Thomas Daschle: “Mr. President, I find it remarkable that our colleagues can continue to come to the floor these past 40 hours and lament…”

“Mr. President, I find it remarkable that our colleagues can continue to come to the floor these past 40 hours and lament the fact that we have had votes on 172 judicial nominees and 4 of them have not been confirmed because they have not attained cloture. With passion and with emotion they scream out. Where is the fairness for those four nominees, they ask. Where is the fairness? I find it remarkable that some of the very people who lament not getting a vote for those 4 nominees were participants in the effort to deny even a hearing to 63 nominees for the bench during the Clinton administration. Don't talk to me about the unfairness of a cloture vote on the Senate floor. Don't talk to me about cloture. Don't talk to me until you talk about those 63 who waited, in some cases 4 years, and never got a hearing--or a committee vote. Denying consideration of judicial nominees is an ongoing practice that our Republican colleagues have been involved in for as long as they have been in the Senate. So this extraordinary outcry, this emotional fervor that we hear so often on the other side, with their misleading charts, does not bear up to the facts. You tell those 63 people who have not had even a chance for a vote, who should have been confirmed, how it is right for them now not to have the jobs for which they work were nominated--you tell them about the fairness of those four votes.”