Executive Session

EXECUTIVE SESSION -- (Senate - May 23, 2005)

NOMINATION OF PRISCILLA RICHMAN OWEN TO BE UNITED STATES CIRCUIT JUDGE FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT--RESUMED

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Hawaii for his kind remarks and for his graciousness in yielding. I just want to make a point that we have not heard enough. It is these numbers: 2,703 to 1. This is the number of times Republican Senators have voted for court of appeals nominees either by direct vote or cloture versus the number of times they voted against them--2,703 yes, 1 no. The one ``no'' vote was TRENT LOTT who voted against Mr. Gregory to the Fourth Circuit who Jesse Helms would never allow to go on the bench. So when we are talking about up-or-down votes, we are really not. We do not have any diversity of opinion on the other side. Nominees who are way off the deep end, every member of the other side votes for them. So there is no great deliberation here. In fact, what 2,703 to 1 means is a rubberstamp.

The reason we are standing for what we believe in is very simple. There should be some input. But when it comes to the other side, the White House says, This is the nominee, and everyone votes for that nominee no matter how extreme.

If there were 40 or 50 or 60 negative votes compared to, say, 2,600, you might say up-or-down votes might mean something. But they do not because, unfortunately, for every single nominee on every single cloture vote, the Members on the other side just do whatever the President wants and vote for whoever the President sends us. That is not deliberation. In my judgment, that is not what the cries for an up-or-down vote call for. They call for honest deliberation. I will have more to say about that later.

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