Judicial Nominees

Floor Speech

JUDICIAL NOMINEES -- (Senate - May 10, 2007)

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, seeing the occupant of the Chair and realizing he is new to the Senate and learning the process here, I think the majority leader had it right. One thing that is important for everyone to remember is that in the Senate, if you are here for a while, sooner or later the shoe is on the other foot. The position you are in today is the position your adversary may be in very soon in the future. So the precedents we set in the Senate are extremely important.

The majority leader and I, as he indicated this morning, talked about this issue at the beginning of the session and we agreed that the process of confirming circuit court judges had become entirely too contentious, and it was largely a waste of time to try to cast blame as to who was most at fault in that situation developing. To the maximum extent possible, we agreed we wanted to have a clean, fresh start that would honor the traditions of the Senate.

A good way to look at it is to look at the last three Presidents. Each of them in the last 2 years of their tenure in office had a Senate controlled by the opposition party. So the question is, how did the opposition party in the Senate treat the President on circuit court nominees? Looking at the statistics, President Bush, 41; President Clinton and President Bush, 43; and we will see how he comes out, President Bush, President Clinton, and President Reagan, there were an average of 17 circuit court judges confirmed in similar situations.

The majority leader, in one of our discussions on the floor back in February, said:

This is not our last circuit court judge, but the first of a significant number who can at least meet the standards of Congresses similarly situated as ours.

That was an accurate public reflection by the majority leader back in February of the numerous conversations he and I have had, both publicly and privately, about the standard we ought to achieve here in this Congress. I think that is a standard that can still be met. Three circuit judges have been confirmed this year--a little slower process than frankly I had thought, particularly since we are in the early part of the Congress where presumably it would be more easily done than later. The majority leader was entirely correct, and I commend him, for referring to the gesture the President made at the beginning of this Congress about not resubmitting four or five highly contentious nominees that it is clear the new Democratic majority, as well as the Democratic minority in the past, did not want to see confirmed. The President took those off the table, sent up new nominees, and most of them are completely without controversy. One of them will have a hearing beginning at 10 o'clock this morning, and how that turns out and how that individual is treated will tell us a lot about where we are going to be able to go from here to achieve the standard the majority leader referred to that he and I wish to meet for this Congress.

I thank my friend from Nevada for his observations. I agree with them. I think they accurately reflect our mutual desire here to have this Congress do no worse than the last three Congresses--this Senate--in the last 2 years with Presidents of the opposite party. It is a standard that can be met. It is a standard that should be met.

One day, in spite of the best efforts of people like myself, there will be a Democratic President. One of the things we know around here is that precedents established and lessons learned are hard to undo. So I say to our good friends on the other side, heed the advice of the majority leader. It is in your best interests for us to have a less contentious and more successful treatment of circuit judges during this Congress.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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