Political Quotes

“Mr. President, we will now finally have a vote on the nomination of Ellen L. Hollander to serve on the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. Her nomination has been pending on the Senate's Executive Calendar since the Judicial Committee reported it unanimously on June 10, more than 6 months ago. Judge Hollander, a well-respected Maryland State judge for the last 16 years, was unanimously rated ``well qualified'' by the ABA Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary and has the strong support of both of her home State Senators, Senator Mikulski and Senator Cardin. After the confirmations today, 30 Federal circuit and district court nominations favorably reported by the Judiciary Committee remain ready for final vote. These include 21 nominations reported unanimously and another 3 reported with strong bipartisan support and only a small number of ``no'' votes. These 24 nominations should have been confirmed within days of being reported. In addition, 17 nominations ready for action on the Senate calendar are to fill judicial emergency vacancies. With judicial vacancies at historic highs, we should act on these nominations. We should do as we did during President Bush's first 2 years in office, when the Senate with a Democratic majority had up-or-down votes on all 100 judicial nominations favorably reported by the Judiciary Committee. That included controversial circuit court nominations reported during the lameduck session in 2002.…”