Nomination of Meredith A. Vacca

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. On the Vacca nomination, today, the Senate will confirm another exceptional judicial nominee from New York whom I recommended to President Biden, Meredith Vacca, to serve as district judge for the Western District of New York, the Buffalo and Rochester areas of our State.

Judge Vacca's confirmation will be a historic moment for Western New York. A proud Korean American, Judge Vacca will be the first Asian American and first woman of color ever to serve in the Western District of New York.

I am proud to say Judge Vacca is a Western New Yorker through and through, a Buffalo Law School graduate, longtime resident of the Rochester area, raised in the suburban town of Greece.

Judge Vacca will bring great talent, experience, and respect for the law to the Western District of New York.

The Western District, as I mentioned, stretches to Buffalo and Rochester and many other counties in Western New York. These are places that have benefited immensely from New York's great Asian-American community. As the senior Senator from New York and as majority leader, I have always worked to make New York's Federal bench reflect better the communities it serves. And I know the Presiding Officer and I have worked hand in hand on that noble goal.

Judge Vacca's nomination will mark another major step toward that goal. Judge Vacca has every quality you could want in a jurist: compassionate, tough, legally astute, with a genuine love for her community. She spent over 15 years as an attorney, prosecutor, and judge fighting for vulnerable New Yorkers.

She has developed a rare institutional knowledge of our State and our country's laws and will bring tremendous legal expertise and experience to the Western District bench. And notably, once confirmed, Judge Vacca will make the all-male Western District bench 50 percent female, making it one of the few country's 50 percent female benches. One day, I hope this is the norm across the country.

So I am proud to support Judge Vacca's nomination, and I look forward to voting to confirm her later today.

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