Don Nickles: “I hope we are not going to come up with ideological litmus tests. If that is the case, we are changing the entire…”

“I hope we are not going to come up with ideological litmus tests. If that is the case, we are changing the entire confirmation process. I hope my colleagues will step back and think: We may have a change in leadership in the Senate. Are we going to change the policies of confirmation of judges as dramatically as proposed by the Senator from New York? I hope not. It would be a serious mistake. We need to change and improve the way we handle judicial nominations, particularly circuit court nominations. The real problem has been on circuit court nominations. For whatever reason, the Senate has not worked there. The Judiciary Committee has not worked. We have confirmed 7 out of 29. Unfortunately, Judge Pickering was defeated last week. So we have now dealt with 8 out of 29. Twenty-four percent of President Bush's circuit court nominees have been confirmed.”