Political Quotes

“Mr. President, yesterday we confirmed two more excellent judges in the Senate. Despite Democratic obstruction, we continue to move forward on confirming nominees to the Federal bench. Some of our Democratic colleagues have criticized the amount of time the Senate spends on judges. We have spent a substantial amount of time on judges because we have had to. Back in the day, most of the judicial nominees we are considering would have been confirmed without the time-consuming cloture vote process. By this point in President Obama's first term, Republicans had required cloture votes on just three--three--of President Obama's judicial nominees. Let's compare that to today. As of yesterday, July 24, Democrats had required cloture votes on a staggering 94 judicial nominees--94--to 3 at this same point under President Obama. It is not because they are fiercely opposed to all of these nominees. In fact, again and again, Democrats have turned around and voted for the very same judges they delayed. Just a couple of weeks ago in the Senate, we confirmed three district court judges by huge bipartisan margins: 78 to 15, 80 to 14, and 85 to 10. Clearly, these were not nominees that Democrats bitterly opposed. Yet Democrats insisted on the same old delaying cloture vote tactic they have used with so many judicial nominees. I, too, am frustrated that we have had to spend a lot of time on judges.…”