Barbara Boxer: “The point I make tonight, among several, is that we have been charged--those who want more answers from Miguel…”

“The point I make tonight, among several, is that we have been charged--those who want more answers from Miguel Estrada--with doing something that has never been done before when, in fact, in the year 2000, two nominees to the Ninth Circuit Court were filibustered and one of the two was not only filibustered, but after he won cloture there was a motion to indefinitely postpone the actual vote on his nomination. I had never seen that. I hope I never see it again. The fact is, there have been two filibusters led by Republican Members and those were defeated. The second fact is that one of those particular individuals was the first Mexican American to serve on the Central District Court of California and the Republicans held him up for 4 years before we were able to break the filibuster. It was quite a situation. My friend from Minnesota said--I don't want to misquote him--something like ``the judicial philosophy of this nominee is an open book,'' I think is what he said. It may be an open book, but it looks like this. This is the book. There is nothing on it. When a candidate cannot say if there was ever a Supreme Court case with which they disagreed, this is going above and beyond stonewalling; or cannot say what Justice, dead or alive, he would emulate most, this is beyond stonewalling.”