On the recordJuly 30, 2015
I have a unanimous consent request, but I am waiting for Senator Grassley from Iowa, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, to propound it, so I will speak first and then do the request. I rise today to address the growing crisis of judicial vacancies in our Federal and district courts. There are no values more American than the speedy application of justice and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Frankly, neither of those can be achieved without justices and judges on the bench. It is the job of the Senate to responsibly keep up with the need to confirm judges. Yet we have a 10-percent vacancy in judicial positions throughout the United States. We have 28 districts that are considered ``judicial emergencies.'' In my home State of New York, in the Western District, there is not a single active district judge--zero. The Western District has one of the busiest caseloads in the country. It handles more criminal cases than Washington, DC, or Boston or Cleveland. The delays for civil trials are by far the worst in the country. Yet they don't have a single active Federal district judge. If not for the efforts of two judges on senior status who are volunteering to hear cases in their retirement, the Western District would be at a full judicial standstill. How have we gotten to this point?…
