Orrin Hatch: “I hear these cries of hysteria all the time on judges. Let's be honest about it. So far this year we processed out of…”

“I hear these cries of hysteria all the time on judges. Let's be honest about it. So far this year we processed out of committee 24 nominees. Fifteen have been confirmed. Three will be left after this, and six are pending in the committee. We will have another hearing within a week on another five or six, and another hearing after that. So we are moving ahead quite well. Let's understand something. There are more sitting judges today than there were throughout virtually all of the Reagan and Bush administrations, as of right now. As of August 10, we had 742 active Federal judges. Let's just be honest about it. In the 101st Congress and the 102d Congress by contrast, when a Democrat controlled Congress was processing President Bush's nominees, there were only 711 and 716 active judges. The fact of matter is that we have not had a White House processing these people very fast. And there are some who have problems. Mr. President, we received 13 new nominees just before the August recess, and a few more just a short while ago. They have not even been processed yet. We are doing our best. All I can say is that there is room here to realize that we are doing a fairly good job. We can do a better job. But the White House has not been doing its job in a full effect. And, frankly, we still have something like 53 total pending out of the 98 vacancies.”