Orrin Hatch

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Yes.

Mr. HATCH. That is right, in the history of the Senate. Absolutely, Will was right, because that same commentary was pointed out by Alexander Hamilton. He wrote in Federalist Paper 76 the Senate's role is to refuse nominations only for ``special and strong reasons'' having to do with ``unfit characters.'' That is not what our Democratic colleagues are doing. What they are doing here is denying up-and-down votes to very qualified people, who by their own gold standard, the American Bar Association, are proven to be qualified. I believe it is abysmal that has happened. I think Senators have pointed out here this evening this is a very important debate that has to occur. The American people need to know a militant minority, 45 Democrats, basically, is thwarting the will of the majority and taking away the dignity of an up-and-down vote to qualified judicial nominees by this President, which has never happened, once they hit the floor, which has never happened before. In the Clinton years, all 377 judges were confirmed--only one was rejected, but he got an up-and-down vote, which is more than our people are getting.

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

Mr. HATCH. Well, to be honest with you, it all comes down to abortion, according to some of my top Democrat friends. That has become a litmus test issue for Democrats because the inside-the-beltway groups the Democrats talk about do not want people on the courts who are pro- life, even though they are committed to upholding Roe v. Wade because that is the law of the land. In the case of Judge Pickering, Judge Pickering was unanimously confirmed as a Federal district court judge in 1990. He has served well. He is one of the people who brought about racial conciliation in the State of Mississippi and was treated in a despicable fashion here. In the case of Bill Pryor, I do not think anybody who looks at his record can say he will not uphold the law, no matter how much he disagrees with it, because that is what a judge will have to do.

Mr. HATCH. That is correct.

Mr. HATCH. That is right. If I recall it correctly, it had to do with partial-birth abortion, even though he hates partial-birth abortion, as anybody who looks at it carefully. It is a barbaric practice, at the very least. He upheld the law. I do not know you can ask anything more of anybody than that. Plus, this is a fellow who graduated No. 1 in his class from Tulane University School of Law, who is very bright and was very candid and open with the committee, and yet being filibustered for no good reason. It really is unseemly.

Mr. HATCH. Normally in the Reagan-Bush I-Clinton years, 80 to 85 percent--85 to 90 percent.

Mr. HATCH. By the end of the third year.

Mr. HATCH. Well, in the case of Bill Clinton, President Clinton, 91 percent, if I recall correctly.

Mr. HATCH. People don't realize how important these circuit courts of appeals are. We have shown this chart that they have is not only inaccurate, it is a bold-faced lie. Because they can't really come out here with a straight face and admit they are going to filibuster at least 12 circuit judges and some district court judges.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Absolutely true.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I apologize to those listening in and to my colleagues for having laryngitis.

Mr. HATCH. Your voice is not much better than mine, from what I can hear. Whenever you are losing an argument, you try to bring up something that might help you to win. This argument about jobs is very important, but I remember all last Monday being wasted by our colleagues on the other side. I can list all of the obstructions that have occurred this year, time after time, when we tried to do something that might be good in that area. This phony chart of 168 to 4, it doesn't take any brains to realize that is totally false. Tomorrow, we are going to have two cloture votes on two more, so there are at least six. If you go through all those they really do plan to filibuster, you get up around 15, 16, or 17. This is the first time in history this has happened. I rise to speak about the judicial nominees being filibustered by a minority of Senators. I have served in the Senate for 27 years, and I can honestly say President Bush's nominees are among the best I have ever seen. They are experienced, intelligent, ethical, hard working, respected in their communities, and they have given their lives to public service. We honor these great men and women for volunteering to serve their country. They have put forward their good names for evaluation by the Senate and they deserve a simple up-or-down vote-- just the dignity of the vote. Our priority is to vote on these nominees. We owe them no less. By June of this year, we had two well-qualified nominees blocked by filibusters. These filibusters were the first two in the history of this body. By the end of July, we again made history, adding a third filibustered nominee. By October, we had four nominees filibustered, another record. Shortly, we will have two more filibustered nominees, yet another record. The number continues to rise. Those who are watching this, don't believe this phony chart. That has never happened before. Like you say, it is one thing to say we gave the 168 a trial. Most of them are district court judges now. So we gave 168 a trial, but we only lynched 4 of them--6 of them now, or 8 probably next week. It will be up to 17 before long. I promise not to talk about the color of somebody's tie or my favorite fast food. I want to talk more about numbers tonight. I want to talk about President Bush's nominees to the Federal court. Ambrose Bierce defined nominee as a ``modest gentleman [or gentlewoman] shrinking from the distinction of private life and diligently seeking the honorable obscurity of public office.'' That may or may not be the case, but I want to highlight several of the distinguished and respected judicial nominees who are currently being filibustered by the Democratic Party members, Justice Janice Rogers Brown, Justice Priscilla Owen, and Judge Carolyn Kuhl. We can talk in terms of numbers, but I prefer to talk about why these three distinguished judges deserve a simple up-or-down vote on the Senate floor, and why they deserve to be confirmed as Federal judges. We started hearing from the other side that, according to my colleagues, these nominees have despicable views, or are wildly out of the mainstream, or from the hard right, are mean people, have embarrassing records, are far out and off the charts, are unqualified, are activist, are extremists, or rightwingers who would like to take the country back to the 1890s, are deeply hostile to and actively seeking to undermine civil rights, women's rights, and workers rights-- gee--seek to turn back the clock on constitutional rights, have records of not really helping women, seem to have little regard for the rights of women, and represent the ``worst of the worst,'' as one colleague on the other side put it the other day. Those were the nice things they have said. Actually, Judiciary Committee hearings often remind me of an old Far Side cartoon showing three cowboys on Main Street in the Old West. One cowboy lies sprawled on the dusty street, with a revolver lying next to his arm. The cowboy on the left stands with a smoking gun, staring at the fallen man, and saying: ``OK, stranger . . . What's the circumference of the Earth? . . . Who wrote the `Odyssey' and the `Iliad'? . . . What's the average rainfall of the Amazon Basin?'' The cowboy on the right stands stunned, with his hands to his face, saying, ``Bart, you fool! You can't shoot first and ask questions later!'' In a similar vein, Ambrose Bierce wrote that to nominate someone was to ``designate for the heaviest political assessment. To put forward a suitable person to incur the mudglobbing and deadcatting of the opposition.'' I often fear we do not give our judicial nominees a fair chance before shooting them down. The other side, before they heard one word out of Janice Rogers Brown's mouth, was already shooting her down; they didn't give her a chance. I hope we can move past applying labels to the fine men and women who have volunteered to serve their country through judicial service. Our duty under the Constitution is to determine whether judicial nominees possess the experience, intelligence, and temperament needed for judicial service. Our constitutional responsibility is to judge whether judicial nominees are willing and able to place the rule of law above all other concerns in rendering justice. The Senate cannot fulfill its constitutional duty when a minority of Senators refuses to allow an up- or-down vote for the President's nominees. As it stands, a bipartisan majority of U.S. Senators stand ready to vote on and confirm each of these excellent nominees.

