Hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee - Nominations

Hearing

Mr. Chairman,

First, I'd like to congratulate today's nominees and their families. It's an important milestone in all of your careers and I welcome you here today.
I'd like to remind my colleagues that the Senate has held more judicial nomination hearings in the first fourteen months of President Obama's second term than the Senate held during the entire 109th Congress.

These numbers demonstrate how busy and productive the Judiciary Committee has been with respect judicial nominees which is a testament of the good faith effort Senator Leahy and I have made as Chairman and Ranking Member.
Shortly after this hearing, the Senate will vote on five more judicial nominees. Upon confirming these five nominees, the Senate will have confirmed 59 lower court Article III judges thus far in President Obama's second term. By comparison, at this point in President Bush's second term, the Senate had confirmed only 25 lower court Article III judges. By now, the Senate has approved of 232 of President Obama's Article III judges and rejected just two.

In fact, the Senate has now confirmed more of President Obama's Article III judicial nominees in just over 14 months of the 113th Congress than it did for President Bush during the entire two years of the 109th Congress.
Again, I welcome the nominees and their families today and look forward to their testimony.

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