Today, during the Senate's August recess, the Judiciary Committee is holding another hearing regarding people the President has indicated he intends to nominate to be federal judges next month. The only precedent for this hearing of which I am aware is the hearing I convened last Wednesday. A judicial confirmation hearing during the August recess is otherwise, as far as I am aware or can recall, unprecedented. This is another indication that I am attempting to go the extra mile to help fill the vacancies on the federal courts with qualified, consensus nominees.

This is the second hearing involving judicial nominations we have held during this recess and the fourth hearing involving judicial nominations since the Senate reorganized and the Judiciary Committee's membership was set on July 10, barely seven weeks ago. I regret that no Republican Senators were available to participate at the hearing last week. I welcome the participation of Senator DeWine, the Ranking Republican on the Antitrust Subcommittee and its former Chairman, who I understand will be serving as the Republican representative at this hearing today.

I am sorry that Senator Hatch is not with us today. This hearing was scheduled for this day after extensive consultation with his staff in which they indicated this was a day that he would be able to attend. Apparently, circumstances changed.

Both of the prospective nominees that we will hear from today served as part of the Republican staff of this Committee. Sharon Prost has been on Senator Hatch's staff for a number of years and currently serves as the highest ranking member of the Republican staff of this Committee. She is our Republican Chief Counsel. I am happy to be able to welcome Ms. Prost in another capacity today.

I know that if Senator Hatch were here he would acknowledge her young sons, as well. We have seen them grow up before our eyes. Their strong and loving relationship shows how well Ms. Prost has met the challenge so many must face as they pursue public service careers while also raising their children. I hope Jeffrey and Matthew are not too disappointed that by proceeding in this expedited fashion before school resumes next week, we have cost them what would have been a pretty good excuse to be absent from class.

Judge Terry Wooten was on Senator Thurmond's staff before becoming a federal magistrate in South Carolina. I know that Senator Thurmond will have a statement in support of Judge Wooten. Senator Thurmond has pressed for this day since President Bush first indicated that he would be nominating Judge Wooten. As a courtesy to our former Chairman and a valued Member of this Committee and the Senate, we are proceeding even though the nomination is not technically before the Committee.

This points up another way in which this hearing is without precedent. Besides taking place during the August recess, a hearing on a judicial nomination would not normally be scheduled in advance of the Senate receiving the nomination and its pendency before the Committee. Just before the Senate recessed in early August, the Senate leadership requested that nominations, including the nominations of Ms. Prost and Judge Wooten, be retained through this August recess notwithstanding the Senate rule that nominations be returned to the President when the Senate recesses for a period of more than 30 days. In the wake of the objection of the Republican Leader to the unanimous consent request, Rule 31, paragraph 6 of the Standing Rules of the Senate required that all pending nominations on which final action was not taken before the recess be returned to the President. That objection by the Republican Leader, like the month-long delay in reorganizing the Senate, serves to complicate and delay consideration of nominations.

I commented last week that for those of us trying to restore dignity and regularity to the nomination and confirmation, the bumps in the road created by the other side are especially frustrating. For example, President Bush's decision to delay the American Bar Association's evaluation of a judicial nominee's qualifications until the nomination is made public, has forced delays in the rest of the process, as well. As a result of this Administration's break with the 50-year-old precedent established under President Eisenhower, the confirmation process of even the least controversial and most qualified candidates is necessarily delayed by several weeks. Likewise this Administration's failures early on to consult with Senators from both parties and to seek nominees who would enjoy broad bipartisan support is a source of concern.

I have alluded to another example– the Republican Leader's objection on August 3, 2001, to Senator Reid's unanimous consent request to avoid returning all pending nominations to the White House. This Republican objection has resulted in the strict application of the Senate rules contributing to needless paperwork and more unnecessary delay.

In order to proceed last week and today we are doing so in a highly unusual manner, without a nomination pending before this Committee. I do so with a high level of concern about this unusual procedure. I do not think that these exceptional hearings should be viewed as precedent. We proceed as a courtesy to our Senate colleagues, Senator Thurmond and Senator Hatch, who so strongly support the nominees here today. In addition I am responding to the request from the White House counsel that the Committee staff continue reviewing files on nominees, even though the Republican Leader's objection had resulted in all those nominations being returned to the President.

