-9999

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, this week, the Senate will consider three judicial nominees for the Northern District of Ohio.

Before I speak on the nominees themselves, I would like to commend Senators Brown and Portman for working across the aisle to develop a bipartisan selection process.

All three of these nominees were recommended to the White House through a judicial commission that Senators Brown and Portman established.

As Senator Portman noted at our hearing on these nominees, the members of the bipartisan screening commission committed significant time and effort to ensure that they recommended well-qualified candidates for the bench.

As a result of that process, we will soon vote on three distinguished nominees.

The first nominee to the Northern District of Ohio is Bridget Brennan.

For almost 15 years, Ms. Brennan has served as a prosecutor, rising through the ranks of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Ohio.

Last year, as a testament to her skills and leadership, she was named Acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio.

Ms. Brennan has a wide breadth of experience, having led her office's Civil Rights and Criminal Divisions.

She has received a ``Qualified'' rating from the American Bar Association, has the strong support of Senators Brown and Portman, and received a bipartisan vote in the Judiciary Committee.

Ms. Brennan has demonstrated a commitment to justice, integrity, and the rule of law, all of which will serve her well as a district court judge.

We also will be considering Charles Fleming, another highly qualified nominee to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.

Mr. Fleming is an experienced litigator who has demonstrated a decades-long commitment to ensuring equal justice under the law. He has earned degrees from Kent State University and Case Western Reserve University Law School. After graduating, he spent a year working in private practice before dedicating his career to public service.

For more than three decades, Mr. Fleming has worked as an Assistant Federal Public Defender in the Northern District of Ohio. During this time, he has tried 17 cases to verdict and has gained a truly remarkable breadth of courtroom experience.

As I noted, Mr. Fleming has the strong support of Senators Brown and Portman. He received a bipartisan vote in the Judiciary Committee. He also has received a ``Well Qualified'' rating from the American Bar Association.

He is clearly committed to maintaining a fair, respectful temperament in his courtroom and will decide cases based on the law, the facts, and precedent--not on his preferred outcome. He will make an excellent addition to the District Court.

Finally, we have David Ruiz. For more than 5 years, Judge Ruiz has served as a U.S. Magistrate Judge in the Northern District of Ohio. In this role, he has presided over more than 80 cases that have gone to verdict or judgment.

Prior to assuming the bench, Judge Ruiz served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for several years. And before that, he spent 10 years as a litigator in private practice.

Judge Ruiz received his undergraduate degree from The Ohio State University and his law degree from The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. And he received a unanimous ``Well Qualified'' rating from the American Bar Association.

As I mentioned at the outset, Judge Ruiz has the strong, bipartisan support of Senators Brown and Portman.

He also received bipartisan support in the Judiciary Committee--with Ranking Member Grassley, Senator Graham, and Senator Tillis joining with Democratic members to support his nomination.

Senator Portman stated that Judge Ruiz's ``experience, temperament, and high ethical standards have served him well as a federal magistrate judge'' and ``make him well-qualified to continue serving the Northern District of Ohio as a federal judge.''

Once confirmed, he will be the first person of Hispanic origin to serve as an article III Federal judge in Ohio's history.

I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting all three of these outstanding nominees.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source