Dick Durbin: “This sort of thing cannot be allowed to happen without some response from Congress. The Senate Judiciary Committee is…”

What we are seeing here is an effort to scramble quickly to resurrect defeated candidates in Texas and others to fill positions on the federal district court before Senator Talarico is sworn in on January 3.

Mr. Chairman, there are many things we still can do… One of them is not to expedite nominees who have not been carefully vetted. I hope we don’t accept that as a standard in this Committee.

To take a lifetime appointment for a federal district court, which is primarily a trial driven court, or at least preparation for trial, and not have any experience with the things I have asked you here, really raises the question of why…

In the waning days of this Congress, in light of the last [week’s] election, the Chairman is violating numerous longstanding Committee norms that Republicans and Democratic Chairs alike have followed for years, without consent from the…