This is the seventh hearing I have held since July 11 to consider presidential nominations and the fourth that includes judicial nominations. Our first hearing was noticed within 10 minutes of the adoption of the reorganization resolution and held the day after the Committee membership was set.

When this Committee reports another nominee to a Court of Appeals vacancy, it will have reported as many Court of Appeals nominees since July of this year as this Committee did under Republican control during all of last year. When the Senate next confirms a Court of Appeals nominee, it will have confirmed as many as were confirmed in the entire first year of the Clinton Administration.

When we confirmed Judge Roger Gregory to the Fourth Circuit on July 20 we had confirmed more Court of Appeals judges than a Republican-controlled Senate was willing to confirm in all of 1996-- a year in which not a single nominee to the Courts of Appeals was confirmed.

Although until I became Chairman and began holding hearings last month, no judicial nominations had hearings or were confirmed by the Senate, we are now ahead of the pace of confirmations for judicial nominees in the first year of the Clinton Administration and the pace in the first year of the first Bush Administration.

In the first year of the Clinton Administration, 1993, without all the disruptions, distractions and shifts in Senate majority that we have experienced this year, the first Court of Appeals judge was not confirmed until September 30.

In the entire first year of the first Bush Administration, 1989, without all the disruptions, distractions and shifts of Senate majority that we have experienced this year, the third Court of Appeals nominee was not confirmed until October 24.

For that matter, the record shows that during recent years under a Republican Senate majority, there were no Court of Appeals nominees confirmed at any time during the entire 1996 session, and the first Court of Appeals nominee was not confirmed in 1997 until September 26.

During the more than six years in which the Senate Republican majority scheduled confirmation hearings, there were 34 months with no hearing at all, 30 months with only one hearing and only 12 times in almost six and one-half years did the Judiciary Committee hold as many as two hearings involving judicial nominations during a month.

I held two hearings in July involving judicial nominations and this is our second hearing involving judicial nominees in August, during the traditional recess. A fair assessment of the circumstances of this year would suggest that the work we have done since July, in this shortened time frame of only a few weeks in session should be commended, not criticized.

In light of the bipartisan support for Judge Roger Gregory and the strong interest of Senator Warner and Senator Allen, the two Republican Senators from Virginia, in seeing that nomination proceed to confirmation, I included him in our hearing on July 11.

We proceeded with the nominations of Judge Cebull and Judge Haddon to be District Court Judges in Montana in light of the strong bipartisan support they had from Senator Baucus and Senator Burns, one a Democrat and the other a Republican, and having heard from the Chief Judge of that District that he was "home alone" – the only active Judge left in that Court.

At our July 24 hearing we included the nomination of Judge William Riley to the Eighth Circuit. He, too, had strong bipartisan support that included the endorsements of Senator Hagel and Senator Nelson, one a Republican and the other a Democrat. In addition, as I noted at that hearing, the Eighth Circuit is one of those with multiple vacancies.

Working with Representative Norton, we scheduled for last week the hearing involving Judge Reggie Walton, who President Bush has indicated he will nominate to the District Court for the District of Columbia. Representative Norton was gracious in her endorsement of Judge Walton at his hearing, a Democrat endorsing a Republican President's nomination.

Before recognizing Senator DeWine for any opening remarks he may choose to make, I want to note that Senator DeWine has talked with me about certain nominations that he supports.
I invite all Senators, Republicans and Democrats, who have a strong interest in a particular nomination pending before this Committee to contact me. To the extent I can accommodate those Senators whose courts have pressing needs or who have other concerns, I will endeavor to do so. Those are important factors to me in determining the schedule of confirmation hearings.

In spite of unfair and unfounded criticism, I will endeavor as best I can to proceed with additional hearings and press ahead as best I can to have the Committee work to fulfil its role in the confirmation process.