Prepared Statement of Senator Chuck Grassley
Ranking Member, Senate Judiciary Committee
Hearing regarding the nominations of
Robin Rosenbaum, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Eleventh Circuit
Bruce Hendricks, to be United States District Judge for the District of South Carolina
Mark Mastroianni, to be United States District Judge for the District of Massachusetts
Leslie Caldwell, to be Assistant Attorney General
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Mr. Chairman,
First, I’d like to congratulate today’s nominees and their families. It’s an important milestone in all of your careers and I welcome you here today.
Before we turn to the nominees appearing before us today, I’d like to say a word about the nominees pending on the Senate floor. Over the course of the last several weeks, I’ve heard some of my colleagues in the Majority expressing frustration because the nominees on the floor haven’t yet been confirmed.
I find this somewhat surprising. As everyone knows, last year, the Senate Democrats invoked the “nuclear option.” By voting to invoke the so-called “nuclear option,” the Majority stripped the Minority of any ability to stop any nominee from being confirmed on the floor.
The bottom line is that the Majority voted to cut the Minority out of the process. As a result, under that precedent of a 52 vote majority, the Majority Leader can bring up these nominations for a vote on the floor anytime he decides to do so. The Minority simply has no ability to stop anyone from getting a vote. There is no filibuster of a nominee anymore.
And, as anyone who watches the Senate proceedings can tell you, the Senate floor isn’t exactly working overtime. We certainly aren’t considering a lot of amendments to legislation. Instead, on most days, very little is considered on the Senate floor. And we are rarely in session on Fridays.
So, there is really no reason why the leader of the Senate can’t bring these nominations up for a vote.
Finally, I’d like to compare our progress so far this year, compared to where we were at this point during 2006, President Bush’s 6th year in office.
Thus far during the 113th Congress, we’ve had hearings for 66 judicial nominees. After today, during this year alone, we’ve had hearings for 12 judicial nominees. By comparison, up to this point in the 109th Congress, the Senate had held hearings on only 19 judicial nominees.
So as of today, we’ve held hearings for almost as many of President Obama's judicial nominees in just one month when it took the Committee over a year to reach a comparable number of hearings for President Bush's judicial nominees. This is just another example of just how fairly and efficiently the Committee is treating President Obama's judicial nominees compared to President Bush.
So I’ll conclude by saying that I applaud the Chairman for his work. He continues to keep us busy as he makes sure that the committee moves at a brisk pace.
Again, I welcome the nominees and their families today and look forward to their testimony.
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