Executive Session

EXECUTIVE SESSION

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

NOMINATION OF VIRGINIA MARY KENDALL

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, included in the nominations just approved by the Senate is the nomination of Virginia Mary Kendall of Illinois to be the U.S. district judge for the Northern District of Illinois. She is replacing the retired Susanne Conlon. This is an extraordinary woman who will make a great contribution to the Federal judiciary.

She is strongly supported by Senator Obama and myself, as well as Speaker DENNIS HASTERT. On a bipartisan basis, we reviewed many fine candidates for this vacancy and found Virginia Kendall to be the best. With the approval of the White House, she moved through the Senate Judiciary Committee.

I am anxious, as soon as I finish these remarks, to go to the cloakroom, place a phone call, and give her a Christmas present and let her know her nomination has been approved by the Senate.

I would like to thank Judiciary Committee Chairman Specter, as well as Ranking Member Leahy, for expediting the consideration of Ms. Kendall's nomination. I also want to thank Senator Obama for the significant role that he played in the selection process. Finally, I want to thank House Speaker Hastert for his role in the process and for his willingness to continue an Illinois tradition of seeking bipartisan cooperation in the recommendation of Federal district court nominees for presidential consideration.

Virginia Kendall is a highly respected federal prosecutor in Chicago with a stellar reputation for diligence, intelligence, and integrity. She has been in the U.S. Attorney's office in the Northern District of Illinois for the past decade, and she has a great depth of experience.

She is one of the leading prosecutors in the country in the area of child exploitation over the Internet, and she was the lead counsel in the first Internet kidnaping case brought by the Department of Justice. She has also prosecuted domestic terrorism and corporate fraud cases.

Ms. Kendall has helped reduce Chicago's murder rate, by creating a novel program that emphasizes better outreach by law enforcement to parolee gun offenders and to at-risk students in the Chicago Public Schools. She has been the lead prosecutor in cases involving the sale of weapons over the Internet to minors.

Ms. Kendall has also been extremely active in pro bono work. She has created programs in which Federal prosecutors go into Chicago high schools and educate students about the dangers of gun violence and the workings of the criminal justice system. One of her programs received an award from the Department of Justice as the most outstanding volunteer program in the country. Ms. Kendall and her husband have worked closely with students from the Cristo Rey Jesuit High School, an amazing success story of a high school in Pilson, a low-income Latino neighborhood in Chicago.

In addition, Ms. Kendall has served as an adjunct law professor at Loyola University law school for the past 12 years. Some of her former law school students contacted me and said she was the best professor they ever had. That speaks very well of Ms. Kendall's ability not only to understand the law, but to teach it.

One of Ms. Kendall's biggest supporters is her boss--Patrick Fitzgerald--the United States Attorney in the Northern District of Illinois. He wrote me a long letter singing her praises, and he concluded:

I can also assure you that Ginny is a warm and compassionate person who is very attentive to the human needs of those she works with and supervises. Ginny's combination of legal talents, experience as a prosecutor, supervisor and instructor, and commitment to bettering the communities most in need of help would stand her in great stead if she were selected as a federal judge in this district.

I am pleased to report that Ms. Kendall also receives high marks from her opposing counsel and has an excellent reputation in the criminal defense bar. One of her opposing counsel described her as ``honorable, decent, ethical, and someone with an ideal temperament.'' Another opposing counsel said Ms. Kendall was ``down to earth, honest, straightforward, reliable, and full of integrity.''

I was not surprised to learn that a substantial majority of the American Bar Association's judicial nomination review committee gave Ms. Kendall their highest possible rating of ``Well Qualified.'' I am confident that, as a judge, Ms. Kendall will serve with honor, courage, and distinction on the Federal bench in the Northern District of Illinois for many years to come.

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