Mr. HATCH. Yes, I am happy to.

Mr. HATCH. That is true. Remember, all throughout the Clinton administration, on all their nominees, our friends on the other side were saying if the ABA approves them with a qualified rating, then they deserve to have an up-or-down vote. When they have a well-qualified rating, the highest rating you can possibly have, then there is no question they deserve an up-or-down vote. Like the three cowboys in the street I talked about, they shoot them down before they even get a chance to have that vote up or down.

Mr. HATCH. Yes. I might add Justice Owen, to get back to her, had 84 percent of the vote in the year 2000. That is the highest support of any State supreme court justice that year. Most every major newspaper in Texas endorsed her. Our colleagues on the other side say she is out of the mainstream. Give me a break. In the case of Justice Brown, she won 76 percent of the vote. I think there were four, if I recall correctly, supreme court justices up for election. She won the highest vote of all of them in a State not known for conservative politics. Yet they have tried to paint her like she is some sort of a rightwing nut. Well, just look at NBC News. They made it pretty clear she is no rightwing nut. She is a very good person.

Mr. HATCH. Yes, of both Democrats and Republicans. She is one of the most highly rated judges in California. She is outstanding. Frankly, these are Democrats saying she made one of the best judges on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Mr. HATCH. Well, I suppose the overwhelming majority in the most populated State, in the case of California, is out of the mainstream. I guess the overwhelming majority in one of the largest States in the Union, Texas, is out of the mainstream. You know, I suppose having the support of her fellow judges, in the case of Carolyn Kuhl, across the board, Democrats and Republicans, is out of the mainstream. According to these people over here--I will tell you who is out of the mainstream, it is these people over here who are filibustering judges for the first time in history and really endangering this process. It is ridiculous. It is wrong. I think the American people have to rise up and let them know it is wrong.

Mr. HATCH. I am happy to.

Mr. HATCH. I have been on the Judiciary Committee for 27 years. I have to say I have not seen any better nominees in that whole time. As far as ethics, the only one the Democrats demanded an answer to every question--questions about future cases that will come before them--not the only one, but the main one, was Bill Pryor. The other one was Miguel Estrada. To make a long story short, it has been a very unfair process for these people. We have more than made the case that Miguel Estrada was treated completely different from John Roberts. Both of them served in the Solicitor General's Office. They asked these stupid questions about documents that are the most highly privileged documents in the Government today, and seven former Solicitors General said these cannot be given, and they used that as a phony excuse to shoot down Miguel Estrada, who is well qualified by the American Bar Association. When Bill Pryor answered all the questions, they said you answered too many questions. You are damned if you do, damned if you don't. It is pretty clear, they just wanted to shoot these people down right from the beginning. To come out here and make such a fuss about jobs when they have been obstructive all year long is so phony that I have to admit, it almost brings tears to my eyes. Maybe it does bring some tears to my eyes because phony things tend to do that.

Mr. HATCH. I do. Sometimes the district courts are involved and that is why we need the circuit court of appeals. Yet this President is treated different than prior Presidents, including President Clinton. About two-thirds of the circuit court nominees haven't even had a vote. Usually by this time in a President's career about 90 percent have had a vote.

Mr. HATCH. I am delighted to.

Mr. HATCH. How much time is left?

Mr. HATCH. I was hoping somebody would ask that. We have a chart prepared. They put it up. Filibuster comes from a Spanish word ``filibustero,'' meaning a pirating or hijacking, one word for obstruction. That is what it is. Look, I have no problem with filibusters on the legislative calendar because the Senate can set its own rules. But when it comes to the Executive Calendar, that calendar depends on your exercising restraint by advising and consenting, which means a simple majority vote up and down. In the Clinton years, every Clinton nominee who came to the floor got a vote up or down. We did have a few who wanted to filibuster Clinton nominees. I personally stopped that because I recognized it would be disastrous for the Senate if we went down that road. As you can see, it is disastrous. We are in the middle of going down that road. We have already gone down it because our colleagues on the other side just don't seem to understand how important it is for them not to filibuster Federal judicial nominees. But I thank my colleague for bringing it up.

Mr. HATCH. I will be happy to.