Political Quotes

“on another matter, as the Senate returns to work after the recess, we are scheduled to process six circuit court judges over the next few weeks. Some of these judges are noncontroversial and have received support from their home State Democratic Senators, and we will work with the majority to confirm them. But Michael Brennan, second in line this week, will receive a cloture vote on the floor of the Senate even though one of his home State Senators, Ms. Baldwin, has not returned a blue slip for his nomination. When hearing the facts, they are appalling--not just his ideology, although Mr. Brennan is a very conservative nominee who failed to earn the recommendation of a functioning bipartisan commission that was set up by both Senator Baldwin, a Democrat, and Senator Johnson, a Republican, to recommend Federal judicial nominees. That is how people want us to do things, in a bipartisan way. I was able to work out judge nominations in a bipartisan way in the Senate when we had a Republican President, a Republican Governor, but that was overrun. This is now the second time that Chairman Grassley has ignored the blue-slip tradition in this Congress, but the part that really burns me and I think many others who are fair-minded in the Senate and this country is the fact that the seat that Mr. Brennan would fill on the Seventh Circuit was held open for 6 years--6 years--via blue slips. Senator Johnson did not turn in a blue slip, and the seat stayed vacant.…”