Nomination of Zahid Quraishi
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I thank my senior Senator, who himself has an improbable story, his lived experience, a son of immigrants coming up in New Jersey, being born in a way that he knows struggle and knows poverty. And the fact that he is on the Senate floor speaking about someone else who has an improbable story shows you the greatness of America.
I am grateful for my senior Senator and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee for taking time to show us the importance of this moment. This is history here.
America has never before had an article III judge who also happens to be a Muslim. That has never before happened. Think about this: 200-plus years in American history, a country that was born and our Founders enshrined in our very founding documents, in the Bill of Rights, this ideal of freedom of religion. We celebrate religious plurality and religious diversity.
So this is an extraordinary moment. Now, I am thrilled that it is a bipartisan moment. In committee, during this time of heightened partisanship, in the Judiciary Committee, Judge Quraishi passed out 19 to 3--19 to 3--which is a further testimony not just to the gravity of this historic moment, not just to a man's religion, but to the man himself, the core of who he is. Senator Menendez said this.
Many people, after 9/11, felt the deep, agonizing grief in this country. We are not defined as a nation by what happens to us. We are defined by how we choose to respond. From the attacks at Pearl Harbor to the attacks on 9/11, those horrific moments, you saw how this Nation showed who it is--our grit, our guts, our grace, our greatness.
That is the tradition of Judge Quraishi. A man that had a glide path toward a career of comfort and private sector success made a decision. Those horrific tragedies, he would not let them define our Nation. How we defined ourselves was by people like him.
He joined the Army. He became a U.S. Army judge advocate. He attained the rank of captain. He was deployed to Iraq--first in 2004 and then again in 2006. And after his service in the military, Judge Quraishi continued his service to the Nation, like so many of our veterans do-- first as the assistant chief counsel in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and then as a Federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey.
Do not define a person by what they say. Simply do not define them by their faith and do not define them by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character and in the actions that they take. In a time that our Nation was crippled with grief, he stood up and he served, and he has been serving every single step since. He is ``well qualified.'' That is what the American Bar Association says.
But I tell you, he is well qualified on a higher standard than that. He is a patriot to this country. Patriotism is love of Nation, but love is not a being verb. It is a doing verb. It is action. His actions have shown his love for America, and now he is up here in this Chamber to make history. I urge my colleagues, as we saw in the Judiciary Committee in a 19-to-3 vote, to vote in a bipartisan way.
This is a chance for the annals of time to show our commitment to great people, to a great man, to a person of character, to a person of commitment, to a person of conviction, to a person of patriotism who happens also to be Muslim and, for the first time in American history, to achieve something. It should have been achieved a long time ago.
I am going to conclude by saying something: Judge Quraishi and I are relatively of a similar age, and we share another painful life happening that I know many of my colleagues have shared as well. During COVID-19, during this pandemic, the judge's father died. I talked to him during this time, and he is a man that was clearly grieving but kept a lot of that emotion under his jacket, in his heart.
I just want to say for the record: Judge Quraishi, you and I are both people of faith. And I want to tell him right now and say into this record: It is your father who also loved this country, who brought about an American dream for his family. He is watching right now this happening, these deliberations on the Senate floor. He, I pray, will see his son make history. And, Judge Quraishi, I am telling you right now, Your father is proud of you.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source