Political Quotes

“Mr. President, we have a very significant couple of votes coming up. One is the nomination of Scott Palk to be a district judge for the Western District of Oklahoma. We have been working on this for about 2 years now. He is one of the highest qualified individuals. I thank the leader for moving forward on his nomination this week. I know judicial nominations are a priority of the leader's, and I share his belief in the importance of filling the many vacancies we have with judges who will uphold the rule of law, not predetermine outcomes and not legislate from the bench. Scott Palk fulfills and embodies this philosophy, and I have full confidence that he will be a judge whom Oklahoma and the Nation will be proud of. This nomination is of great need to the Western District, located in Oklahoma City, which has a very heavy caseload. In fact, we have three vacancies on the bench there. One vacancy goes back over 4 years and another over 3 years, so this nomination is desperately needed. Mr. Palk was nominated in the last Congress--so it was not this Congress--during the previous administration. He made it through the Judiciary Committee by voice vote before we ran out of time at the end of the 114th Congress. We would have had this done, but we just flat ran out of time. He had bipartisan support in the last Congress and has in this Congress, with there having been a 17-to-3 vote in the Judiciary Committee. It is not very often that happens.…”