Orrin Hatch

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. I cannot speak to that. All I can say is that I will take the Senator's statement at face value, as I know he is a practicing member of the Catholic faith, and I respect him for that. I know he is very sincere, and I know he has even written about it. But I am concerned. Three of the people we have been told will be filibustered are traditional pro-life, Catholic conservatives. Certainly, Pryor is one of them. Kuhl is another. Holmes is another. It is a matter of great concern. I have to say that these inside-the-Beltway outside groups will use anything; they will distort a person's record. It is abysmal what they are doing, and they are well heeled to the tune of millions of dollars, which they spend spreading this bile all over the Senate. Unfortunately, I believe there are some in this body who do not decry what they are doing.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, as my colleague knows, I had to stand up to some in my own caucus. Not many. There were some, one or two, who wanted to filibuster President Clinton's nominees. As the Senator will recall, I stood up to that and said we are not going to filibuster judicial nominees. It is not right, and I believe it is constitutionally unsound. Some of the outside groups were sincere but they wanted to--I believed them to be sincere but wrong--distort some of these matters, and I refused to allow them to do it. They demanded to testify in a variety of cases, and I told them no, we are not going to denigrate the judicial process with that type of stuff.

Mr. HATCH. Well, the Senator is right. He is a very serious practicing Catholic. He despises Roe v. Wade. He makes very strong and principled arguments against it. He did not mince any words when he was asked, Did you call it an abomination? And he said: Yes, I did, sir. When they asked why, he said he called it an abomination because, words to the effect, he believes that it led to the deaths of millions of unborn children. Yet when it came down to enforcing the law on partial-birth abortion, that he despises, he enforced the law, and he directed his prosecutors in the State to do likewise. I do not know whether we can find any better people than that. There are a lot of politicians who have been attorneys general who I do not think would have done that in the face of their personal beliefs, but he did because he is dedicated to the law. He knows if one does not uphold the law, even if they disagree with it, it would not be long until we would not have any laws. The Constitution would go itself, and he understands that. He is a brilliant man, graduated magna cum laude from Tulane, which is a fine law school, and was editor in chief of the Law Review, something that very few people have the privilege of doing, and that is because he was one of the best students in his class. Frankly, he has more than shown an aptitude to the law and an ability to follow the law.

Mr. HATCH. I think there are all kinds of examples. Let me go through a few, if I can. Hopefully, this will be helpful in what the good Senator has asked for. General Pryor's record speaks with far more authority and with much greater eloquence than the fulminations against him. His record of enforcing the Supreme Court dictates on abortion is unquestioned. He has enforced them all. Despite criticizing them all as a traditional pro-life, Catholic conservative, he has criticized abortion but he has upheld the law. Although he has been attacked for his federalism arguments before the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court sided with him in most of those cases. Arguing that Congress does not have the power that it has assumed through certain legislative acts is not activist or radical. It is principled, entirely consistent with our constitutional separation of powers, and it is General Pryor's duty as State attorney general. In all the federalism cases he has argued, he advocated that only certain portions of Federal laws were unconstitutional. In all cases, remedies remained available for aggrieved parties or the Federal Government. I cited some of these cases earlier. Let me give another illustration. His critics have also attempted to portray him as an official without the respect for the separation of church and State. Again, it is simply beyond dispute that his record proves his repeated ability to enforce the law regardless of his strong personal religious beliefs. In an effort to defeat challenges to school prayer and the display of the Ten Commandments in the Alabama Supreme Court, both the government that appointed General Pryor and Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore urged General Pryor to argue that the Bill of Rights does not apply to the States. General Pryor refused, even though his personal beliefs were different, and he argued the case on much narrower grounds despite his own deeply held Catholic faith and personal support for both of those issues. General Pryor has always been attacked for his statements urging modification or repeal of section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. However, despite General Pryor's well-documented concerns about section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, he has vigorously enforced all provisions of the act. He successfully defended before the Supreme Court several majority-minority voting districts approved under section 5 from a challenge by a group of white Alabama voters. He feels deeply about these issues. He also issued an opinion that the use of stickers to replace one candidate's name for another on a ballot requires preclearance under section 5. Again, General Pryor enforced the law despite its conflicts with his beliefs. Despite the distortions, half-truths, and outright falsehoods we have heard about him from the usual leftist inside-the-Beltway interest groups, General Pryor is a diligent, honorable, faithful man whose loyalties as a public servant have been to the law and its impartial administration. He has told us under oath he will continue to follow the law, just as he has demonstrated in his distinguished career in Alabama. We should be proud to give his nomination an up-or-down vote. Throughout his hearing, it was one question after another on abortion--one question after another--and he made it clear that as much as he thinks that the outcome of the case of Roe v. Wade is an abomination, because it has resulted in the death of millions of unborn children--and he was very straightforward about it, very honest about it, and was complimented by my colleagues for his honesty, yet they will not accept his honesty on this topic--he said he would enforce Roe v. Wade, which is the law.

