appeals is often considered ``the second most 
important court in the land'' because of its special jurisdiction and 
because of the important and complex cases that it decides. The court 
reviews complicated decisions and rulemaking of many Federal agencies, 
and in recent years has handled some of the most important terrorism 
and enemy combatant and detention cases since the attacks of September 
11. These cases make incredible demands on the time of the judges 
serving on this court. It is misleading to cite statistics and to 
accuse hardworking judges of having a light or easy workload. All cases 
are not the same and many of the hardest, most complex and most time-
consuming cases in the Nation end up at the D.C. Circuit.
  As the former Chief Judge of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals 
explained again recently, ``The nature of the D.C. Circuit's caseload 
is what sets it apart from other courts.'' She correctly noted in her 
recent column:

       The D.C. Circuit hears the most complex, time-consuming, 
     labyrinthine disputes over regulations with the greatest 
     impact on ordinary Americans' lives: clean air and water 
     regulations, nuclear plant safety, health-care reform issues, 
     insider trading and more. These cases can require thousands 
     of hours of preparation by the judges, often consuming days 
     of argument, involving hundreds of parties and interveners, 
     and necessitating dozens of briefs and thousands of pages of 
     record--all of which culminates in lengthy, technically 
     intricate legal opinions.

  I ask unanimous consent that a copy of that article again be printed 
in the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.
  Today, the Senate will vote on only one of the 15 judicial nominees 
ready for final action. While I am glad that we are being allowed to 
fill one of the 86 judicial vacancies around the country, I wish we 
were allowed to make more progress more quickly. After all, there are 
14 judicial nominees voted out of the Judiciary Committee without 
objection who are currently pending before the Senate. All members of 
the committee, Republicans and Democrats agreed that they were 
qualified and should be confirmed. Some were held over from last year. 
Indeed, there are still five judicial nominees pending on the Executive 
Calendar who could and should have been confirmed last year.
  There are currently three times as many judicial nominees on the 
Executive Calendar as there were at this point in President Bush's 
second term. Of course by then the Senate had proceeded to confirm 
almost two dozen more judges than we have been allowed to proceed to 
consider. Before Senate Republicans pat themselves on the back too 
hard, they should help us clear the nominees backlogged from last year 
and acknowledge that there was just one judicial nominee confirmed this 
year whose hearing was held this year. The others were all nominees 
they needlessly held over for months and who should have been confirmed 
last year.
  It is really incomprehensible that so many judgeships were forced to 
remain vacant for so long when there was no actual opposition to these 
consensus nominees. That is not what Democratic Senators did during the 
Bush administration. This is a new and destructive tactic. Despite the 
progress we have been allowed to make this year, we remain more than 20 
circuit and district nominees behind the pace set during President 
Bush's administration. Just 183 of President Obama's circuit and 
district nominees have been confirmed, compared to 206 of President 
Bush's at the same point, and vacancies today are nearly double what 
they were in April 2005. We can make up much of that ground if Senate 
Republicans would just agree to a vote on all 15 nominees currently 
pending on the Executive Calendar. All of them received bipartisan 
support in committee, and all but one were unanimous. There is no good 
reason for further delay.
  At this point in President Bush's presidency, when his district 
nominees were reported by the Judiciary Committee, it took, on average, 
just 35 days for them to receive a vote. The comparable average for 
President Obama's district court nominees is nearly three times as 
long, 102 days. This number is has a firm foundation-- arithmetic. It 
is derived simply by adding up the number of days each nominee waited 
and dividing by the number of nominees. That is how an average is 
calculated.
  During President Bush's first term alone, 57 district nominees were 
confirmed within just 1 week of being reported. By contrast, during his 
first 4 years only two of President Obama's district nominees have been 
confirmed within a week of being reported by the Committee. Just before 
the Thanksgiving recess in 2009, when Senator Sessions of Alabama was 
the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, we were able to get 
Republican agreement to confirm Judge Abdul Kallon, a nominee from 
Alabama, and Judge Christina Reiss, our Chief Judge for the Federal 
District Court for the District of Vermont. They had their hearing on 
November 4, were voted on by the Judiciary Committee 2 weeks later on 
November 19, and were confirmed by the Senate on November 21.

