Political Quotes

“before the last recess, the Senate confirmed Judge G. Steven Agee of Virginia to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. His confirmation lowered the remaining vacancies on that circuit to less than there were at the end of the Clinton administration, when a Republican-controlled Senate had refused to consider any nominees to the Fourth Circuit during the last 2 years of the Clinton Presidency. The Republican Senate majority used the Clinton years to more than double circuit court vacancies around the country. By contrast, we have already reduced circuit court vacancies by almost two-thirds, in the process reducing them to zero or only a single vacancy in nearly every circuit. We have already reduced vacancies among the 13 Federal circuit courts throughout the country from 32--which is what it was when I became chairman of the Judiciary Committee in the summer of 2001--to 11, the lowest number of vacancies in more than a decade. When Republican Senators are ready to allow us to consider and confirm the President's nominations to fill the last two remaining vacancies on the Sixth Circuit, yet another circuit will be without any vacancies. We will reduce the total number of circuit court vacancies to single digits for the first time in decades. Lost in all the agitating from the other side of the aisle is the fact that we have succeeded in reducing circuit court vacancies to historically low levels.”