Jim Bunning: “I speak today in support of Judge Charles Pickering and his nomination to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge…”

“I speak today in support of Judge Charles Pickering and his nomination to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Pickering was unanimously confirmed to be a Federal district judge in 1990, where he has served honorably ever since. He graduated first in his law school class at the University of Mississippi while serving on the Law Journal and Moot Court. In addition to practicing in a law firm, Judge Pickering was both a city and county prosecutor and a municipal court judge. Judge Pickering continued his public service in the Mississippi State Senate. He also has served his fellow man by helping others through organizations like the Red Cross and the March of Dimes. Judge Pickering has also devoted his life to Christ, serving at the First Baptist Church in Laurel, MS, as a Sunday school teacher and a deacon. Those things tell us much about the man that Charles Pickering is. But there is much more. You see, Judge Pickering has spent his career as a leader in race relations in Mississippi. What is truly telling, however, is he spent his whole career tearing down barriers for minorities in the South, including during the 1960s and 1970s. Those actions did not make him a popular man among many in Mississippi at the time. I remember the 1960s and 1970s. I regularly traveled around the country during those years and I remember what race relations were like in the South and throughout America.”