Patrick Leahy: “With today's confirmation vote on the nomination of Judge Cormac Carney to the U.S. District Court for the Central…”

“With today's confirmation vote on the nomination of Judge Cormac Carney to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Senate Democrats again demonstrate their bipartisanship toward consensus nominees. Judge Carney's confirmation will bring to 16 the number of judicial nominees of President Bush confirmed just this year, with 14 district court nominees and two circuit court nominees confirmed in the first 10 weeks since the reorganization of the Senate. This stands in marked contrast to 1996 when only 17 judicial nominees of President Clinton were confirmed all year, and not one of them was for the circuit courts. Last year alone, in an election year, the Democratic-led Senate confirmed 72 judicial nominees, more than in any of the prior 6 years of Republican control. Overall, in the prior 17 months I chaired the Judiciary Committee, we were able to confirm 100 judges and vastly reduce the judicial vacancies that Republicans had stored up by refusing to allow scores of judicial nominees of President Clinton to be considered. There is no doubt that the judicial nominees of this President are conservation, many of them quite to the right of the mainstream.”