Trent Lott: “for some time now, and on more than one occasion, there has been an effort to clear a number of judicial nominees that…”

“for some time now, and on more than one occasion, there has been an effort to clear a number of judicial nominees that have been pending on the calendar awaiting action. As a matter of fact, there are now 17 such judicial nominations that are on the Executive Calendar. Some of them date back as far as December 1995. The latest group that was reported from the Judiciary Committee to the Senate came on May 9. Now, on each occasion when there has been sort of an agreement worked out that one, two, three, or four judges could be cleared and moved, there have been objections to those. I know the majority leader would very much like to be able to move as many as possible of these judicial nominations. He said so publicly. He has been working on it today. I know he will continue to work to find what problems might exist and see if more could be approved. He will continue to do that. On his behalf, as the majority whip, I will do all I can do. I feel like while it might be ideal under some conditions to some people to get them all done at once, under Senate prerogatives every Senator can raise concerns about a nominee for a variety of reasons-- their qualifications for the job and other considerations. But I think if we cannot get them all done, we need to start moving down the road. You get as many as you can, and you come back and work some others. I know there are a number of judges that Members of the minority party support and would like to get approved.”