Mr. HATCH. At least in one instance over and over it was on the issue of abortion. Several Democrats asked questions about that.

Mr. HATCH. That is exactly right. He took a lot of flack for it and he believed the way they did, but he also made it clear that that is the law and that he was going to follow it. He followed it as an elected political official. Now, if he can follow the law impartially as an elected political official, imagine the honor he would bring to the bench, where it's his job to be impartial. He did not have to do it as an elected political official, although I would not have respected him had he not, but as a judge, I think we have more than ample evidence that this man would follow the law regardless of his personal beliefs. Yet he has been smeared by the outside groups on his personal beliefs. It is just that simple.

Mr. HATCH. Without losing my right to the floor.

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

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

Mr. HATCH. I yield to the distinguished Senator from California, and I intend to take the floor as soon as she is through.

Mr. HATCH. I have no doubt, to answer the Senator's question, if we continue down this pathway we are going to devolve to where people with strongly held religious beliefs are not going to be able to serve in this country. That is what it comes down to. I have no doubt that if we continue to violate the Constitution by allowing filibusters against-- under our advise and consent mandate in the Constitution, we are going to wind up with a mess on our hands that we will not be able to repair. So we have to get out of this. I call on our colleagues on the other side to get real here.

Mr. HATCH. People have a right to schedule the judge.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, let me take the floor. I am going to yield the floor in just a second. I expect the distinguished Senator from California to be recognized so she can take 15 minutes. Then I am going to warn the Senate, right now, the minute she is through, I want the floor back, and I have a right to have it as the leader on the majority side. Am I right, parliamentarily?

Mr. HATCH. I didn't do that.

