John Cornyn: “Members of the Senate have been coming to the floor talking about the important vote we will be casting tomorrow and…”

“Members of the Senate have been coming to the floor talking about the important vote we will be casting tomorrow and then again on Friday which will result in the confirmation of Judge Neil Gorsuch as the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Having served on the Senate Judiciary Committee since I first came to the Senate, it has been my honor to participate in the confirmation hearings in the committee on now five Supreme Court Justices, Judge Gorsuch being the latest. What I have been struck by when it comes to Judge Gorsuch is how much our friends across the aisle--who cast a party-line vote in the Judiciary Committee against the judge on his confirmation--how much they have been struggling to come up with even one intellectually honest argument against the nominee, in spite of his obvious and tremendous qualifications and bipartisan support. For example, I heard our colleague from Virginia, my friend Senator Kaine, criticize a couple of decisions that the judge made. What he left out is that Judge Gorsuch participated in 2,700 panel decisions on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals during his 10-year tenure there. Ninety-seven percent of them were unanimous. As the Presiding Officer knows, that means that each of the judges--three judges on the typical panel or in an en banc--basically that everyone agreed, whether they were nominated by a Republican or Democrat.…”