Grassley: Hearings with Multiple Circuit Court Nominees Is Nothing New

 

Good morning. Welcome everyone, especially the nominees and their families, to today’s nominations hearing. This is the tenth nominations hearing the Committee has held this year.

 

I want to take a minute to thank the Ranking Member and her staff for working diligently with my staff and me to process these nominees. Filling judicial vacancies and executive appointments is an important part of this Committee’s responsibilities. And I know that all members of this committee take this responsibility seriously.

 

Today, we’ll hear from two panels. First, we’ll hear from nominees to the Circuit Court—Notre Dame Law Professor Amy Barrett and Michigan Supreme Court Justice Joan Larsen.

 

On the second panel, we’ll hear from Eric Dreiband to be the head of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice. We’ll also hear two nominees to be District Court Judges in Tennessee.

 

I understand there is some concern with having two Circuit Court nominees on the hearing agenda. So, I want to take a moment to explain why these nominees are on today’s hearing.

 

When the Majority Leader extended the Senate’s schedule into August, we scheduled a nominations hearing to consider Professor Barrett’s nomination for August 9th. That hearing was postponed when the Senate went into recess a week earlier than previously scheduled. So, I decided to make up for the hearing we lost in August and to combine Professor Barrett’s August hearing with today’s hearing.

 

Of course, I aim to be fair in the process and made sure the other side had ample time to review these nominees’ qualifications. We’ve had Professor Barrett’s materials for 120 days and Justice Larsen’s materials for 96 days. I believe this is more than enough time to thoroughly review these nominees’ materials.

 

But it’s also important to note that holding hearings with multiple circuit court nominees is nothing new. In fact, every committee chairman since I joined the committee 36 years ago has held hearings with multiple circuit court nominees. And, even before that, Chairman Kennedy had one hearing with 7 Circuit Court nominees.

 

Today’s nominees are indeed important, as are the positions to which they are nominated. As an accommodation to the minority, I’m happy to give Senators 7 minutes for the first round of questioning for the first panel, rather than the standard 5. And of course, I’ll make sure that Senators are allowed to ask as many rounds of questions as they’d like in order to ensure everyone gets their questions answered.

 

-30-