Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Illinois for his usual articulate and prescient comments about our judicial crisis, and that is what we have here in the Senate and in the third branch of government. I rise today, along with many of my colleagues, to address a serious problem for which there is an easy solution. We have a crisis in our third independent branch of government, and it is one that only we in the Senate can solve. We can solve it. We need to come together as we have in the past and confirm judges to our article III courts and dispense with petty politics and hostage-taking. Let me give just one example of how our process has broken down. In December, for the second year in a row, my colleagues across the aisle refused to consent to confirm even a single judicial nomination before the end of the Senate session. This senseless rejection of the Senate's longstanding practice of confirming consensus nominees is starting to do real damage to our Federal courts. One out of 10 on the Federal bench, 1 out of 10 seats on the Federal bench is currently vacant. Judicial vacancies are double, two times what they were at this point in President Bush's first term. We have confirmed only 3 judicial nominees this session, only 5 in the past 2 months, and only 11 in the last 90 days. And of the three judges we have confirmed this session, we had to file cloture on two of them.…”