Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I appreciate the words of both Senators from Pennsylvania. I would note there are currently three nominations pending for vacancies in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. All three have the bipartisan support of their home State Senators. All three were reported unanimously by the Judiciary Committee 3 months ago. Yet Senate Republicans are permitting votes on only two of them. They are forcing Judge Luis Restrepo to continue to wait for a vote even though he would fill a seat that has been vacant for 4 years. I mention this because we talk about how things move during this President's tenure as compared to that of his predecessor. At the end of President Bush's second term, I was chairman of the Judiciary Committee and I expedited confirmations of three of his nominees to this same court--three, not just allowing two to go through, as my friends on the other side of the aisle are today--and not having to wait for months and months. Those three were confirmed by voice vote. So you know how long it took, we had reported them out of the Judiciary Committee the day before. They were confirmed along with 7 other district court nominees for a total of 10 that day. We got them out of committee and voted them by voice vote. But now we have seven judicial nominees on the calendar, and Republicans are only allowing us to vote on two of them.…”