Political Quotes

“when we talk about the time involved in a nomination such as this, I recall the last controversial nomination for Attorney General we had when the Republicans controlled the Senate. That was for Edwin Meese. It took considerably longer, with far more witnesses and questions than we are having in this debate. We sometimes forget the history of what goes on here. This is a case where the White House actually sent Senator Ashcroft's nomination to the Senate on Monday--Monday of this week, 2 days ago. We are having the debate on the floor today. Prior to the President's inauguration, the Democrats controlled the Senate. We moved forward even without the paperwork or anything else from the incoming transition team. We moved forward to speed up a hearing on Senator Ashcroft. Today we begin the debate on the floor, after the Judiciary Committee debated the nomination yesterday and voted yesterday evening. As I said, I convened 3 days of hearings on this nomination over a 4-day period from January 16 to January 19. That was prior to having received all the paperwork on Senator Ashcroft. We did that to help the new administration. The Republican leadership announced weeks ago that all 50 Republican Senators would vote in favor of the nomination, irrespective of whatever came out of those hearings. I am glad that other Senators declined to prejudge the matter. Actually, the Committee on the Judiciary has done the best we could to handle this nomination fairly and fully.”