Patrick Leahy: “this is not a day, in my view, when the Senate majority should be pressing forward on this divisive matter. Nor has…”

“this is not a day, in my view, when the Senate majority should be pressing forward on this divisive matter. Nor has anything changed since last Thursday or since March 6 when the Republican majority scheduled two earlier cloture votes on this nomination. The administration's obstinacy continues to impede progress to resolve this standoff. The administration remains intent on packing the federal circuit courts and on insisting that the Senate rubber stamp its nominees without fulfilling the Senate's constitutional advise and consent role in this most important process. The White House could have long ago helped solve the impasse on the Estrada nomination by honoring the Senate's role in the appointment process and providing the Senate with access to Mr. Estrada's legal work. Past administrations have provided such legal memoranda in connection with the nominations of Robert Bork, William Rehnquist, Brad Reynolds, Stephen Trott and Ben Civiletti, and even this Administration did so with a nominee to the Environmental Protection Agency. We have the statement of Attorney General Robert H. Jackson, who later became one of our finest Supreme Court Justices, when he wrote an Attorney General Opinion in 1941 acknowledging that among the occasions when exceptions should be made and executive Department files would be produced to the Congress would be confirmations.…”