Political Quotes

“I thank my colleague from Pennsylvania, Senator Casey, for bringing to the attention of this body the fact that we have not met our constitutional responsibility in the advice and consent of appointments made by the President to the courts. I think we all understand the challenge on the Supreme Court of the United States, where the failure to hold a hearing on Judge Garland, basically saying the President's term is no longer 4 years but 3 years in an election year, makes no sense at all. We have all been talking about that, but as Senator Casey pointed out, this is now becoming a matter for our district courts. Let me share with my colleagues. This past week, I went by the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, MD, and had a chance to talk with some of the judges who were there. They were telling me there is a serious urgency to fill the vacancies on the Maryland District Court. We have two vacancies on the Maryland District Court. One was appointed by the President in March of last year, Paula Xinis, to fill the vacancy. We have a judicial emergency in Maryland. The President did his job in making the nomination in March of 2015. For reasons I don't quite understand, it took 6 months before the Judiciary Committee reported out that nomination, but they did. They reported it out in September 2015, 6 months later. This is not a controversial appointment. It passed by voice vote out of the Judiciary Committee. Paula Xinis is well qualified.…”