Patrick Leahy: “earlier this week when the Senate was considering confirming the 42nd judge since the shift in majority last summer, I…”

“earlier this week when the Senate was considering confirming the 42nd judge since the shift in majority last summer, I came to tell the Senate of the progress we have made filling judicial vacancies in the past 9 months. The pace of consideration and confirmation of judicial nominees in the last 9 months exceeds what we used to see in the preceding 6 rac{1}{2} years. During that 6 rac{1}{2} years under Republican control, vacancies grew from 63 to 105 and were rising to 111. I lay this out so people understand what is happening. Since July, we have made bipartisan progress. This chart shows the trend lines. During the Republican majority, the vacancies were going up to 111; in the short time the Democrats have been in the majority, those vacancies have been cut down. The Democrats have controlled the majority in the Senate Judiciary Committee for 9 months. What did we do during that 9 months? We have confirmed more judges--42, all nominated by President Bush. In those 9 months, we confirmed more judges than the Republicans did for President Clinton in the 12 months of the year 2000.”