Orrin Hatch

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I have been listening to this debate and the populist arguments being made by Democrats who seem to think that having Federal judgeship nominees treated fairly, as they always have been in the past, once they have been brought to the floor, seems to be not right because they think we ought to do something about jobs. Well, why haven't they? This recession began in the last year of the Clinton administration. I went through just some of the things that show they have had a pattern of obstruction from day 1 around here since we have taken over control of the Senate. The pattern of obstruction was set on the first day of the 108th Congress when the motion to adjourn was forced to a rollcall vote, something that is usually never done. The long overdue 2003 appropriations bills were finally enacted after we became the majority in 2003, on February 20. For the first time in history, filibusters were used to defeat the President's circuit court nominees. I have mentioned upwards of 15 that some Democrats have told me they are going to filibuster. They are not going to filibuster all of them, but they are certainly filibustering already more than four. There are six right now by the time you get through with Friday. I can tell you, there are a whole raft of others they are planning on filibustering. First time in history, treating a President like dirt, and these nominees, which is even more important in this sense, because these nominees--we are going to find that we cannot get the top people in the country to take these positions, especially if they are very liberal or very conservative, even though they are in the mainstream. And that is a big phony shibboleth. Every time they say: Well, they are outside the mainstream of American jurisprudence. They were saying that about Bill Pryor, criticizing the cases that he won as the Alabama attorney general before the Supreme Court. So who is out of the mainstream? It certainly is not Bill Pryor, nor is it any of these other nominees. Like I say, Priscilla Owen, who has been held up for 3 years now-- better than 3 years--Priscilla Owen is on the Texas Supreme Court. She was one of the first women partners in this country. She broke through the ``glass ceiling'' for women. They ought to be giving her a medal instead of treating her in this despicable fashion, and they are only doing it because these inside-the-beltway groups control, in many respects, what they do. It all comes down to abortion. Now, there are sincere people on both sides of that issue. That is why I did not allow the issue of abortion to stop otherwise qualified candidates from getting a vote up or down on the floor, even though I am personally pro-life and cannot imagine why anybody would want to go for a regime of abortion on demand. There were 1.6 million abortions a year at one time. Forty million abortions in this country--the barbaric practice of partial-birth abortion, which many of my colleagues voted for, even some on this side. Let me go down a few further here: Needed legal reforms, I mentioned, to stop lawsuit abuse against doctors, businesses, and industries have been virtually banned by the tactics of the minority. Jobs have been lost right and left because of their refusal to allow decent laws to be passed. Medical liability, class action reform, gun liability, and asbestos lawsuit reforms have all been subject to delays or filibusters by our colleagues on the other side. As I said, we spent 22 days on an Energy bill last year, and then we had to spend 18 days on an Energy bill this year, when we basically enacted the same bill we did last year. Bioshield legislation is very important for those of us who work heavily in the area of health care and antiterrorism. Bioshield legislation is necessary to ensure proper vaccines and medicines to counter bioterrorism attacks has still not cleared objections. The State Department reauthorization was stalled by Democrats insisting upon unrelated poison-pill amendments being voted on prior to passage. The District of Columbia appropriations bill is subject to a rolling filibuster threat over a provision giving low-income students school choice, where we spend over $11,000 per student and have the lousiest school system in the country. Last year Senate Democrats failed to pass a budget resolution for the first time since the Budget Act was written in 1974, and they have the gall to come in here and say: Well, we ought to be taking care of jobs. We are going to take care of jobs if we can get some cooperation from them. But all the taking care of jobs in the world may not amount to much if we do not have a good Federal judiciary to make this system work, to make sure our constitutional way of life continues. They passed no welfare reform. They took no action to ban cloning. They passed no Medicare prescription drug plan. They confirmed a record low number of judges. They enacted only 2 of the 13 appropriations bills and delayed enactment of a Homeland Security Department for months. It is this dismal record of inaction that Democrats hope to repeat. Now, we are committed to delivering the Healthy Forests bill and the CARE Act to the President's desk. The Democrats are refusing to name conferees to the bill that passed with strong bipartisan support. I could go on and on. But my friend from Nevada--it is kind of interesting to me that he would take 10 hours out of the Senate's time on Monday to filibuster, when we all came here prepared to vote on appropriations bills. I think it is pretty bad to come in here and say that we should not do what we should for judges, when they themselves have been filibustering not just judges but virtually everything else with a slow walk.

Mr. HATCH. I am glad to yield, without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. HATCH. Sure.

Mr. HATCH. That is correct.

Mr. HATCH. That is correct. These are the most confidential private papers of the Solicitor General's Office, the lawyer who represents all of the public.

Mr. HATCH. That is correct. Four of the seven former Solicitors General were leading Democrats, who said that what the Democrats are doing is wrong.

Mr. HATCH. Right.

Mr. HATCH. Right.

Mr. HATCH. That is right.

Mr. HATCH. They both worked there. They both were excellent appellate lawyers. By the way, Estrada worked not only with the Bush administration but with the Clinton administration. And he had high marks.

Mr. HATCH. Right.

Mr. HATCH. A unanimous voice vote on the floor, but only after waiting 12 years through three nominations by two different Presidents.

Mr. HATCH. Right.

Mr. HATCH. John Roberts, who was one of the finest appellate lawyers in the country, as was Miguel Estrada, was treated completely differently once the Judiciary Committee considered him. And I had to force them to consider him. Yet he passed this body by unanimous consent.

Mr. HATCH. That is exactly right. They treated Miguel Estrada differently from John Roberts.

Mr. HATCH. Not a legitimate reason. The only reason was they believed him to be pro-life. I don't know whether he is to this day because we do not ask those questions.

Mr. HATCH. The phony reason.

Mr. HATCH. I yield to the distinguished Senator from Virginia without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. HATCH. That is the way I view it. I have to say this is a very dangerous thing the Democrats are doing for the first time in history. It has caused a tremendous amount of angst on everyone's part and awful partisanship because it has never been done before. It is time to move on. I yield to the distinguished Senator from Minnesota.

Mr. HATCH. Yes.

Mr. HATCH. That is right.

Mr. HATCH. It is a total misrepresentation is what it is.

Mr. HATCH. The distinguished Senator raises some good points. There is no question the filibuster rule was despicably used during that time. But I still believe most of us would agree that rule XXII, the filibuster rule, can and should apply to the legislative calendar. We have a right to set our own rules through the legislative calendar. But the Executive Calendar is a calendar that is subject to our right to advise and consent, which under article II, section 2 is a majority vote, and it is being distorted by our friends on the other side.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. As I was reading the Defense authorization bill, I noticed that under section 336, entitled ``Pilot Program for Best-Value Source Selection for Performance of Information Services,'' the conference committee had modified the normal examination procedures for determining the source, either public or private, for the performance of information technology services. My question therefore is: Does section 336 modify, change or interfere, in any way with provisions of Title 10 Sec. 2460, Sec. 2464, or Sec. 2466 commonly referred to as ``Core'' and ``50/50''?

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I was hoping that my friend, the distinguished chairman of the Armed Services Committee, might yield for a question.