Pete Sessions: “it is very distressing and disappointing that we are now looking at a filibuster of the nomination of Samuel Alito to be…”

“it is very distressing and disappointing that we are now looking at a filibuster of the nomination of Samuel Alito to be a member of the U.S. Supreme Court. He has served as a Federal appellate judge--outside of Washington, DC, not involved in any of the political issues here--for 15 years and during that time has assembled an incredibly strong group of admirers who have testified on his behalf to a degree that exceeds almost anything I have had the pleasure to see as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee where we had hearings on this matter. The American Bar Association interviewed 300 of his colleagues-- lawyers who have litigated against him; lawyers who have worked with him; judges who have heard him, whom he practiced before; and his colleagues on the bench. An African-American member of that ABA team--who represented the University of Michigan in defending their admissions policy that some called a quota policy--that individual said, quote: He was held in incredibly high regard. In fact, I am not aware of anyone who was interviewed that said anything bad about this nominee. He was at the top of his class at Princeton, and the top of his class at Yale Law School where he served on the Law Review. He argued 12 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. There is not more than a handful of lawyers in this country who have argued even a single case before the Supreme Court, much less 12. Then he was U.S.…”