Political Quotes

“Madam President, I rise to oppose the cloture motion on Jack McConnell, who has been nominated to be U.S. district judge for Rhode Island. In the first few months that I have been ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, I have worked in good faith to move forward with consensus nominees. We have taken positive action on 68 percent of the judicial nominees submitted in this Congress. Despite my efforts, friends on the other side of the aisle and the President's top lawyer continue to claim we are not moving fast enough. There are additional consensus nominees the Senate could turn to. We could confirm additional district judge vacancies, as we have been doing. But rather than continuing to move forward with consensus nominees, the majority leader chose to throw up a detour and proceed to one of the President's most controversial nominees, Mr. McConnell. It seems no good deed goes unpunished. Before turning to Mr. McConnell's record, I want to say a few words about the use of extended debate in considering judicial nominations. My friends on the other side have made some comments on this issue that are pretty difficult to understand given the record there. First, with respect to district court nominees, and contrary to what my colleagues have suggested, there have been in the past filibusters of district court nominees. Most recently, the Democrats successfully filibustered a district court nominee in 1999, Mr. Brian Stewart by a vote of 55 to 44.…”