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I compliment the distinguished Senator from California as well. I feel very deeply toward her. I think she is a wonderful person, and I think she is a fine Senator who works very hard on the Judiciary Committee. And I appreciate her kind remarks about me. Mr. President, let me make something clear. I keep hearing that we are going to vote on judges. Well, I certainly wish that were the case. What we are talking about is a cloture vote tomorrow, and one on Friday. It is not unusual at all, in fact it is a matter of course, for the Senate to double track various items in the interests of the body to keep on top of matters. The two trade bills are extremely important for this country, with two of our greatest allies and supporters, Chile and Singapore. It needs to be done. There is no reason to have hours of debate on it. There are some hard feelings about it, and so forth, but it can be done. We could have debated this in the hour before the cloture vote, which is what the rule calls for. If we invoke cloture, there will be ample opportunity to devote time to the total debate on General Pryor. But now let me just make another point or two. The distinguished Senator from California is very upset at him because he actually took up to the Supreme Court an issue on the Violence Against Women Act. She takes great umbrage at that. Unfortunately, he won. So to indicate that he may be outside the mainstream or somebody who should not be supported because he wins in front of the Supreme Court--and almost everything they criticize, as far as Supreme Court matters are concerned, he has won on, until this last term when he lost on a couple of issues. And in every case he followed what he believed the law was regardless of his own personal beliefs. By the way, I am one of the coauthors in the Congress of the Violence Against Women Act. So to criticize him for something that the Supreme Court agrees with him on gives an indication who is outside the mainstream. It isn't General Pryor. And there is case after case after case where he wins that has been criticized by our colleagues over there as though somehow or other he has been off the charts when it comes to the law. He has been on the charts. I admit, he has lost some, too. But I don't know of anybody who has taken multiple cases to the Supreme Court who has won everything. I know a few who have had pretty good records--and he has one of the better records as an attorney general in this country. My Democratic colleagues assert, in laundry list format, that General Pryor is basically against everything they are for. He is ``out of the mainstream.'' We hear that over and over again. Pryor is against civil rights, disability rights, minorities and women themselves, the environment--the whole thing, presumably, and of course--abortion rights. I am paraphrasing just one Democratic Senator's statement during the markup on July 23, 2003, but it is a fair representation of the types of assertions against General Pryor that are designed not to debate his fitness for the Federal bench but, rather, to strangle debate before it begins. To paint this excellent nominee as so ``extreme'' as to be not worth discussing. By the way, we did not bring this debate up tonight. I did not want to stand here tonight and answer these so-called allegations. My friends on the other side did. They are the ones who interrupted the Energy bill, which is being slow-walked. And we all understand that--as almost everything has been this year. These are what you call obstructionist tactics. And that is what is going on here. For them to come out here on the Senate floor and act like, well, we are interrupting the energy debate--it is almost more than I can take. This energy debate is very important. It should be over. And I would be happy to end it right now, have the cloture vote tomorrow. I will even give up the hour before cloture, if they want to, to keep working on the Energy bill. But, no, that is not what they are doing. This is all a slow-walk to try to make this Congress look as if it isn't a good one, even though, in spite of these slow-walks, we have done bill after bill after bill, some of them extremely important pieces of legislation. Let me provide you with a succinct but very different, and much more realistic picture of General Pryor. General Pryor has been criticized as insensitive to the rights of the disabled because he argued in the Garrett case that the Americans with Disabilities Act could not, under section 5 of the 14th amendment, validly abrogate States' 11th amendment immunity and authorize money damage suits against States in Federal court. But the Supreme Court agreed with General Pryor. He is being criticized by others on the Senate floor for cases that he has won in the Supreme Court. He has also been criticized as insensitive to age-based discrimination because he and a bipartisan group of 23 other State attorneys general--23 other bipartisan State attorneys general--argued in the Kimel v. Florida Board of Regents case that the provision of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act that allowed money damage suits against States in Federal courts was invalid under the 11th amendment, something that they should have argued