Orrin Hatch: “I have heard so much misinformation about Mr. Estrada here on the floor of the Senate for the past few days, I hardly…”

“I have heard so much misinformation about Mr. Estrada here on the floor of the Senate for the past few days, I hardly know where to begin to correct the record. It is simply amazing to me that some of my Democratic colleagues claim they cannot support Mr. Estrada because he lacks judicial experience or because he hasn't been a law professor or because he has not published extensively. Let me remind my colleagues there are more than a few nominees confirmed as circuit judges whose record did not include judicial experience or extensive scholarly writings but whom they managed to vote for and confirm anyway. Yesterday I listed 26 circuit court of appeals judges who had no judicial experience when they were nominated but were confirmed anyway. That is just a small fraction of all those who never had judicial experience before the last number of years. Don't get me wrong. Even though they have had no judicial experience, these are all very qualified judges who deserved confirmation. But I don't believe any of them clerked for a Supreme Court Justice or argued 15 cases before the United States Supreme Court, as has Mr. Estrada.”