On the recordJune 25, 2020
I am proud to call Virginia Foxx my classmate. We have been through a lot together, but nothing like what is currently going on in this country right now. Extraordinary. And we are hearing from people back home and from those who are not from my district that have called my office--or called my wife's phone--and left nasty, vicious messages about our hearing. People who saw the subterfuge going on in the Committee on the Judiciary yesterday, they need to understand, back before I became a district judge in Texas, handling major, civil litigation and felony, criminal cases--up to and including death penalty cases--I tried a lot of cases, a lot of different courts, Federal, State. And from time to time, you would see judges who were not fair, and they played their partisan, silly games. Sometimes it was just a power thing. {time} 2100 But I determined, when I was a judge, nobody was going to be treated like that, and we didn't do that. There were time limits on opening statements and closing arguments, as there were when I was chief justice of our court of appeals. I enforced the times, and I made sure that both sides had those times followed because, to me, what applied in court applies here, one of the last bastions of civility in the country. Even when there are riots and protests going on, as long as the legislature and the courts are acting civilly--and that doesn't mean you can't yell at each other.…