because it is an important issue. But, again, the Supreme Court agreed with General Pryor. He is being criticized for winning cases in the Supreme Court as though he is the one who is out of the mainstream. I don't think it takes any brains to realize who is out of the mainstream. It is not General Pryor. And we have heard criticism that he is insensitive to women's rights because he argued in the case of U.S. v. Morrison that neither the commerce clause nor the 14th amendment provided Congress with the authority to enact one civil remedies provision of the Violence Against Women Act. But the Supreme Court agreed with him again. Further, General Pryor has been criticized as anti-environment because of his argument in Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County that the Army Corps of Engineers did not have the authority, under the Federal Clean Water Act, to exercise Federal jurisdiction over entirely intrastate bodies of water--in this case, an abandoned gravel pit. He was arguing for his State, which is what attorneys general are obligated to do. He even urged the Court not to reach the issue of whether the Commerce Clause allowed Congress to regulate entirely intrastate bodies of water. The Court did not reach the Commerce Clause issue and again agreed with General Pryor's statutory interpretation argument. So I guess those who oppose Pryor are saying when the Supreme Court agrees with you that an environmental statute should be interpreted in accordance with its actual language, rather than expanded through bureaucratic fiat, that makes you extreme and anti-environment, especially when you win the case in front of the Supreme Court. Talk about turning the world upside down. General Pryor has even been criticized as insensitive to civil rights concerns because of his argument in Alexander v. Sandoval that there is no private right of action under title VI of the Federal Civil Rights Act to challenge Alabama's policy of issuing drivers' licenses only to English speakers--a policy that I understand is no longer in effect. Once again, the Supreme Court agreed with his argument, holding that Congress, not Federal courts, should create causes of action to enforce Federal laws. That proposition should not be controversial, nor should supporting it be held against General Pryor, who again won in the Supreme Court. Finally, let me just give one more example. The Supreme Court, including Justice Souter, agreed with General Pryor's argument in the Scheidler v. NOW case that Federal antiracketeering laws could not properly be applied to pro-life protest groups who admittedly had not engaged in any activities covered by those laws with respect to the targets of their protests. So while General Pryor may have criticized Justice Souter, they do not always disagree when it comes down to interpreting the law. Let me say this. A nominee is not an extremist--or should I put the word ``extremist'' in quotes because it seems to be a special word that is used so often by our colleagues--a nominee is not an extremist when the positions he has taken have been consistently supported by Supreme Court majorities. We know who the extremists are, and it isn't General Pryor. We will hear more about these cases, and I'm not saying Bill Pryor has won all of these arguments at the Supreme Court. Not even the best lawyers can win them all, and he did lose a couple in this last session. But to say that Bill Pryor is ``out of the mainstream,'' when he has been such a successful advocate for his State in the Nation's highest Court, is plainly wrong. Anybody who makes that argument should think twice before they make that type of argument. We are in the middle of a slow walk here, trying to make the Senate look bad--not by Republicans but by the other side. Frankly, to complain about double-tracking important things like a circuit court of appeals judgeship, the third branch of Government in our society, I think is hitting a little bit below the belt. It is certainly not unusual for cloture votes on judgeship nominees when the other side is filibustering for the first time in history Federal judicial nominees. I made the mistake of saying the Fortas nomination was the only filibuster up until now. I was wrong. I was corrected by none other than former Senator Robert Griffin who led the fight against Fortas. He said: We weren't filibustering, and they knew it. They knew we had the votes to beat them up and down and they are the ones who called for the cloture vote, which they barely won. They only had 45 votes, and there were 12 who weren't there, many of whom were going to vote against Fortas for justifiable reasons. So these filibusters going on now are the only ones we've ever had in the Senate. My colleagues on the other side are fond of saying: There have been 140 Bush judges confirmed by us and only two have been filibustered. That is two too many. Constitutionally, that is two too many. One is one too many. I have to admit there were a few on our side during the Clinton years who wanted to filibuster some of those judges. I personally stopped them with the help of the leadership and others who thought it through that we should not be filibustering judges. It is the wrong thing to do. It should not be done, but it is being done here.

