Dianne Feinstein: “I deeply believe that judges should be in the mainstream of American legal thinking, that they should have the…”

“I deeply believe that judges should be in the mainstream of American legal thinking, that they should have the temperament and the wisdom and the intellect to represent us well on the highest courts of our land. What I wanted to use my time for--and the 2 rac{1}{2} minutes will not be enough to do it--is to indicate that during the time I have been on the Judiciary Committee how I have seen the rules and the procedures of the committee change. Those changes have not been good. They have served to divide the committee more. They begin with changing the American Bar Association's 50-year tradition of rating the qualifications of potential nominees before the President nominates them, to after the President nominates them. I would like to say why I think that is important. There have been changes made in the so-called blue slip policy so that concerns Senators from a nominee's home State are no longer given any consideration whatsoever.”