[[Page 5187]]

They were not stalled on the Senate Executive Calendar without a vote 
for weeks and months. They were confirmed 2 days after the vote by the 
Judiciary Committee. That should be the standard we follow, not be the 
exception. It should not take being from the ranking Republican's home 
State to be promptly confirmed as a noncontroversial judicial nominee.
  Digging deeper into the numbers, the Congressional Research Service 
has found that during President Bush's first term, 85 percent of his 
district nominees waited 60 days or fewer for a vote. In President 
Obama's first term, 78 percent of his district nominees waited 60 days 
or longer. What these data show is that President Obama's district 
nominees have been facing unprecedented delays. There is an undeniable 
pattern of Republican obstruction and delay that has faced district 
nominees during the last four years, a pattern that is without 
precedent.
  While these delays and backlogs are without precedent, Republicans 
point to April 2004 as the one time that there were a number of 
President Bush's nominees pending on the floor. Of course back in April 
2004, President Bush had bypassed the Senate and recess appointed two 
individuals to be circuit judges, while Republican Committee staff 
hacked into a shared server to pilfer Democratic files. Still, we were 
able to clear the backlog that resulted by confirming more than 20 
consensus nominees in just 1 month. There is nothing like that to 
explain the years of backlogged judicial nominees during this 
administration. In truth, 17 of the judicial nominations for which 
Senate Republicans take credit over the past 2 years should have been 
confirmed more than 2 years ago in the preceding Congress. They allowed 
only 60 judicial confirmations to take place during President Obama's 
first 2 years in office, the lowest total for a President in over 30 
years. This is not a new phenomenon. During President Obama's first 
year in office, Senate Republicans stalled all but 12 of his circuit 
and district nominees. That was the lowest 1-year confirmation total 
since the Eisenhower administration, when the Federal bench was barely 
one-third the size it is today.
  The fact is that we have these 15 nominees waiting for a vote. All 
Senate Democrats are prepared to vote on all of them today.
  Before Republicans take refuge in the number of vacancies without a 
nominee, they should be honest about their slow-walking the President 
on recommendations for nominees from their home States. For example, 
there are 24 emergency vacancies in States represented by Republican 
Senators. Over 40 percent of all judicial emergency vacancies are in 
just 3 States, each of which is represented by 2 Republican Senators. 
Those Senators should be working with the White House to fill those 
vacancies. I encourage Republican Senators to work with this President, 
just as I encouraged Democratic Senators to work with President Bush, 
to find good nominees for those important vacancies and to allow 
qualified nominees to move forward. I take very seriously our 
responsibilities of both advice and consent on nominations.
  Today, the Senate is being allowed to confirm Judge Beverly O'Connell 
to a judicial emergency vacancy on the Federal trial court for the 
Central District of California, one of the busiest courts in the 
Nation. She currently serves on the Superior Court for the County of 
Los Angeles in California, where she has served for the last 8 years. 
She is also currently an Adjunct Professor of Law at Loyola Law School 
and at Pepperdine University School of Law. Prior to becoming a judge, 
she served in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of 
California for 10 years and worked in private practice as an associate 
at Morrison & Foerster LLP. She received the ABA Standing Committee on 
the Federal Judiciary's highest possible rating, unanimously ``well 
qualified,'' and has the support of her home State Senators, Senator 
Feinstein and Senator Boxer. She originally had her hearing last 
December, was unanimously approved by the Judiciary Committee, will be 
overwhelming approved by the Senate, and should and could have been 
confirmed last year.
  Finally, last month, I spoke about the damaging effect of 
sequestration on our Federal courts and our system of justice and how 
these indiscriminate cuts have caused both Federal prosecutors and 
Federal public defenders to be furloughed. The effects have become all 
too real as even terrorism prosecutions are being delayed. Chief Judge 
Loretta Preska of the Southern District of New York called these cuts 
``devastating.'' The head of the Federal Defenders Office stated: ``On 
a good day, we're stretched thin. . . . Sequestration takes us well 
beyond the breaking point. You simply can't sequester the Sixth 
Amendment.'' He is right. Sequestration is causing grave harm to our 
judicial system. I ask unanimous consent that a copy of an article 
dated April 8 be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my 
statement.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, Feb. 28, 2013]

