Court Vacancies

COURT VACANCIES
Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I rise to talk about a serious crisis in the third branch of government; that is, the rate of vacancies in the U.S. district courts.

There is a crisis that is unlike almost all the other issues we grapple with on a daily basis. It has a very simple solution. My colleagues and I deal with a lot of very difficult and very divisive problems every day. Not many of them lend themselves to solutions that are both politically and economically costless, but this one is easy: confirm these judges.

Take the district court nominees who were passed out of committee with bipartisan support, schedule votes on the floor, and confirm them. It sounds easy. Apparently, it is not. It is not easy because my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have slowed the confirmation of district court judges to a trickle, even those nominees who were passed out of the Judiciary Committee with no objection from Republicans.

This Congress, I am grateful for the hard work of Chairman Leahy, Ranking Member Grassley, Majority Leader Reid, and Minority Leader McConnell in beginning to unclog the pipeline, but we still have a long way to go. To go the rest of the distance, to restore the pace of judicial confirmations before the Federal judiciary faces the worst vacancy crisis in history, we need the consent of our Republican colleagues.

Here are the facts: The targeting of district court nominees is unprecedented. Five of the nineteen district court nominees who have received split votes in the last 65 years have been President Obama's nominees. We have only confirmed 61 of his district court nominees. By this time in their Presidencies, we had confirmed 98 of President Bush's and 114 of President Clinton's.

Judicial vacancies affect nearly 100 Federal courtrooms across the Nation. One in nine seats on the Federal bench is vacant. So we should approve these nominees.

As for the current nominee pending on the floor, he is somebody who deserves nomination. When we ask about nominees, we are concerned the standard used by my colleagues is, would I have nominated this person, rather than is this person whom I might not have nominated in the mainstream? Jack McConnell is clearly in the mainstream. He has more than 25 years' experience as a lawyer in private practice. Leading Republican figures in Rhode Island have endorsed him. But he has garnered opposition not because of his qualifications but because of his clients. That is not fair, that is not right, and that is not how we do judicial nominees.

He has chosen his work as a private lawyer, and that has no bearing on his judicial temperament, his interpretive philosophy or his legal acumen. In the interest of my colleagues who require more time, I would urge, at the very least, that people take the standard of the Senator from Tennessee--don't block cloture on this nominee. If you think he is not qualified, vote against him.

Jack McConnell deserves to be on the bench. I am glad Leader Reid has called him, and Senators Reed and Whitehouse have taken the lead. I urge, at least on cloture, that my colleagues let this nominee be voted upon.

I yield the remainder of the time I have been allotted so others of my colleagues might speak.

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