Political Quotes

“I want to commend the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, the gentleman from Texas, Lamar Smith, for his cooperation in bringing this bill out of committee and through the Congress. On September 12 of this year, my bill passed the House unanimously. The requirement that judges and judicial branch employees disclose their personal finances promotes openness in the Federal Government. It reduces the risk of corruption, prevents the appearance of impropriety, and also sheds some transparency on what we do in the third branch of government. Unfortunately, sometimes these required disclosures can include specific information about the filer's residence, a spouse's workplace, a child's workplace, or a vacation home. This information has the potential to place individual judges, employees, and their families at risk. So what we're doing here is allowing a redaction by the Judicial Conference. The bill's redaction authority is critical to ensuring that this information does not get into the wrong hands and the whole idea is to make sure that some of the Federal judges whose lives have been lost and others whose family members have lost their lives by disgruntled litigants will not be made available to them. The Judicial Conference is very careful in granting redaction authority. And although I would have preferred a permanent redaction authority, I'm perfectly willing to support a 6-year authority with extension possibilities.…”