Steve Daines: “I remember as we were raising our four children, sometimes it would be late at night with a sick child, and I would turn…”

“I remember as we were raising our four children, sometimes it would be late at night with a sick child, and I would turn on ``Sesame Street'' with the child. I remember there was that ``One of These Things (Is Not Like the Others)'' song. As I look at that chart, this could be a ``Sesame Street'' illustration. One of these circuits is not like the others. It is such a stark contrast to what we see with the Ninth Circuit. With the disproportionate number of cases that are pending in the Ninth Circuit, this is not that complicated of a problem in terms of trying to identify where the problem lies. It is simply a factor of constraints, and it starts with the population chart my colleague from Alaska has, but then it results in a disproportionate share of cases coming out of that population. That is why something must be done. These two prior Commissions that have studied this before, the one in 1973--which, by the way, in 1973, I was 11 years old. I was about ``Sesame Street'' age then. At that point they said the Ninth Circuit had an overly burdensome size in 1973. Yet again in 1998, I am grateful that California Senator Dianne Feinstein was championing that Commission. She looked at this same issue 18 years ago and determined that the Ninth Circuit was overly burdened and suggested changes be made to the structure of the Federal courts of appeal. So I look forward to working with my colleague from Alaska as we have identified this problem and now move forward to a solution.…”