John Cornyn: “I rise today to say a few more words about our broken judicial confirmation process. This week the Senate marks a dismal…”

“I rise today to say a few more words about our broken judicial confirmation process. This week the Senate marks a dismal political anniversary: 2 years of partisan obstruction of President Bush's judicial nominees, culminating in two unprecedented filibusters, and more are threatened. The current list includes Justice Priscilla Owen, with whom I served on the Texas Supreme Court, whose nomination is now subject to a filibuster before the Senate. This 2-year anniversary indicates the true breadth of the failure of the judicial confirmation process, an increasingly bitter and destructive process, a process that does a disservice to the President, to the Senate, to the nominees, and ultimately to the American people. Today a partisan minority of Senators are forcing a supermajority requirement of 60 votes on the judicial confirmation process. They are using the filibuster not simply to provide for adequate debate--a reasonable and laudable goal--but to prevent many of our Nation's most talented legal minds, in this case at least two of them, from filling our Nation's judicial vacancies. These obstructionist activities continue to undermine the constitutional principles of judicial independence and majority rule. My colleagues should not think the American people do not know what is going on here.”