Orrin Hatch: “the Senate has so far this year confirmed 26 judicial nominees, including six appeals court nominees. The majority was…”

“the Senate has so far this year confirmed 26 judicial nominees, including six appeals court nominees. The majority was right on cue, complaining about what they still insist is unprecedented confirmation obstruction and threatening to fundamentally change the confirmation process itself. The late Senator from New York, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, once said that you are entitled to your own opinion but not to your own facts. So let us look at the real confirmation facts. The Senate confirmed a higher percentage of President Obama's first- term appeals court nominees, and did so faster, than it had for President Bush. The 111 judges confirmed in the previous Congress was the highest total in more than 20 years. Now we are at the beginning of President Obama's second term. The Senate is on a faster second-term confirmation pace than under any President in American history. And by the way, we have already confirmed more judges as the Democratic majority allowed to be confirmed in all of 2005, the first year of President Bush's second term. Or we can look specifically at nominees to the U.S. Court of Appeals. The six appeals court nominees already confirmed this year are more than 60 percent above the average annual confirmation pace during the entire time I have been in the Senate. In fact, the Senate confirmed more appeals court nominees by this time in only eight of those 36 years.…”