Sam Brownback: “When you have good people, qualified people blocked from the Federal bench not by majority vote but by filibuster, you…”

“When you have good people, qualified people blocked from the Federal bench not by majority vote but by filibuster, you are headed down a bad path. This bad path doesn't have a good ending. We will continue to have division in this body. I don't doubt we can be blocked on these for some time, but that is certainly going to carry over into the next election cycle, and this doesn't have an upside to it. Plus, we have good people waiting. We have people who are qualified and are not going to be serving on the Federal bench. We have a lot of hurt feelings. We have a lot of accusations made without truth. We have harsh words, harsh comments, and that all leads to a downward cycle. There isn't an up cycle here. I wish to take a few minutes to describe why I think we got to this point. We didn't used to be here. We have approved people of strong judicial opinions in recent times. They have generally been from the left, and those have been approved during the Clinton years. Lord knows we are talking about circuit court nominees now. What if we got a Supreme Court nominee? Does the body get tied up for 2 years?”