Political Quotes

“I want to talk about John Owens, who is the first vote, for a judgeship, particularly one for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. No one questions his qualifications. I spoke on the floor about him before. I was proud to nominate him to the President. He has a sterling background and would be an excellent circuit court judge. The question that arose was because of the previous judge, a man by the name of Stephen Trott. He spent his entire legal career in California before joining the Reagan administration. He was licensed to practice law in California. He was supported by two Republican Senators from California for various federal appointments. Blue slips for his nomination were sent to California senators. Now what am I trying to do? I am trying to say, this was a California judge for the Ninth Circuit. What has happened since then is because he moved his home to Idaho once he was a judge, Idaho or some of the representatives from Idaho tend to believe that, voila, this is now an Idaho seat. It is not an Idaho seat. I explained last week that California has less than its proportional share of Ninth Circuit Court judgeships. Idaho has its fair share. Senator Crapo, who came to the floor and spoke about this, said nothing about population or caseload to illustrate why this judgeship should move to Idaho. This has been a long-standing attempt to take this seat away from California.…”