Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I rise to speak today in support of two excellent nominees for the bench from the Southern District of New York. These two women, Alison Nathan and Katherine Forrest, have different backgrounds, but each in her own way represents the best the New York bar has to offer.

Katherine Forrest is a young lawyer but an extraordinarily accomplished lawyer whose practice has been particularly well suited to the needs of litigants in the Southern District. She was born in New York City, received her BA from Wesleyan University, and her law degree from NYU Law School, one of the best in the country. She has spent the majority of her career in private practice at the prestigious, top-line firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, where she was on the National A List of Practitioners. She was named one of the American Lawyer's ``Top 50 Litigators Under 45.'' She currently serves as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice, where I know she is very well regarded and has served with great distinction. I look forward to Ms. Forrest's transition from position of service to our country to the other.

I also rise in support of Alison Nathan. I would like to counter some of the arguments that have been made against her on the floor here today.

First, Alison Nathan has tremendous legal experience, albeit that she is young. She is a gifted young lawyer whom New Yorkers would be fortunate to have on the bench, hopefully for a long time. Although she is a native of Philadelphia, she has called New York City her home for some time. She graduated at the top of her class from both Cornell University and Cornell Law School, where she was editor-in-chief of the Cornell Law Review. She worked as a litigator for 4 years at the preeminent firm of WilmerHale and has also served in two of the three branches of government. Ms. Nathan clerked for Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Betty Fletcher and then for Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. Recently, she served with distinction as a Special Assistant to President Obama and an Associate White House Counsel. She is currently special counsel to the solicitor general of New York. Now, that is a world of experience. It is hard to find better experience from somebody being nominated to the bench.

Some of my colleagues have said: Well, her rating from the ABA was not as good and that was based on experience. That is what the ABA does. They claim, these colleagues, that Ms. Nathan lacks the experience to be confirmed as a judge because only a majority of the ABA rated her qualified, while a minority rated her not qualified.

However, Ms. Nathan has the same qualification ratings as Bush administration judges whom this body confirmed. Specifically, the Senate confirmed 33 of President Bush's nominees with ratings equal to Ms. Nathan, including Mark Fuller and Keith Watkins of Alabama, Virginia Hopkins of the Northern District of Alabama, Paul Cassell of Utah, Frederick Martone of Arizona, and David Bury of Arizona. Are we going to have a different standard for Ali Nathan than for other judges? I sure hope not.

Then some have brought up only recently--actually, very recently--the thought that Ms. Nathan would apply foreign law to our own laws. It is patently false to say that Ms. Nathan has suggested or that she believes it is appropriate for U.S. judges to rely on foreign law or that she herself would ever consider doing so. To the contrary. In response to written questions from Senator Grassley, she said explicitly:

If I were confirmed as a United States District Court Judge, foreign law would have no relevance to my interpretation of the U.S. Constitution.

Let's go through that quote again. This is in reference to a question from Senator Grassley:

If I were confirmed as a United States District Court Judge, foreign law would have no relevance--

``No relevance,'' my emphasis--to my interpretation of the U.S. Constitution.

My colleagues are also wrong in their suggestion that Ms. Nathan has in the past either relied on foreign law herself or suggested that courts should do so. In the Baze vs. Rees case, she merely described the fact that others, including a law school clinic and Human Rights Watch, had argued in their own briefs that international law could be considered when dealing with questions of pain and suffering. Similarly, in her analysis of the Roper case, Ms. Nathan made an observation about what the Supreme Court had done--specifically, that the Supreme Court had cited foreign law as nondispositive support for their conclusion about the national consensus in the United States about the death penalty. That my colleagues jumped from these two instances in which Ms. Nathan described other peoples' opinions to conclusions about Ms. Nathan's own belief leads me to ask, are judicial candidates not allowed to describe the arguments that others have made? That would be rather absurd. I cannot imagine it is the outcome my colleagues would want, but it is the one to which their arguments naturally lead.

Finally, on national security, where again some from the outside who have criticized Ms. Nathan have brought up national security, here is what she has said:

I think it is important for a Federal district judge to follow the Supreme Court. It is important to our national security for there to be judges who follow the law in this area--

National security--to the extent questions come before them and that Congress acts as it has in this area.

That is good reason that she is supported by all of the law clerks she served with, including those of Justices Thomas, Scalia, Kennedy, and O'Connor. And obviously those Justices are not Justices who agree with some of the other Justices on the Court, but their law clerks uniformly supported Ali Nathan.

So I would urge my colleagues to support Ali Nathan. She will be an outstanding addition to the bench in the Southern District of New York, as well as Katherine Forrest, who will also be an outstanding addition.

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

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