Mr. HATCH. This is the first time we have ever----

Mr. HATCH. If the Senator will just wait for a few more minutes, I want to make a point on Rule 4. For the life of me, I can't understand how anybody reading the Judiciary Committee's Rule 4 would interpret it any differently than the way I did. I was surprised to see my comments during the Bill Lan Lee nomination used against me. What happened there was, I was Chairman. We had the votes to stop the nomination. The Democrats didn't want us to stop the nomination because it would have been embarrassing and might have made it more difficult for them to recess-appoint Lee, who I would have supported for any other job in Government but not that one. Because I knew he would get there and he would use the power of the civil rights office to bring litigation against communities, municipalities who would have to give in rather than spend millions of dollars in defense fees and accept full scale racial quotas. My fears were confirmed. Because they recess-appointed him and he did bring that kind of litigation. But with the Lee nomination, the Democrats started a filibuster of their own nominee. There was no reason for them to make any arguments. I would have given them a vote up or down right there. They started the filibuster. I, in graciousness, agreed not to have a vote. I have to admit I myself was in error by making some of the statements I did because I didn't realize the importance of this, nor had I even looked at Rule 4. But let's look at this Rule. It says: ``The chairman shall entertain. . . .'' That means this is a rule that forces the chairman to entertain a nondebatable motion to bring a matter before the committee to a vote. It is a way of forcing the chairman to give a vote that you could not otherwise give if the chairman decided not to do it. ``The chairman shall entertain a nondebatable motion to bring a matter before the committee to a vote if there is objection to bringing the matter to a vote without further debate''--a rollcall vote, in other words. If the chairman refuses, they can then demand a rollcall vote of the committee to be taken. It is nondebatable. It has to happen. And ``debate shall be terminated if the motion to bring the matter to a vote without further debate passes with 10 votes in the affirmative, one of which must be cast by the minority.'' Anybody with brains can read that and say: That is a rule that forces a recalcitrant chairman to have to call a vote. But any competent person reading that can also conclude, as have I, having consulted with the two Parliamentarians beforehand, that a chairman cannot be foreclosed from his right to call a vote. Because if that were the rule, that means the minority would always control whether there would ever be a vote on a judge. That can't possibly be the rule, though that is what Democrats now are trying to say it is, with regard to the Committee's vote on General Pryor. We are all well aware by now that Democrats invoked the Judiciary Committee's rule 4 to try to block a committee vote on General Pryor's nomination. Their interpretation of this rule was and is simply incorrect, and let me explain why. Rule 4, entitled ``Bringing a Matter to a Vote,'' was clearly intended to serve as a tool by which a determined majority of the committee could force a recalcitrant chairman to bring a matter to vote. In fact, the rule provides, ``The Chairman shall entertain a non- debatable motion to bring a matter before the Committee to a vote.'' On July 23, there was no motion to bring a matter before the committee to a vote. In fact, there was an objection to voting, which I overruled. Thus, on its face, rule 4 was inapplicable to the Pryor nomination. If we followed the interpretation that Democratic members of the committee urged, it would mean that the committee minority would essentially control the committee's agenda. Essentially, the committee's chairman, on behalf of the majority, could not bring any nomination or piece of legislation to a vote without the affirmative vote of at least one member of the minority. So the chairman would have no right to call for a vote--the minority could restrict that right at their discretion. No chairman would suffer such limitations on his power. The limitation that exists in rule 4 as properly interpreted is entirely reasonable: that all members of the committee's majority, plus one minority member, can force the committee to have a vote over the objection of the chairman--who, in that case, clearly would not be representing his committee's majority. Rule 4 does not, as Democrats, would currently, expediently, have it allow the minority to prevent a vote. Rule 4 does not authorize filibusters in the Judiciary Committee. Despite claims to the contrary, there has been no inconsistency in the interpretation of this rule. During the Clinton administration, in an effort to prevent the defeat in committee of a controversial Justice Department nominee and spare both committee Democrats and the administration considerable embarrassment, I chose not to exercise the inherent power that I and all committee chairmen have to bring a matter to a vote. President Clinton ultimately made a recess appointment of the nominee. In retrospect, my graciousness to the other side, and my reliance on rule 4 to accomplish this was admittedly not the best course of action. I nevertheless believe that I had the power to bring that matter to a vote, and that I used the discretion of the chairman to decide not to do so. In short, there was no violation of committee rules or process in bringing the Pryor nomination to a vote on July 23, and any argument to the contrary was merely a last-ditch effort to prevent the full Senate from considering it. Unfortunately, that effort continues, in a manner equally offensive to the ultimate rules that govern the Senate, the U.S. Constitution. The fact is, this was the fifth markup that General Pryor was on, having had his confirmation hearing on June 11. And there were continual Democratic efforts to try and thwart these markups every time. I went along with a number of those efforts just out of graciousness. But on July 23 everybody knew we were going to vote because at the prior markup they invoked the two-hour rule, the Democrats did, so that we couldn't possibly, during the time the Senate was in session, vote on Mr. Pryor. I said: Well, then we will meet after the Senate goes out, which would get around the two-hour rule. That meant about 9 o'clock at night that night, the Thursday before we finally voted. Everybody knew I had the votes. Everybody knew I was going to go ahead. We gave them all day to resolve any problems they had in this so-called ``investigation'' which is as phony as any investigation I have ever seen. By the time we got ready, nobody told me about this, but by the time we got ready for the vote or for the Senate to go out of session and for us to meet--and we worked all day to make sure we would have a quorum--I was informed that there was a personal exigency that existed, a legitimate personal exigency, that was known about earlier in the day, and I agreed to not continue the markup. I put it over then until the next Wednesday, a full week, and said: Get the staffs together, interview the four witnesses you want to, interview General Pryor in the process, but next Wednesday we are going to vote. There have been comments that our staff stalled that. That is not true. I believe the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts tried to make that point. That is not true. As a matter of fact, the Democrats' staff refused to interview or ask questions of Mr. Pryor who could have easily answered them all, and would have, and in fact already had answered all of these questions at his hearing and in writing. It was a phony ``gotcha'' type of a situation which Democrats on the Judiciary Committee are putting nominees through. Let me talk about the religious problem. I am getting a little tired of this. The outside groups have been outrageous with the smears they have brought upon Republican judicial nominees. If you made one mistake in your life or what they perceive to be a mistake, you are going to be smeared because of it. That perceived mistake is going to be enough for these groups to try to ruin your whole career. The tactics used against Judge Kuhl are a perfect illustration. Her whole career she has had the support of Democratic and Republican judges and everybody else in California who really counts, it seems to me, as far as judges are concerned. They found one thing they can beat into the ground, they think. I don't think even that is valid. I think we can rebut that case. And yet they are going to stop this brilliant woman who has a well-qualified rating, their gold standard, from the American Bar Association. What is particularly offensive is what the outside groups have done against some of our nominees because of religious beliefs. By the way, throughout the extensive, lengthy, one-of-a-kind hearing on Judge Pryor, there were consistent questions about his deeply held beliefs. This has caused a lot of people to become very upset.

