Bob Dole: “before I speak to the important principles at stake in this debate, I want to take this opportunity to thank the…”

“before I speak to the important principles at stake in this debate, I want to take this opportunity to thank the Majority Leader for doing everything in his power to avoid the impasse we face today. We have arrived at this moment in the Senate's history not because of a failure of effort, but because of a failure of cooperation. Over the past two years, Senator Frist and other members of the Republican leadership have made compromise an important objective. We have repeatedly offered to extend the period of debate on the President's judicial nominees. Fifty hours, 100 hours, have been offered--even 200 hours of debate on some of these nominees--all in an effort to ensure that our Democrat colleagues have sufficient time to raise and explain their concerns. Without exception, these offers to provide more time have been rejected out-of-hand. In May of 2003, Senator Frist and then-Senator Miller of Georgia introduced compromise legislation that would allow the filing of successive cloture motions on judicial nominees, with each motion requiring fewer votes for passage, and ultimately a simple majority. When it came time to consider this sensible legislation in the Rules Committee, my Democrat colleagues boycotted the mark-up.…”