               Senate Must Act on Appeals Court Vacancies

                         (By Patricia M. Wald)

       Patricia M. Wald, who is retired, served as a judge on the 
     U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from 1979 to 1999, 
     including five years as chief judge.
       Pending before the Senate are nominations to fill two of 
     the four vacant judgeships on the U.S. Court of Appeals for 
     the District of Columbia Circuit. This court has exclusive 
     jurisdiction over many vital national security challenges and 
     hears the bulk of appeals from the major regulatory agencies 
     of the federal government. Aside from the U.S. Supreme Court, 
     it resolves more constitutional questions involving 
     separation of powers and executive prerogatives than any 
     court in the country.
       The D.C. Circuit has 11 judgeships but only seven active 
     judges. There is cause for extreme concern that Congress is 
     systematically denying the court the human resources it needs 
     to carry out its weighty mandates.
       The court's vacancies date to 2005, and it has not received 
     a new appointment since 2006. The number of pending cases per 
     judge has grown from 119 in 2005 to 188 today. A great many 
     of these are not easy cases. The D.C. Circuit hears the most 
     complex, time-consuming, labyrinthine disputes over 
     regulations with the greatest impact on ordinary Americans' 
     lives: clean air and water regulations, nuclear plant safety, 
     healthcare reform issues, insider trading and more. These 
     cases can require thousands of hours of preparation by the 
     judges, often consuming days of argument, involving hundreds 
     of parties and interveners, and necessitating dozens of 
     briefs and thousands of pages of record--all of which 
     culminates in lengthy, technically intricate legal opinions.
       I served on the D.C. Circuit for more than 20 years and as 
     its chief judge for almost five. My colleagues and I worked 
     as steadily and intensively as judges on other circuits even 
     if they may have heard more cases. The nature of the D.C. 
     Circuit's caseload is what sets it apart from other courts. 
     The U.S. Judicial Conference reviews this caseload 
     periodically and makes recommendations to Congress about the 
     court's structure. In 2009, the conference recommended, based 
     on its review, that the circuit's 12th judgeship be 
     eliminated. This apolitical process is the proper way to 
     determine the circuit's needs, rather than in the more highly 
     charged context of individual confirmations.
       During my two-decade tenure, 11 active judges were sitting 
     a majority of the time; today, the court has only 64 percent 
     of its authorized active judges. This precipitous decline 
     manifests in the way the court operates. And while the D.C. 
     Circuit has five senior judges, they may opt out of the most 
     complex regulatory cases and do not sit en banc. They also 
     choose the periods during which they will sit, which can 
     affect the randomization of assignment of judges to cases.
       There is, moreover, a subtle constitutional dynamic at work 
     here: The president nominates and the Senate confirms federal 
     judges for life. While some presidents may not encounter any 
     vacancies during their administration, over time the 
     constitutional schemata ensures that the makeup of courts 
     reflects the choices of changing presidents and the ``advise 
     and consent'' of changing Senates. Since the circuit courts' 
     structure was established in 1948, President Obama is the 
     first president not to have a single judge confirmed to the 
     D.C. Circuit during his first full term. The constitutional 
     system of nomination and confirmation can work only if there 
     is good faith on the part of both the president and the 
     Senate to move qualified nominees along, rather than 
     withholding consent for political reasons. I recall my own 
     difficult confirmation 35 years ago as the first female judge 
     on the circuit; eminent senators such as Barry Goldwater, 
     Thad Cochran and Alan Simpson voted to confirm me regardless 
     of differences in party or general political philosophy.

