Harry Reid: “I say to my friend--in fact, the two Senators from Utah--that, as I indicated to the majority leader last night, there…”

“I say to my friend--in fact, the two Senators from Utah--that, as I indicated to the majority leader last night, there are three ways we can move off Estrada. The nomination can be pulled. The decision can be made by this administration that he will supply the memos from the Solicitor's Office while he worked there that he wrote and allow more questioning of Estrada. Thirdly, the majority leader can file a motion to invoke cloture to see if there are the 60 votes to move ahead. If that does not happen, we can stay on Estrada for a long time. If there are other things to do--and I mentioned yesterday I doubt that there are--if there are other things to do, then let's move to those. If not, then we can stay in this procedural quagmire, which is something that has been done in the past. As I indicated yesterday, there have been, of course, filibusters of Presidential nominations in the past and Presidential nominations of judges. They usually are not as open and notorious as this, the reason being they come at a later time in the session where time is of the essence. Now time is not of the essence. There are other things that the leader has decided are not important enough to be on the floor at this stage. So I would hope that everyone would understand that we are anxious to move on to other judicial nominations. We are anxious to move on to other legislative matters.”