Patrick Leahy: “If I might say to my friend from Kentucky, the irony is that Margaret Hornbeck Greene, if there was to be a vote on her…”

“If I might say to my friend from Kentucky, the irony is that Margaret Hornbeck Greene, if there was to be a vote on her, would get every vote in this place. So instead, what you have is somebody in the back recesses of a cloakroom somewhere holding this woman up, as are a whole lot of other women on this list being held up by people who say, ``We won't vote on these women. We just won't let them come to a vote.'' Nobody is going to vote them down. They are all going to be confirmed, if we have a vote. But these women are all being held up by somebody who will not come in the Chamber and say who it is holding them up. But just do it. Frankly, I would like to see all of these people--the committees have passed on them. The committees have given them, in most cases, unanimous recommendations and some overwhelming recommendations. Let the Senate work its will. I think it is wrong to hold them up but especially in the courts. The courts now face an enormous problem. People are declining appointments to the Federal judiciary because they say they are not going to sit around for 2 or 3 years while their law practices fall apart waiting for the Senate to do what we are paid to do. We have, as I said earlier, in the second circuit, my own circuit, a judicial emergency, the first time ever, and yet we have two second circuit court of appeals judges voted out of the committee sitting on the calendar and cannot be voted upon. It is wrong, Mr.…”