[[Page 5188]]

       The two D.C. Circuit nominees before the Senate are 
     exceedingly well qualified. Caitlin Halligan served as my law 
     clerk during the 1995-96 term, working on cases involving the 
     Department of Health and Human Services, the Immigration and 
     Naturalization Service, the Federal Communications Commission 
     and diverse other topics. She later clerked for Supreme Court 
     Justice Stephen Breyer. She also served as New York solicitor 
     general and general counsel for the Manhattan district 
     attorney's office, as well as being a partner in a major law 
     firm. The other nominee, Sri Srinivasan, has similarly 
     impressive credentials and a reputation that surely merits 
     prompt and serious consideration of his nomination.
       There is a tradition in the D.C. Circuit of spirited 
     differences among judges on the most important legal issues 
     of our time. My experience, however, was that deliberations 
     generally focused on the legal and real-world consequences of 
     decisions and reflected a premium on rational thinking and 
     intellectual prowess, not personal philosophy or policy 
     preferences. It is in that vein that I urge the Senate to 
     confirm the two pending nominations to the D.C. Circuit, so 
     that this eminent court can live up to its full potential in 
     our country's judicial work.
                                  ____


                [From the New York Times, Apr. 8, 2013]

           Citing Cuts, Lawyers Seek Relief in Terrorism Case

                          (By Benjamin Weiser)

       Federal public defenders who are representing a son-in-law 
     of Osama bin Laden on terrorism charges urged a judge on 
     Monday not to hold an early trial because automatic 
     government budget cuts were requiring furloughs of lawyers in 
     their office.
       The request, which seemed to take the judge, Lewis A. 
     Kaplan, by surprise, follows requests that five or six 
     federal judges in Manhattan have received from public 
     defenders to be relieved from cases in the wake of the 
     automatic cuts, known as sequestration, said Loretta A. 
     Preska, the chief judge of the Federal District Court in 
     Manhattan.
       ``It's devastating,'' Judge Preska said late Monday. She 
     praised the work of the federal defenders and said their 
     replacement in cases with publicly paid court-appointed 
     lawyers would probably lead to delays and higher costs.
       Judge Kaplan said in court on Monday that he was 
     considering holding the trial of bin Laden's son-in-law, 
     Sulaiman Abu Ghaith--a onetime Al Qaeda spokesman charged 
     with conspiring to kill Americans--in September. After the 
     defense requested a later date, he said: ``It's extremely 
     troublesome to contemplate the possibility of a case of this 
     nature being delayed because of sequestration. Let me say 
     only that--stunning.''
       The judge did not set a trial date, saying he would 
     consider the request, but the exchange shows how the forced 
     budget cuts are beginning to have an effect on the 
     administration of justice in federal courts in New York.
       About 30 trial lawyers with the federal defenders office 
     handle around 2,000 criminal cases a year in federal courts 
     in Manhattan, Brooklyn and other locations, according to 
     David E. Patton, who heads the office.
       The forced cuts, he said, will mean each lawyer in the 
     office will be furloughed for five and a half weeks through 
     the end of September, when the fiscal year ends.
       ``On a good day, we're stretched thin,'' Mr. Patton said. 
     ``Sequestration takes us well beyond the breaking point. You 
     simply can't sequester the Sixth Amendment.''
       ``Investigations have to be conducted,'' Mr. Patton added. 
     ``Evidence must be reviewed. Law must be researched. Those 
     things don't just happen by themselves.''
       In seeking the delay, lawyers for Mr. Abu Ghaith, who was 
     arraigned in March, cited the need for overseas 
     investigation, the translation of voluminous materials and 
     other issues. ``We would urge the court to find a later 
     date,'' one lawyer, Martin Cohen, said.
       Judge Preska said that lawyers had been allowed to leave 
     one of the cases in which the furlough problem had been 
     cited; the issue is pending in the others.
       Newly appointed lawyers would have to ``get up to speed'' 
     on their cases, and because they are paid by the hour 
     (federal defenders are salaried), the public would probably 
     end up paying more, Judge Preska said. ``There's no 
     resolution,'' she said. ``Time is of the essence, and we're 
     very, very concerned.''

