Patrick Leahy: “I will note, just before I start, a couple of points. The distinguished Senator from New Hampshire spoke about video…”

“I will note, just before I start, a couple of points. The distinguished Senator from New Hampshire spoke about video rental records of Judge Bork or Judge Thomas. He may recall when that happened, a law was passed, the Leahy-Simpson law, which I proposed, initiated, and drove through in short order, to make it illegal for anybody to go and check somebody's video records. Ideally, I would like to see us have as strong a law for our medical records, something that has been held up while we spend a lot of time on a lot of other things. That is something being held up by this Congress on medical privacy. I wish we could do the same with that situation. But on Judge Bork or Judge Thomas or any other judges, the Leahy-Simpson law says we cannot look at their records. I also note it was the Democrats who said very strongly about both Judge Bork and Judge Thomas, there should be no filibuster. As I recall, we expedited them relatively quickly for votes. It was also this Senator, joined by some others on this side, who, on the Ginsburg matter, when items were being leaked to the press--as it turned out, some from the same White House from which his nomination came--it was this Senator who took to the floor, and spoke elsewhere, and said let us give Judge Ginsburg a hearing; he should not be subjected to anonymous leaks, wherever they are coming from.”