Patrick Leahy: “Today, we vote to confirm Michael Chertoff to serve on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. With…”

“Today, we vote to confirm Michael Chertoff to serve on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. With this confirmation, the Senate will have confirmed 128 judges, including 25 circuit court judges, nominated by President Bush. One hundred judicial nominees were confirmed when Democrats acted as the Senate majority for 17 months from the summer of 2001 to adjournment last year. After today, 28 will have been confirmed in the other 12 months in which Republicans have controlled the confirmation process under President Bush. This total of 128 judges confirmed for President Bush is more confirmations than the Republicans allowed President Clinton in all of 1995, 1996 and 1997 the first 3 full years of his last term. In those three years, the Republican leadership in the Senate allowed only 111 judicial nominees to be confirmed, which included only 18 circuit court judges. We have already exceeded that total by 15 percent and the circuit court total by almost 40 percent with 6 months remaining to us this year. Today's confirmation makes the eighth Court of Appeals nominee confirmed by the Senate just this year. That means that in the first half of this year, we have exceeded the average for an entire year achieved by Republican leadership from 1995 through the early part of 2001. The Senate has now achieved more in fewer than 6 full months for President Bush than Republicans used to allow the Senate to achieve in a full year with President Clinton.”