Mr. HATCH. This is the first time I have seen this letter. To him, this is a very important issue. The views he expresses are drawn from what he's heard at the hearing and the markup. Reasonable people can draw these conclusions from the markup, from the debate. It is coming down to where abortion is the be-all and end-all issue to my colleagues on the other side. Sure, they cannot vote against everyone. I don't know how many of these people are pro-life or pro- choice. I never ask anyone that. The fact is, I can see why people are drawing this conclusion. I will give a few other reasons they are drawing that conclusion before we are through here tonight.

Mr. HATCH. I ask unanimous consent that the distinguished Senator from California be recognized for 15 minutes.

Mr. HATCH. First, I have seen the letter dated July 30, 2003, which I believe the Senator has put into the Record. The first time I have seen it is tonight.

Mr. HATCH. I am sorry. I am happy to yield for a question without losing my right to the floor.

Mr. HATCH. You cannot object.

Mr. HATCH. Right. I am concerned about this. I know some of these outside groups have been doing this regularly. I personally do not believe the distinguished Senator from California is--and I hope none of the other Democrat Senators on the committee are--against Mr. Pryor because of his religious beliefs. But I have to admit that people all over the country have been calling me and talking to me and saying, how could it be anything else? People are drawing that conclusion, and I will be honest with you, I am concerned about it.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise today to speak on the nomination of Miguel Estrada for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. It is truly a sad record that the Senate is now being obstructed by multiple filibusters on judicial nominees and that we are required to conduct an unprecedented seventh cloture vote on this particular extremely qualified nominee. Let me state that a clear majority of this body supports this nomination, as has been demonstrated in the past six cloture votes. So it is regrettable that a minority number of Senators have followed their script of extraordinary obstructionism to prevent the Senate from concluding the debate on this nomination and proceeding to a final vote. It has now been 6 months since Mr. Estrada's nomination was reported by the Judiciary Committee and placed on the Senate Executive Calendar. It has been nearly 8 months since he was renominated by President Bush. It has been more than 10 months since his hearing before the committee, and I has been more than 2 years since he was first nominated by President Bush on May 9, 2001. In all of that time my Democratic colleagues have had unlimited opportunities to make their case. Some of them oppose him; others support him. But one thing has remained clear through this debate: There is no good reason to continue this route of obstruction by denying Mr. Estrada an up-or-down vote. We are at a troubling point in Senate history. Over the past few months I have spoken frequently on the calculated effort to stall action on President Bush's judicial nominees. There have been efforts to bottle up nominees in committee, to inject ideology into the confirmation process, to delay by demanding production of all unpublished opinions of nominees who are sitting Federal judges and making demands for answers to questions that are unanswerable. And, in the case of Mr. Estrada, opponents have demanded he produce confidential internal memoranda that are not within his control. When these tactics have failed, opponents have turned to their ultimate weapon--the filibuster. Filibusters of judicial nominees allow a vocal minority to prevent the majority of Senators from voting on the confirmation of a Federal judge, a prospective member of our third, coequal branch of Government. It is tyranny of the minority, and it is unfair to the nominee, to the judiciary, and to the majority of the Members of this body who stand prepared to fulfill their constitutional responsibility by voting on Mr. Estrada's nomination. I am not alone in my disdain for delaying or defeating judicial nominees through a cloture vote. I think that it is appropriate at this point to note that many of my Democratic colleagues argued strenuously on the floor of the Senate for an up-or-down vote for President Clinton's judicial nominees. The distinguished minority leader himself once said, ``As Chief Justice Rehnquist has recognized: `The Senate is surely under no obligation to confirm any particular nominee, but after the necessary time for inquiry it should vote him up or vote him down.' An up-or-down vote, that is all we ask. . . .'' The ranking member of the Judiciary Committee echoed these sentiments when he said, ``. . . I, too, do not want to see the Senate go down a path where a minority of the Senate is determining a judge's fate on votes of 41.'' Another one of my Democratic colleagues, Senator Kennedy, himself a former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, had this to say: ``Nominees deserve a vote. If our Republican colleagues don't like them, vote against them. But don't just sit on them--that's obstruction of justice.'' The distinguished Senator from California, Senator Feinstein, who also serves on the Judiciary Committee, likewise said in 1999, ``A nominee is entitled to a vote. Vote them up; vote them down.'' She continued, ``It is our job to confirm these judges. If we don't like them, we can vote against them. That is the honest thing to do. If there are things in their background, in their abilities that don't pass muster, vote no.'' My other colleague from California, Senator Boxer, said in 1997, ``It is not the role of the Senate to obstruct the process and prevent numbers of highly qualified nominees from even being given the opportunity for a vote on the Senate floor.'' My colleague from Delaware, Senator Biden, also said in 1997, ``I . . . respectfully suggest that everyone who is nominated is entitled to have a shot, to have a hearing and to have a shot to be heard on the floor and have a vote on the floor.'' The qualifications of Miguel Estrada are well known to the Senate. However I would like to briefly remind my colleagues of his outstanding record of accomplishment. Miguel Estrada represents an American success story. Born in Honduras, he immigrated to the United States as a teenager to join his mother. Overcoming