Mark Pryor: “I rise today to speak on behalf of a friend of mine who is going to be voted on by the Senate shortly to be a U.S.…”

“I rise today to speak on behalf of a friend of mine who is going to be voted on by the Senate shortly to be a U.S. district court judge for the Eastern District of Arkansas. But before I do, I need to offer a few comments on what the Senator from Iowa and the Senator from Illinois said a few moments ago that I agree with. It is taking too long to get these nominees to this point in the process. There are too many games that are being played. From my stand, both sides are at fault. I would hope my colleagues would stop playing games and stop even the blame game, but let's get to work and let's help clear up the backlog in the Federal judiciary. Right now, it is underresourced. We do have a judicial emergency in this particular district I am about to talk about. As they say, justice delayed is justice denied. We need these judges on the bench, and I would hope the partisanship would stop. In Arkansas we are very fortunate to have very strong Federal judges. We have a history of that. Part of the reason we do is because our judges are, for the most part, nonpolitical. Sure, they come from various backgrounds, but there is a consensus on these judges that they are going to be good judges, and that is the tradition we have in our State. We have a total of eight district court judges in our State, and Kris Baker fits perfectly in that line. She has a true record of distinguished service in the legal community.…”