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Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, today, the Senate will vote to confirm Jeffrey M. Kuhlman to the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas.

Mr. Kuhlman has only practiced law for 9 years, focusing primarily on the defense of government entities and employees.

In one case, Mr. Kuhlman represented five juvenile detention officers who held 17-year-old Cedric Lofton in a prone position for nearly 40 minutes. Cedric, a child in foster care who was experiencing a mental health crisis, went into cardiac arrest and died.

Mr. Kuhlman claimed that the wrongful death suit should be dismissed because Cedric's death was his fault, arguing: ``He only died because he was fighting and because he was in an air deficit.''

Mr. Kuhlman blamed a minor in the midst of a mental health crisis for his own death. I asked Mr. Kuhlman whether he regretted any arguments he made during this litigation. He responded with an unequivocal, ``No.''

Of Mr. Kuhlman's top 10 most significant cases, 4 involved representing law enforcement officers accused of using excessive force. In responses to written questions, he confirmed that he has never represented individuals harmed by law enforcement using excessive force.

During his hearing, I asked Mr. Kuhlman about his work representing the Marion County Commission, County Sheriff and a sheriff's deputy in a lawsuit after local law enforcement raided the offices of the Marion County Record and related properties in August 2023.

The incident received national news coverage and raised freedom of press concerns. The county paid the Record's publisher a $3 million settlement and provided a formal apology.

During his hearing, Mr. Kuhlman said that he worked on several cases he believed received unfair media coverage. In light of these statements and his prior work on the Marion County Record case, I asked Mr. Kuhlman in written questions to identify those cases and explain why he believed the coverage was unfair.

He declined to respond because he felt ``it would be improper to comment on news coverage from media outlets because . . . [there] may be instances where media outlets are involved in litigation in the District of Kansas.''

Apparently, it is appropriate for Mr. Kuhlman to claim that some of the cases he worked on received unfair media coverage during his hearing, but it is inappropriate for him to identify those cases and explain why he believed the coverage was unfair in written questions. I find this to be conveniently evasive.

For these reasons, I will oppose Mr. Kuhlman's nomination.

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