Chuck Grassley: “Members of the Senate, in a few hours, maybe within this day or tomorrow, the Senate will be voting on several nominees…”

“Members of the Senate, in a few hours, maybe within this day or tomorrow, the Senate will be voting on several nominees to be district judges. I come to the floor to speak about one of these, Stephen Bough, of Missouri, for a seat on the District Court of the Western District of Missouri. As I do with every nominee, I thoroughly examined Mr. Bough's record with an eye at giving him and others the benefit of the doubt if problematic issues arose. After full consideration of that record, I am regrettably unable to support this nominee. There are just too many data points--red flags, if you will--which tell me that Mr. Bough doesn't have what it takes to serve in a lifetime appointment on the Missouri District Court. These red flags all relate to one troubling question the nominee's record raises: whether Mr. Bough has the temperament to be a Federal judge. I have come to the conclusion that he doesn't have that type of temperament. So I would explain my conclusion. First, there is the issue of this nominee's professional conduct. A specific incident from last year demonstrates how Mr. Bough has engaged in what I believe to be unethical behavior that precludes him from service on a Federal bench. Last October, a member of the Mississippi bar drew my attention to the nominee's participation in a civil case in Federal District Court. The presiding judge on that case was the nominee's former employer, Senior District Judge Scott O. Wright.…”