Executive Session

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I come to the floor to address my colleagues and the public on the nomination of Susan Carney, nominated to the Second Circuit, and which we will soon vote. Today's vote marks the 24th judicial confirmation this year and the 16th for a seat designated as a judicial emergency. This also marks the fourth vacancy to the Second Circuit that has been filled by an Obama nominee.

Over the past 2 weeks, nominations-related work has taken up the vast majority of the Senate's time. In fact, after today, we will have confirmed seven judges in just 9 days. Last week alone, we had a cloture vote on the nominee to be Deputy Attorney General, debate and votes on three district court nominees, and two Judiciary Committee markups. This year, the committee has reported 51 percent of President Obama's nominees. Yet it seems the more we work with the majority on filling vacancies, the more complaints we hear. Furthermore, as we work together to confirm consensus nominees, we are met with the majority's insistence that we turn to controversial nominees. So I wish to address some of the complaints we have heard.

I think about the American Constitution Society blog and some of my colleagues in the Senate who say we are not moving fast enough on President Obama's nominees. I wish to point out to them that is intellectually dishonest. They may be ignorant about some of the statistics that involve the nominees we have approved so far versus what has been done in other administrations, but I wish to show that it is an outright, flat lie that we are not processing nominees fast enough. Given the pace of activity in our committee and on the floor, there is no credibility to the arguments that we are not moving fast enough.

Last week, it was stated that the Senate is well behind on President Obama's nominations, so I would like to provide perspective on that assertion. For comparable time periods, we have processed and confirmed a greater percentage of President Obama's nominees. When we complete the vote we are going to have in about 30 minutes, we will have confirmed 33 percent of President Obama's nominees nominated this year. That compares to only 28 percent of President Bush's nominees confirmed in a comparable time period.

Furthermore, President Obama's nominees are moving much faster through the committee process. President Obama's circuit court nominees have waited only, on average, 72 days from nomination to hearing. President Bush's had to wait, on average, 275 days during his first term. For his entire Presidency, that average was almost 247 days. President Obama's district court nominees are also faring better, waiting, on average, only 70 days for their hearings. President Bush's district court nominees had an average wait of closer to 100 days during his first term, and an average of 120 days throughout his entire Presidency.

These statistics, and our continued action to move on consensus nominees, refutes the argument made by those who continue to falsely claim there is a systematic delay and partisan obstruction of judicial nominees by Republicans in the Senate. I hope those who continue to make dishonest comments take note of the statistics I just gave.

Today, we are going to vote on the nomination of Susan Carney, and this will be for a U.S. circuit judge for the Second Circuit. Ms. Carney received her A.B., cum laude, from Harvard University in 1973 and her juris doctorate, magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1977. Upon graduation from law school, she clerked for Judge Campbell on the First Circuit and then entered private practice. After 8 years of private practice, Ms. Carney was self-employed for the next 6 years, engaged in contract legal work and consulting. In 1994, the nominee returned to legal practice as a counsel to Bredhoff & Kaiser here in Washington, DC. In 1996, she moved to the Peace Corps, where she served as Associate General Counsel for 2 years. In 1998, she joined the general counsel's office at Yale University, where she has been the deputy general counsel for the past 9 years.

My concern with Ms. Carney's nomination is her lack of experience. She has no judicial experience and has limited litigation experience. She has never authored any scholarly legal works of note, and much of her work product provided to the committee consists of presentations about various legal issues faced by research universities.

Her qualifications for the court of appeals and, indeed, the reason for the President's decision to nominate her to the Second Circuit remains somewhat of a mystery. According to her questionnaire, Ms. Carney appeared in court occasionally over the course of her career, and the word ``occasionally'' is her own. She has never tried a case to verdict, judgment, or final decision--an absence she explains by saying that she ``spent [her] law career as an appellate lawyer and in-house counsel.'' Her questionnaire suggests she has never argued a case in any appellate court.

During her most recent legal job, Ms. Carney has focused largely on contractual issues such as scientific research partnerships between academic researchers and for-profit industry, international partnerships involving Yale, and intellectual property ownership issues. Her questionnaire reveals no litigation experience in the last 15 years of her career, and it is unclear how her position with Yale University might have prepared her for the Federal judicial appointment, much less one on the court of appeals.

The American Bar Association Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary gave her the rating ``substantial majority qualified, minority not qualified.'' Even though the reasons behind the ratings are not released, I suspect the ``not qualified'' rating stems from her lack of litigation experience.

This nominee does not have the concrete judicial experience I favor. I know others share this view. The Judiciary Committee reported this nominee by a vote of 15 to 3, with three Republicans in opposition, not including this Senator. I take their views seriously and fully understand why Senators would not support this nomination.

Nevertheless, with little enthusiasm for her nomination, I will give her the benefit of the doubt and support the nominee.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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