Patrick Leahy: “this week marks a little more than one year after the reorganization of the Senate Judiciary Committee following the…”

“this week marks a little more than one year after the reorganization of the Senate Judiciary Committee following the change in majority last year. The Democratic-led Judiciary Committee has had an impressive year of fairly and promptly considering President Bush's nominees. In addition to the dozens of high-ranking Justice Department officials for whom we held hearings and our work in connection with almost 200 Executive Branch nominees the Committee reported, we have had a noteworthy record year with respect to judicial nominees. With the lifting of a Republican hold on nominations we have been able to move forward this week to confirm 15 more judicial nominees--4 circuit court nominees and 11 district court nominees. The Democratic-led Senate has now confirmed 72 of President Bush's judicial nominees. This interim total of 72 judges far outdistances any Republican total for any of the preceding six years. Moreover, this is more judges than were confirmed under Republican control during all of 1999, 2000 and the first six months of 2001 combined. Thus, in less than 13 months we have done more than the Republicans did in 30 months! And we did so while reforming the process to ensure bipartisan cooperation and greater fairness.”