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, in the midst of another tragic occurrence 
in our country, where we are all holding our breath to learn the facts, 
and praying, I wanted to say the business of the Senate is moving 
forward in terms of judges and how important it is to have judges in 
place so criminals can be prosecuted and justice is served.
  Tonight in front of the Senate is Judge Beverly Reid O'Connell to be 
district court judge for the Central District Court of California. 
Judge Reid O'Connell was approved in the Judiciary Committee by a voice 
vote. She has had a very diverse legal career. She served as an 
exemplary superior court judge in Los Angeles. She will be an excellent 
addition to the Federal bench. She is a lifelong Southern Californian. 
She grew up in Northridge, where she was valedictorian of her high 
school. She went on to attend UCLA and Pepperdine Law School, where she 
was managing editor of the Law Review and graduated magna cum laude.
  She began her career in private practice, spending 5 years as an 
associate at Morrison and Foerster. In 1995, she joined the Department 
of Justice as an assistant U.S. attorney, where she spent 10 years 
gaining critical criminal law and trial experience.
  Judge O'Connell excelled as an assistant U.S. attorney. She was the 
deputy chief of the general crimes section, responsible for supervising 
all the attorneys in the criminal division. She was the lead attorney 
on a case that led to the indictment of the highest ranking member of a 
major drug trafficking organization on U.S. soil.
  For her work on this case she was awarded the DEA Administrator's 
Award for Exceptional Service.
  She has also received numerous other awards from the DEA, FBI, and 
local governments.
  She was appointed Superior Court Judge in Los Angeles in 2005 by 
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Judge O'Connell is the Assistant 
Supervising Judge of the North Valley Judicial District where she is 
responsible for supervising 3 court houses and 22 bench officers.
  An expert in criminal law, she presides over all aspects of felony 
criminal cases before the Superior Court.
  In addition to being well-respected for her demeanor on the bench and 
her stellar legal intellect, she is known by her colleagues as a great 
manager and supervisor, attributes which will serve her well at the 
busy central district.
  Judge Reid O'Connell is also very active in the Southern California 
legal community.
  She created a program that brings inner-city students to the Superior 
Court to educate them about the legal process and to spend time with 
judges and lawyers.
  She also teaches continuing education courses to California judges on 
criminal law, and is an adjunct professor at the law schools of 
Pepperdine and Loyola.
  Judge Reid O'Connell received the ABA's highest possible rating--
unanimously ``well qualified and they said she will make an excellent 
Federal judge.
  While we are in the midst of some very contentious debates--and I 
hope and pray we will move forward with the background check amendment 
that was crafted by our colleagues Senator Manchin and Senator Toomey--
and while we are worried about everything that has happened in the 
country, particularly what has happened today at the Boston Marathon, I 
know we can move forward tonight because we need to make sure we have 
qualified judges on the benches to deal with crimes, to deal with 
justice every single day.
  I believe Judge Reid O'Connell is a wonderful choice for these very 
difficult times and I urge my colleagues to support her nomination.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I rise to express my strong support 
for Superior Court Judge Beverly Reid O'Connell's nomination to be a 
district judge for the Central District of California.
  Born in Ventura, CA, Judge O'Connell graduated from the University of 
California, Los Angeles in 1986 and earned her law degree from 
Pepperdine University School of Law magna cum laude in 1990. She was 
managing editor of the Pepperdine Law Review.
  Following law school, she worked on complex civil litigation in 
private practice at the law firm Morrison & Foerster for 5 years. She 
then joined the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Central District of 
California, where she served for 10 years, from 1995 through 2005. She 
handled a number of high profile cases, such as the prosecution of a 
high ranking member of the Arellano Felix drug cartel.
  She was appointed to the Superior Court by former Governor Arnold

