Political Quotes

“The Senate was forced to spend the better part of this week ending a filibuster against the nomination of Judge Adalberto Jordan of Florida to fill a judicial emergency vacancy on the Eleventh Circuit. Finally, after a four month Republican filibuster that was broken on Monday by an 89 5 cloture vote, and after Republicans insisted on two additional days of delay, the Senate was allowed to vote on the nomination. We voted 94 5 to confirm Judge Jordan. I suspect the vote would have been the same four months and two days sooner. It was a colossal waste of the Senate's time and another week lost to obstruction and delay. Now the Senate Majority Leader has been required to file another cloture petition on yet another consensus nominee. This is the ninth time the Majority Leader has had to file a cloture petition to overcome a Republican filibuster of one of President Obama's superbly-qualified judicial nominees. The nomination of Jesse Furman to fill a vacancy on the Southern District of New York has been stalled for more than five months after being reported unanimously from the Senate Judiciary Committee. Consensus nominations like this to Federal district courts have nearly always been taken up and confirmed by the Senate within days or weeks, whether nominated by a Democratic or a Republican President. Certainly that was the approach taken by Senate Democrats when President Bush sent us consensus nominees.…”