Political Quotes

“today the Senate is expected to confirm four additional judicial nominees. With these votes, we will have confirmed 61 article III nominees this Congress. I want to note that in the first session of the 112th Congress we have now confirmed more nominees than during the entire 111th Congress. So I think we can declare real progress. Over 72 percent of President Obama's judicial nominees have been confirmed. Despite this record of confirmations, we continue to hear complaints about the way this President's nominees are being treated. So I point out that in only six sessions of Congress in the last 30 years have more nominees been confirmed in a single session. Furthermore, given the cooperation we have shown, I am disappointed that the Senate majority wants to turn to a controversial nomination next rather than continue on the path of cooperative confirmations. The Senate majority leader has scheduled a cloture vote for tomorrow on the nomination of Caitlin Halligan to be U.S. Circuit Judge for the District of Columbia Circuit. I will speak more about the merits of that nomination Tuesday. But I wanted to put that vote in some context. It seems to me that the scheduling of such a controversial vote in the closing days of a session of Congress is designed to simply heat up the partisanship of judicial nominations. Perhaps that is the objective.…”