Political Quotes

“Madam President, I rise to talk about the judicial confirmation process, given the fact that President Obama will soon be nominating someone for the Supreme Court to replace retiring Justice Stevens. There has been a lot written about this subject. It would be useful, at least from my standpoint, to clarify or elucidate how I view this and how I think a lot of my colleagues do on both sides of the aisle. The question of a filibuster arises. The best way to put into context what folks mean when they talk about judicial activism as potentially bringing about a filibuster is to at least describe what I think about that. All of us in the Senate, whether we have supported a filibuster or not, would agree that all else being equal, it is not something we should do for judicial nominations, especially for a Supreme Court nomination. There has not been a successful filibuster of a Supreme Court nomination, thankfully, despite the fact that the last two nominees--especially the last nominee to the Court by President Bush, there was an attempt to filibuster, and even then-Senator Obama, now President Obama, participated in that attempt. What would cause Senators to not just vote against a nominee but actually go so far as to try to prevent the nominee from receiving a vote up or down?…”