Pete Sessions: “I remember so vividly how aggressive he was to make sure President Clinton's nominees were moved promptly. At that time…”

“I remember so vividly how aggressive he was to make sure President Clinton's nominees were moved promptly. At that time, when we finished this last Congress and President Clinton was in his last days, there were 67 vacancies in the Federal courts. He said that was unacceptable, and he thought it should have been lower than that, although there were only 41 nominees. President Clinton submitted only 41 nominees for the 67 vacancies, which was what was left. Now we are pushing probably 60 nominees. And the vacancies have gone from 67 to 108. It may now be back up to 109, even though we confirmed 2. You can constantly have judges out of the 800 or so taking retirement. As you do, if you do not have a constant flow of nominees being confirmed, the vacancy rate grows. Senator Leahy declared that the 67 vacancies we had last year was a crisis in the judiciary, and there was something awful about that. I thought we were moving pretty fast. Frankly, 60 or so vacancies is about the standard.”