On the recordAugust 1, 2013
I support the nomination of Raymond T. Chen, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Federal circuit. This is the 29th judicial confirmation this year. With today's confirmation, the Senate will have confirmed 200 lower court nominees; we have defeated two. That's 200 to 2. That is an outstanding record. That's a success rate of 99 percent. We have been doing that at a fast pace. During the last Congress, we confirmed more judges than any Congress since the 103rd Congress, which was 1993 to 1994. So far this year, the first of President Obama's second term, we've already confirmed more judges than were confirmed in the entire first year of President Bush's second term. At a similar stage in President Bush's second term, only 10 judicial nominees had been confirmed. We are now at a 29-to-10 comparison with President Obama clearly ahead of where President Bush was. And, as I said, we have already confirmed more nominees this year--29--than we did during the entirety of 2005, the first year of President Bush's second term, when 21 lower court judges were confirmed. With regard to hearings, the record shows that President Obama is being treated much better than President Bush during his second term. Last week we held the 11th judicial nominations hearing this year. In those hearings we we have considered a total of 33 judicial nominees.…





