Political Quotes

“yesterday I came to the floor to express my hope that Republicans would join together with Democrats to end the damaging filibusters of judicial nominations. With a judicial vacancies crisis that has lasted years, and nearly 1 in 10 judgeships across the Nation vacant, this is something the Senate needs to do. I hoped that we could work together to ensure that the Federal courts have the judges they need to provide justice for all Americans without needless delay. Today there are 22 circuit and district court nominations ready for Senate consideration and a final confirmation vote. They were all reported favorably by the Judiciary Committee after thorough review. All but a handful are by any measure consensus nominations. There was never any good reason for the Senate not to proceed to votes on these nominations. It should not have taken cloture motions to get agreement to schedule votes on these qualified, consensus judicial nominations. A dozen of the nominations on which agreement has now been reached have been stalled for months and were reported last year. These are qualified judicial nominees. They are nominees whose judicial philosophy is well within the mainstream. These are all nominees supported by their home State Senators, both Republican and Democratic.…”