Orrin Hatch: “all I will say, in yielding back the remainder of my seconds, is that I have been around here 17 years. I don't know…”

“all I will say, in yielding back the remainder of my seconds, is that I have been around here 17 years. I don't know that I have ever seen a better nominee for any circuit court in the country. This is one very great lawyer, great human being, good family man, person with a record that all of us should emulate if we could. I hope all of our colleagues will vote for Michael Chertoff. He deserves our vote. No raw number of confirmations means anything, in and of itself, while there are not one but two filibusters of exemplary nominees going on now, potentially more to come, and emergency vacancies continue to exist. Are we supposed to be grateful that only a few of President Bush's nominees are being filibustered? Is there an acceptable filibuster percentage that the Democratic leadership has in mind? The mere fact that we have to ask these questions makes it crystal clear that we have a broken process. Even one filibuster of a judicial nominee is one too many. As for the allegation that two nominees have been defeated, well, I for one would not be as quick as some of my Democratic colleagues to declare that the nominations of Miguel Estrada and Priscilla Owen have been defeated. We will continue to fight for the confirmation of these nominees and continue to file for cloture on their nominations. They are exemplary nominees who deserve to be confirmed.”