International Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2023

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, it has been nearly 4 years since I was first sworn in to serve here in the Senate. Since then, as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I have had the privilege of working alongside my colleagues to provide advice and consent on President Biden's judicial nominees. Over the course of the 4 years, we have confirmed some of the most qualified, extraordinary public servants ever to be nominated to the Federal bench.

As of this week, that has meant that 233 new Federal judges are serving in the Federal judiciary, including 33 in my home State of California. So I rise today to celebrate the three most recently confirmed Federal district court judges in my home State.

In the last week, with your support, we confirmed Judge Anne Hwang to serve on the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. Judge Hwang earned her bachelor's degree from Cornell University and her law degree from the University of Southern California Law School.

After beginning her career as a litigation associate at Irell & Manella in Los Angeles, Judge Hwang went on to serve for 12 years in the Federal Public Defender's Office in Los Angeles--the largest public defender's office in the Nation. During her time there, she rose through the ranks, from deputy public defender to chief deputy public defender, and she gained extensive trial experience. In 2018, she was appointed to the Los Angeles County Superior Court.

Informed by the invaluable experience that came from serving as a public defender, Judge Hwang now brings an important perspective to the Federal bench.

Next, earlier this week, we confirmed Judge Cynthia Valenzuela also to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

Judge Valenzuela earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Arizona before earning her law degree at the UCLA School of Law.

After graduation, she served as special assistant on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and later as a trial attorney with the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division Voting Rights Section. Eventually, she returned to Los Angeles to work in the U.S. Attorney's Office as a prosecutor in the Criminal Division.

In 2006, she became national vice president of litigation at MALDEF-- you are familiar, Mr. President--the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

She left 5 years later to become a supervising attorney for the California Central District Criminal Justice Act panel.

Finally, in 2016, Judge Valenzuela was appointed to serve as a judge on the California State Bar Court, handling attorney regulatory and discipline cases.

Throughout her confirmation process, Judge Valenzuela has been praised by her current and former colleagues for her tireless work on behalf of victims, for her intelligence, for her integrity, and for her dedication to fair and impartial application of the law.

Her academic credentials and her legal qualifications and experience will make her yet another outstanding Federal judge for the Central District.

Finally, also earlier this week, we had the honor of confirming Judge Noel Wise, President Biden's nominee to serve on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

Judge Wise earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and her law degree from Nova Southeastern University Law School and her master of the science of law degree from Stanford Law School.

Judge Wise first clerked on the Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal before joining the U.S. Department of Justice as a trial attorney in the Natural Resources Division, where she also spent a year detailed to the Assistant U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of California.

She then worked in private practice for several years before cofounding the firm Wise Gleicher in 2006, where she litigated at the trial and appellate level in both State and Federal courts.

For the past decade, Judge Wise has served on the Alameda County Superior Court, including as supervising judge since 2019 and as judge pro tem for the California Second District Court of Appeal for a time.

Judge Wise's wealth of experience in State and Federal courts, in civil and criminal litigation, in public and private practice, make her more than prepared to now serve on the Northern District.

On behalf of the State of California, I want to thank my colleagues for helping confirm these three outstanding Federal judges and for continuing to prioritize judicial confirmations here in the days to come.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source