[[Page 5189]]

Schwarzenegger in 2005. She has been an outstanding judge, presiding 
over literally thousands of cases and approximately 150 jury trials. 
She also has been a proven administrator, serving with great skill as 
an assistant supervising judge for the North Valley District of the 
Superior Court.
  Simply put, Judge O'Connell has outstanding credentials and an 
impeccable reputation, and she has received a rating of ``well 
qualified'' from the American Bar Association--the ABA's highest 
rating.
  I will conclude by saying that I have met with Judge O'Connell, and I 
have no doubt she will be an excellent addition to the Central 
District.
  I commend Senator Boxer for recommending such a fine candidate to 
President Obama, and I am pleased her nomination is on the floor today. 
I hope my colleagues will support her nomination.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, before I yield the floor I want to say, 
for the note of anyone who has been following that on Monday nights I 
usually speak about climate change, I am not going to do this tonight. 
I am going to put that off until next week.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                        Boston Marathon Tragedy

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I, like every Member of the Senate, am 
shocked and saddened by the news from Boston today. There were 
explosions near the finish line at the Boston Marathon. My thoughts go 
out to all those who were injured, and my condolences go to the 
families and friends of those affected by this tragedy.
  I commend the first responders and the observers who rushed toward 
danger to help those who were hurt. We will continue to monitor the 
news from Boston.
  President Obama has spoken to a number of people, including the mayor 
of Boston and Governor Deval Patrick. They have pledged every resource 
available to help those who were affected and to find and bring to 
justice the perpetrators. The President will be speaking to the Nation 
in about 20 minutes.
  I will do whatever I can to support the people of Boston and the 
Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as we all will, during this difficult 
time.
  I ask unanimous consent that all time be yielded back on the 
nomination, and following a moment of silence in observance of the 
tragic events which took place in Boston earlier today, the Senate then 
proceed to vote on the confirmation of the nomination.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection, it is 
so ordered.
  Under the previous order, the Senate will observe a moment of 
silence.
  (Moment of Silence.)
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  There is a sufficient second.
  The question is, Will the Senate advise and consent to the nomination 
of Beverly Reid O'Connell to be United States District Judge for the 
Central District of California?
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from North Dakota (Ms. 
Heitkamp), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Lautenberg), and the 
Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren), are necessarily absent.
  Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the 
Senator from New Hampshire (Ms. Ayotte), the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. 
Coburn), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from 
North Dakota (Mr. Hoeven), and the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Vitter).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Donnelly). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 92, nays 0, as follows:

                       [Rollcall Vote No. 96 Ex.]

                                YEAS--92

     Alexander
     Baldwin
     Barrasso
     Baucus
     Begich
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Boxer
     Brown
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Chambliss
     Coats
     Cochran
     Collins
     Coons
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Cowan
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Donnelly
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Feinstein
     Fischer
     Flake
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Grassley
     Hagan
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Heinrich
     Heller
     Hirono
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johanns
     Johnson (SD)
     Johnson (WI)
     Kaine
     King
     Kirk
     Klobuchar
     Landrieu
     Leahy
     Lee
     Levin
     Manchin
     McCain
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Paul
     Portman
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rockefeller
     Rubio
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Scott
     Sessions
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Thune
     Toomey
     Udall (CO)
     Udall (NM)
     Warner
     Whitehouse
     Wicker
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--8

     Ayotte
     Coburn
     Graham
     Heitkamp
     Hoeven
     Lautenberg
     Vitter
     Warren
  The nomination was confirmed.

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