Senate Republican Rally

November 12, 2003 Wednesday

HEADLINE: SENATE REPUBLICAN RALLY

TOPIC: JUSTICE FOR JUDGES MARATHON ALL-NIGHT DEBATE

PARTICIPANTS INCLUDE: SENATOR BILL FRIST (TN), SENATE MAJORITY LEADER; SENATOR MITCH MCCONNELL (KY); OTHER REPUBLICAN SENATORS

LOCATION: S-207, THE CAPITOL, WASHINGTON, D.C.

BODY:
SEN. MCCONNELL: Thank you, Bill.

As Senator Sessions repeatedly has pointed out over the months, during the Clinton years, 378 judges, every single judge who was reported out of committee, was given an up or down vote, and only one was defeated. What we're asking for is the very same treatment that a Republican Senate gave a Democratic president.

Let me just give you an example of how all of this impacts real people, litigants. The 6th Judicial Circuit, made up of Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee, is 25 percent vacant because the two Michigan senators oppose four Michigan nominees from their own state.

As a result of that, if you are a litigant in the 6th Circuit, it takes six months longer for your case to be decided than if you're in any other circuit in America. Justice delayed is justice denied. So, this has a serious impact on people who are going to court to have their grievances adjudicated.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Q Do you plan to lay down cloture for the three judges and the rule change?

SEN. SANTORUM: Correct.

Q The first thing this evening?

SEN. SANTORUM: We're doing that sometime today.

Q Oh.

SEN. SANTORUM: Sometime today, and as a result, will ripen on Friday. And the votes will occur Friday afternoon, I believe, is it?

SEN. MCCONNELL: Morning.

SEN. SANTORUM: Morning.

Q On the rule change, as well?

SEN. SANTORUM: It will be the three judges, Kuhl, Owen and Rogers Brown, as well as the rule change, the Miller "lite" proposal.

Q I'm just curious why 30 hours.

SEN. SANTORUM: Well, maybe more than 30 hours. We have some-as you can probably tell, we have some folks who are pretty fired up and are not real happy with the way things are proceeding here and see this as one of the great challenges of their time here in Congress to set this back right again, and I would suspect there may be more than 30 hours of debate before we are all said and done.

Q Was there historical significance to the number "30" -- (off mike)?

SEN. SANTORUM: No, I think it just-you know, there's 30 hours of debate (post-cloture ?), I mean there's, you know, some symmetry there, but no particular reason. Just it turned out that we wanted to start in the evening and end the following-you know, the following day, and that it's roughly 30 hours.

SEN. CHAMBLISS: All of y'all stay up with us. We'll make it 60.

SEN. SANTORUM: Yeah, we'll keep going as long as you guys are around. We're going to have-we're going to be here. We've got-as you know, we have press conferences scheduled for-with groups coming in from outside and senators being present, starting, I think, at 2:30 in the morning.

STAFF: (Off mike.)

SEN. SANTORUM: Yeah. Yeah. And then-and at every hour afterwards, we're going to have press conferences all through the night, in this room. And so we encourage those who may have television stations and radio stations that are looking for programming this evening, that this is a wonderful place to hang out.

SEN. : Truck drivers will just -- (inaudible).

SEN. SANTORUM: Truck drivers will love you. That's right. Folks working in the bakeries.

Q There's been talk of the famous cots, and the Democrats have said they're probably not --

SEN. SANTORUM: He's-this is the man in charge of cots. (Laughter.)

Q They said they're probably not going to use the cots. They'll use their hideaways.

SEN. : What was the question?

Q There's been talk of the cots, and I wondered if you could walk through with us how many of you plan to actually sleep on these cots and when and where and so forth.

SEN. MCCONNELL: Well, first, let me just take you down Memory Lane a minute. The last all-night filibuster was in September of 1994. I was playing the role that Rick is playing here. It was a post-cloture debate, under which the rules are quite restrictive. One senator can get up to seven hours. No other senator may use more than one hour. And we did in fact use the 30 hours, post-cloture. In that particular instance, we were trying to stop the movement forward of the campaign finance reform bill. And that was the last time that we brought out cots.

I think there are 12 or 15 senators who have requested them. Senator McCain suggested we have a snoring and non-snoring section. I expect many members will use their hideaways. I can't tell you exactly how everyone is going to choose to sleep tonight, but there are 12 to 15 members who have requested cots, and we've accommodated them.

Q Where will they be sleeping? Where will the cots be?

SEN. MCCONNELL: We'll make sure you get to take a great picture of someone in their pajamas. (Laughter.) I don't know exactly.

Q There was mention that this is the first true filibuster that Democrats are having. Can you define what a "true filibuster" is?

SEN. MCCONNELL: I don't want to dominate this, but look, the difference between what they're doing and the rare occasions that we've had cloture votes in the past is this. We have had an occasional cloture vote in the past, but it has been to advance a nomination, not to kill it.

It was a situation where you had a small number of senators who did not want the nominee to be approved. And so, leaders on both sides filed cloture, advocated the invocation of cloture in order to advance the nomination.

So when they tell you there have been previous filibusters, that is incorrect. There have been previous cloture votes in order to advance a nomination, as recently as the last year of the Clinton administration, when some of us had gagged and voted for cloture on some nominations that we really would-objected to; voted for cloture and then voted against the nomination. Those nominees were subsequently confirmed.

SEN. SANTORUM: That's right.

Anybody else?

Okay, thank you all very much. Appreciate it.

END