Nomination of Julien Xavier Neals

Floor Speech

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Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, I rise today with a lot of joy. I get a chance to speak about someone I have known for decades. I am rising to speak about Julien Neals and my hope that he gets to serve on the U.S. District Court of the great State of New Jersey.

I have spoken to many of my colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee about Julien Neals. He is someone I have not just known for a long time, but even though he is not quite my height, I look up to him. We worked together when I was mayor of the city of Newark. So today what I really want to speak about is not simply his impressive career, his distinguished resume, but I really want to talk a bit about who he is.

I am not sure how many of my colleagues know this about the city of Newark, NJ, but when I became mayor in 2006, we inherited a lot of very complex, very serious challenges, and for the sake of our residents, we needed to make change quickly and very urgently. So I brought in this guy named Julien Neals, whom I didn't quite know that well, but he was so well highly recommended.

He moved from the private sector, where he was with a very prestigious New Jersey law firm, and decided to lead the transformation in New Jersey's largest municipal court. He knew that it was a court system that had to change, and he stepped up. He changed it. He changed the way our court operated. He centered it in common community values and made sure that everyone who came before that court was treated in a way that affirmed their dignity, no matter what the matter was.

He pioneered innovations that the whole State--in fact, many places in our Nation--took notice of. He created the first community court in the State of New Jersey, the first youth court, and the first veterans court. He realized that citizens all have, often, different needs, especially folks like our young people and our veterans, and that there is a different way to achieve a larger standard and a larger ideal of justice.

Well, the problem is, when you do so well in one job, you get pushed to another opportunity. I quickly moved him from being my chief judge of New Jersey's largest municipal court to come in and be my corporation counsel in my mayoral administration.

In the wake of the recession in 2008, he became the business manager, the person who runs the city day to day, and under the most difficult, savage of circumstances, he made challenging changes that helped us get through that very difficult period.

Cities all over New Jersey were being crushed financially, making massive amounts of layoffs, and in those financial times, he was able to get our city to be dramatically more efficient, to bring in new ideas that helped us to create everything from environmental sustainability to expanding access to municipal services to the public. He brought in innovations that became really par for the course all over New Jersey, but Newark did them first.

Today, now, Julien serves as the counsel for the largest county in New Jersey--a county that is bigger than some of our States.

I have had the privilege of knowing Julien, as I have said, now for the past couple decades, and I have watched him handle challenge after challenge, from a global recession to Hurricane Sandy. He has stood in the saddle and helped with calmness, with coolness, with an equipoise that is enviable to all, including me. I have watched him lead. I have watched him care. I have watched his love of others be reflected in the decisions he made under the most difficult of circumstances. I have seen him in crisis after crisis rise not just to meet the challenge but to, in most circumstances, have us come out better off than we were before.

He, in so many ways, is one of the great leaders I have had the privilege of working with in my life. Julien Neals is brilliant. He is thoughtful. He is deliberate in his decision making. He has all of the ideals that I think we want in a Federal judge.

I have to tell you, most importantly to me, I know him. I know his parents. I know his family. I know his kids. He is one of those people who would make you proud not just in knowing but in ascending to a position like a judge. I know he will make us proud in the way that he leads from the bench.

I want to thank President Biden for nominating him. I want to encourage all of my colleagues in a bipartisan way, as I said in the Judiciary Committee, to consider supporting him.

I have had many privileges as a U.S. Senator. God, this is one of those jobs where you have to, like, give glory to God every day for just having the privilege of standing on this floor and getting to be a part of some things that, as much as we rancor back and forth, we should all be proud of, whether it is a global pandemic or just making sure we are funding critical parts of the government where public servants serve. But of all the privileges I have, I have to say this is one of the great ones, the chance to make a man whom I look up to in every way--make him a Federal judge, to try to encourage my colleagues to make him a Federal judge.

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Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, is there a pending vote now on the cloture vote?
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Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, I appreciate the 180 seconds, and I will be patient and wait.

I am sorry. There is a quorum call, correct?
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