Political Quotes

“Mr. President, today I rise to address the responsibility of the Senate in its advice and consent role under the Constitution. Of course, the President's duty is to nominate a Justice when the vacancy exists for a Justice, and that responsibility is very clearly written into our Constitution. The Constitution also very clearly conveys the Senate's role in providing advice and consent. This is the vision of our founding document. Actually, our Founding Fathers wrestled with exactly how to best construct this nomination and confirmation process. They knew there had to be a way to appoint judges in the judiciary and certainly ambassadors and directors in the executive branch, how to go about that. In those early efforts to craft the Constitution, some argued that this responsibility should be with the Executive, with the President; others argued that, no, no, it is better given to the assembly, to the body. Well, that conversation went back and forth. We can read a little bit about the thinking through Alexander Hamilton's The Federalist Papers 76 because he laid out the conversation as it went back and forth. They recognized that there were certainly advantages to having the President make the appointments. I quote from Alexander Hamilton's paper: The sole and undivided responsibility of one man will naturally beget a livelier sense of duty and a more exact regard to reputation.…”