Small Business Lending Act of 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I rise to join Rhode Island's senior Senator Jack Reed and other colleagues to call attention to the recurring Republican roadblock of qualified nominees to circuit and district courts. On the circuit courts, I spoke some time ago about Albert Diaz and James Wynn to sit on the fourth circuit in North Carolina. I know the Presiding Officer has a
keen interest in those two. These two were reported out of the Judiciary Committee on January 28, 2010, 6 months ago yesterday. Albert Diaz was voted out 19 to 0. James Wynn was voted out 18 to 1. That means a combined score of 37 to 1 for these two candidates whom the two Senators from North Carolina had agreed on, a Republican Senator and a Democratic Senator. I came to the floor 3 months ago, given that background, on April 20 to ask unanimous consent for their confirmation. Senator Kyl, who voted for both of these nominees in committee, objected on behalf of his colleagues. That is the environment we are in.

Unfortunately, that environment has filtered down to district judges. Consider the four district court nominees currently on the Executive Calendar, voted out of committee by a party-line vote, who are ahead of our Rhode Island nominee and who have to be cleared before we get to our Rhode Island judge. Lewis Butler is a former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice. Ed Chen and Benita Pearson are long-serving and well-respected Federal magistrate judges in San Francisco and Akron, OH. Bill Martinez is a well-known and well-respected attorney in Colorado. Each nominee had the full support of both of their home State Senators. Each nominee would bring proper expertise, judicial temperament, and great diversity to the bench. Each nominee would be confirmed, if we could simply get them voted on by the Senate. The way these nominees have been treated stands in stark contrast to the way district court nominees were treated in the Bush administration. In 8 years, only one district court nominee during the Bush administration was reported by the Judiciary Committee on a party-line vote. That nominee got a vote and was confirmed on this floor 51 to 46.

Why is it that nominees of President Obama are being held to a different, new standard than applied to the nominees of President Bush? Why have we departed from the longstanding tradition of respect to the views of home State Senators who know the nominees best and who best understand their home districts? Is disregard for the views of home State Senators the standard Republicans want to live by during the next Republican Presidency? Is that the new precedent we wish to set here in the Senate? I ask this because we have a highly qualified nominee in Rhode Island, Jack McConnell, who was reported by the Judiciary Committee on June 17. It was a bipartisan vote, 13 to 6, with the support of Senator Lindsey Graham. Jack McConnell is a pillar of the legal community in Rhode Island. He is a pillar of the community generally in Rhode Island, serving with great generosity and distinction on numerous boards that help communities in Rhode Island. The Providence Chamber of Commerce has praised Jack McConnell as a well-respected member of the local community. Political figures from across our political spectrum have called for his confirmation, one of them being my predecessor as Rhode Island attorney general, Republican Jeffrey Pine. The Providence Journal, our hometown paper, has endorsed his nomination by saying that Jack McConnell, in his legal work and community leadership, has shown that he has the legal intelligence, character, compassion, and independence to be a distinguished jurist.

Notwithstanding the support of Senator Reed and myself, the two Senators from Rhode Island, notwithstanding that this is a district court nomination, notwithstanding the powerful support across Rhode Island from those who know Jack McConnell best, special interests from outside the State have interfered in his nomination. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, not the Rhode Island chapter, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has attacked Jack for having the temerity to stand up to big business, to the asbestos industry, to the lead paint industry, to the tobacco industry, and to have devoted his career to representing the rights of the powerless. In doing so, the U.S. Chamber has created a cartoon image of Jack McConnell that bears no relation to the man Senator Reed and I know as a great lawyer, as a great Rhode Islander, and somebody who will be a great judge.

I ask my colleagues--I see the distinguished ranking member of the Judiciary Committee here on the floor with us today, the distinguished Senator from Alabama--do we want to let powerful out-of-State interests trump the better informed views of home State Senators about district court nominees? That is not the tradition of this body. I again ask my colleagues: Is this the tradition they want to set? If they open the door to out-of-State special interests trumping the considered judgment of home State Senators on district court nominees, will they ever get that door closed again? I submit it is a mistake for this body to go that road. I urge colleagues on the other side to reconsider what I think is a terrible mistake, which is to allow out-of-State special interests to prevail over the considered judgment of home State Senators when they agree on the best qualified nominee for district court in their home State.

I yield the floor.

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