Political Quotes

“I rise to talk about a serious crisis in the third branch of government; that is, the rate of vacancies in the U.S. district courts. There is a crisis that is unlike almost all the other issues we grapple with on a daily basis. It has a very simple solution. My colleagues and I deal with a lot of very difficult and very divisive problems every day. Not many of them lend themselves to solutions that are both politically and economically costless, but this one is easy: confirm these judges. Take the district court nominees who were passed out of committee with bipartisan support, schedule votes on the floor, and confirm them. It sounds easy. Apparently, it is not. It is not easy because my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have slowed the confirmation of district court judges to a trickle, even those nominees who were passed out of the Judiciary Committee with no objection from Republicans. This Congress, I am grateful for the hard work of Chairman Leahy, Ranking Member Grassley, Majority Leader Reid, and Minority Leader McConnell in beginning to unclog the pipeline, but we still have a long way to go. To go the rest of the distance, to restore the pace of judicial confirmations before the Federal judiciary faces the worst vacancy crisis in history, we need the consent of our Republican colleagues. Here are the facts: The targeting of district court nominees is unprecedented.…”