a language barrier and speech impediment, he graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1983 from Columbia College. At Harvard Law School he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review and graduated magna cum laude in 1986. Mr. Estrada's professional career has been marked by one success after another. After graduation he clerked for Second Circuit Judge Amalya Kearse--a Carter appointee--then Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. He worked as an associate at the distinguished firm of Wachtell Lipton in New York. He then worked as a Federal prosecutor in Manhattan, rising to become deputy chief of the appellate division. In recognition of his appellate skills, he was hired by the Solicitor General's Office during the first Bush administration. He stayed with the SG's Office for most of the Clinton administration. When he left the SG's Office, he joined the D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, where he has continued to excel as a partner and has risen to the top of the ranks of oral advocates nationwide, having argued fifteen cases before the Supreme Court. The legal bar's wide regard for Mr. Estrada is reflected in his evaluation by the American Bar Association. The ABA evaluates judicial nominees based on their professional qualifications, their integrity, their professional competence, and their judicial temperament. Based on its assessment of these factors, the ABA has bestowed upon Mr. Estrada its highest rating of unanimously well qualified. His supporters include a host of well-respected Clinton administration lawyers, including Ron Klain, former Vice President Gore's chief of staff; Robert Litt, head of the Criminal Division in the Reno Justice Department; Randolph Moss, former Assistant Attorney General; and Seth Waxman, former Solicitor General. I have, on previous occasions, placed letters of support in the record. I would refer my colleagues to previous statements regarding Mr. Estrada's qualifications and endorsements. Yet, despite the superb record, qualifications, temperament and experience of Mr. Estrada, he continues to be blocked in his nomination. In support of their obstruction, our Democratic colleagues have repeatedly raised red-herring issues with two demands that Mr. Estrada answer their questions, and that the administration release confidential memoranda he authored at the Solicitor General's Office. With regard to the first demand, the record is clear that Mr. Estrada spent hours during a day-long hearing answering my Democratic colleagues' questions. He answered written questions submitted after the hearing. He gave answers to questions that were substantially similar to answers given by Clinton nominees who were confirmed. Yet my Democratic colleagues still complain that he has not answered their questions. Really, their complaint is that, in answering their questions, Mr. Estrada did not say anything that gives them a reason to vote against him. Simply put, they are not interested in his answers to their questions--they are interested in defeating his nomination. This is why every effort to make Mr. Estrada available to answer additional questions has gone virtually unacknowledged. He has been made available to answer written questions and to meet with individual senators. There has even been an offer to make Mr. Estrada available to answer questions in a second hearing. But only one Democratic Senator has met with Mr. Estrada since these offers were extended, and only one has submitted written questions since the floor debate began, to which Mr. Estrada has responded. We have met our Democratic colleagues more than halfway on this, but they insist on continuing down this path of obstructionism. Their second demand, for the Solicitor General memoranda, has been fully debated. The short response is that never before has a Presidential administration released confidential appeal, certiorari, and amicus recommendations on the scale that my Democratic colleagues seek for Mr. Estrada. This is a full-scale fishing expedition, pure and simple, and the Justice Department is right to oppose it. Despite these supposed reasons for denying an up-or-down vote on Mr. Estrada's nomination, I think there are other factors. Last fall a Democratic staffer on the Judiciary Committee was quoted in The Nation magazine as saying, ``Estrada is 40, and if he makes it to the circuit, then he will be Bush's first Supreme Court nominee. He could be on the Supreme Court for 30 years and do a lot of damage. We have to stop him now.'' So it appears that the real reason for this filibuster is the threat of a Justice Estrada on the Supreme Court. An editorial appearing in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said it best: ``The fear with Owen and Estrada is that one or both will be nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court should a vacancy occur. Senate Democrats are determined to keep off the Circuit Court bench any perceived conservative who has the credentials to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.'' There is an additional factor that is not based on any substantive objection to his nomination. I believe that some Senate Democrats do not want the current President, a Republican President, to appoint the first Hispanic as United States Circuit Judge for the District of Columbia Circuit. Let me read from an editorial published by the Dallas Morning News addressing this point. On February 17, 2003, the News wrote, ``Democrats haven't liked Mr. Estrada from the beginning. Part of that is due to his ideology which is decidedly not Democratic. But part of it also has to do with the fellow who nominated him. Democrats don't relish giving President Bush one more thing to brag about when he goes into Hispanic neighborhoods during his reelection campaign next year. They are even less interested in putting a conservative Republican in line to become the first Hispanic justice on the Supreme Court.'' Miguel Estrada will be an excellent Federal judge. Today, once again, we have a choice either to continue to block another highly qualified nominee for partisan reasons or to allow each Senator to decide the merits of the nomination for himself or herself. I choose to vote against obstructionist tactics and permit an up-or-down vote on the nominee. I urge my colleagues to do likewise. I ask unanimous consent the Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial to be printed in the Record.

