Mr. Chairman, as we hold our first executive session of the second session of the 106th Congress, let us think about the challenge we face with respect to our constitutional responsibility to work with President Clinton to provide the many federal judges desperately needed around the country.

I thank you, Senator Hatch, and Senator Lott, the Majority Leader, for working with me and Senator Daschle, our Democratic leader, to find a way for the Senate to consider each of the judicial nominations reported last year to the Senate by the Judiciary Committee. Last October Senator Lott committed to working with us, and in November he announced that he would press forward for votes on the nominations of Judge Richard Paez and Marsha Berzon to the Ninth Circuit by March 15. I want to commend Senators Feinstein and Boxer for their steadfast support of these nominees. With their support, these longstanding nominations are now in line to receive Senate action. We must do the same with respect to the nomination of Timothy Dyk to the Federal Circuit. All three of these nominations have been pending for too long.

Though the Judiciary Committee has yet to hold a nominations hearing, I begin this year challenging the Senate to regain the pace it met in 1998 when the Committee held 13 hearing and the Senate confirmed 65 judges. That would still be one less than the number of judges confirmed by a Democratic Senate majority in the last year of the Bush Administration in 1992. Indeed, in the last two years of the Bush Administration, a Democratic Senate majority confirmed 124 judges. It would take 90 confirmations this year for this Senate to equal that total.

Over the last five years the Republican-controlled Senate confirmed the following: 58 federal judges in the 1995 session; 17 in 1996; 36 in 1997; 65 in 1998; and 34 in 1999. In one year, 1994, with a Democratic majority in the Senate, we confirmed 101 judges. With commitment and hard work many things are achievable. I am not demanding that the Senate confirm 101 judges this year, as we did in 1994, or 90 or 80 or even 70. But I do challenge the Republican-controlled Senate to hold at least 13 hearings and confirm at least 65 judges, as it did in 1998. We failed to reach those goals last year when the Judiciary Committee held barely half that number of hearings and confirmed barely half that number of judges.

A confirmation total of 65 at the end of this year is achievable if we make the effort, exhibit the commitment and do the work that is needed to be done. We cannot achieve this goal if we wait several months before the Judiciary Committee begins holding the necessary hearings. To hold at least 13 hearings requires the Committee to begin holding hearings right away and to hold hearings every other week for the entire session. I am continuing to work with the Chairman so that all of the nominees before us get a fair hearing before the Committee and a fair up-or-down vote before the Senate.

We begin this year with 79 judicial vacancies, more than existed when the Republican majority took control of the Senate five years ago and over 50 percent more than when the Senate adjourned in 1998. Over the last five years we have actually lost ground in our efforts to fill longstanding judicial vacancies that are plaguing the federal courts.

Moreover, the Republican Congress has refused to consider the authorization of the additional judges needed by the federal judiciary to deal with their ever increasing workload. In 1984, and in 1990, Congress responded to requests by the Chief Justice and the Judiciary Conference for needed judicial resources. Indeed, in 1990, a Democratic majority in the Congress created scores of needed new judgeships during a Republican Administration.

Three years ago the Judicial Conference of the United States requested that an additional 53 judgeships be authorized around the country. Last year the Judicial Conference renewed its request but increased it to 72 judgeships needing to be authorized around the country. Instead, the only federal judgeships created since 1990 were the nine District Court judgeships authorized in the omnibus appropriations bill at the end of last year.

If Congress had timely considered and passed the Federal Judgeship Act of 1999, S.1145, as it should have, the federal judiciary would have over 150 vacancies today. That is the more accurate measure of the needs of the federal judiciary that have been ignored by the Congress over the past several years and places the vacancy rate for the federal judiciary at over 16 percent (151 out of 915). As it is, the vacancy rate is almost 10 percent (79 out of 852) and has remained too high throughout the five years that the Republican majority has controlled the Senate. Especially troubling is the vacancy rate on the courts of appeals, which continues at 15 percent (27 out of 179) without the creation of any of the additional judgeships that those courts need to handle their increased workloads.

Most troubling is the circuit emergency that had to be declared four months ago by the Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. I recall when the Second Circuit had such an emergency two years ago. Along with the other Senators representing States from the Circuit, I worked hard to fill the five vacancies then plaguing my circuit. The situation in the Fifth Circuit is not one that we should tolerate; it is a situation that I wished we had confronted by expediting consideration of the nominations of Alston Johnson and Enrique Moreno last year. I hope that the Senate will consider both of them promptly in the early part of this year. I deeply regret that the Senate adjourned in November and left the Fifth Circuit to deal with the crisis in the federal administration of justice in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi without the resources that it desperately needs. I look forward to our resolving this difficult situation promptly this session.

With 27 vacancies on the Federal appellate courts across the country and 73 percent of the judicial emergency vacancies in the Federal courts system in our appellate courts, our courts of appeals are being denied the resources that they need, and their ability to administer justice for the American people is being hurt. There continue to be multiple vacancies on the Ninth Circuit. Six vacancies out of 28 authorized judgeships is too many; perpetuating five judicial emergency vacancies, as the Senate has in this one circuit, is irresponsible. We should act on these nominations promptly and provide the Ninth Circuit with the judicial resources it needs and to which it is entitled. I am likewise concerned that the Third, Fourth and Sixth Circuits are suffering from multiple vacancies.

I look forward to Senate action on the long delayed nominations of Judge Richard Paez, Marsha Berzon and Tim Dyk. I continue to urge the Senate to meet our responsibilities to all nominees, including women and minorities, and look forward to prompt and favorable action on the nominations of Judge Julio Fuentes to the Third Circuit, Judge James Wynn, Jr. to the Fourth Circuit, Enrique Moreno to the Fifth Circuit, and Kathleen McCree Lewis to the Sixth Circuit.

Working together the Senate can join with the President to confirm well-qualified, diverse and fair-minded judges to fulfill the needs of the federal courts around the country. I urge all Senators, especially the members of this important committee, to make the federal administration of justice a top priority for the Senate this year.



####