Mr. HATCH

Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the nomination of Justice Earl Leroy Yeakel to be a U.S. District Court Judge for the Western District of Texas. Justice Yeakel has been a justice on the Texas Court of Appeals since 1998. For 29 years prior to his judicial service he was engaged in private practice, litigating both civil and criminal matters at the trial and appellate levels in state and federal courts. While attending the University of Texas School of Law, he worked for the Austin law firm of Mitchell, Gilbert & McLean. Upon graduation in 1969, he remained at the firm as an associate counsel, participating in a broad range of litigation-related work. Five years later, Justice Yeakel started his own firm, where he remained until his departure in 1982. In the sixteen years that followed, he served as either an associate or partner in three prominent Austin law firms, litigating both civil and criminal matters at the trial and appellate level in state and federal courts. Justice Yeakel has proven himself to be a distinguished legal scholar, author, practitioner and judge. He enjoys bi-partisan support and I am confident he will make an excellent federal judge. I commend President Bush for nominating Justice Yeakel and urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this nomination. Mr. President, I am also in support of the nomination of Kathleen Cardone to be a U.S. District Court Judge for the Western District of Texas. Since 1983, Judge Cardone has served as a state judge in El Paso County, TX, on numerous courts, including a municipal court, a family law court, and multiple state district courts. In addition to her judicial duties, she has worked as a trained mediator, as well as a teacher of an introductory law course at the El Paso Community College. After graduating from St. Mary's School of Law in 1979, Judge Cardone worked for one year as a briefing attorney for Philip Schraub, a United States Magistrate Judge for the Southern District of Texas. Following this judicial clerkship, she entered private practice, handling an array of cases involving civil, criminal and family law matters. Judge Cardone has proven herself to be a distinguished legal scholar, author, practitioner and judge. She enjoys bipartisan support and I am confident he will make an excellent federal judge. I commend President Bush for nominating Judge Cardone and urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this nomination.