Prepared Statement by Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa
Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee
Executive Business Meeting
Thursday, September 17, 2015
Today we have two bills and three judicial nominees on the agenda.
We’ll hold over S. 1814, the Stop Sanctuary Cities Act.
We also have on the agenda S. 32, the Transnational Drug Trafficking Act of 2015.
This is a bill that Senator Feinstein and I have worked on for many years, and it’s passed the Senate by unanimous consent the last two Congresses.
The bill would make it easier for the Department of Justice to prosecute foreign drug kingpins who poison our communities by trafficking illegal drugs into the United States from abroad. It’s a change in the law that has never been more important than today. For example, meth that is seized in Iowa is increasingly being traced back to Mexico.
Law enforcement needs all the lawful tools we can give them to stop the flow of illegal drugs into our country, and so I’m pleased to co-sponsor the bill.
We also have three district court nominees on the agenda today: John Vazquez, District Judge for New Jersey; Mimi Wright, District Judge for Minnesota; and Paula Xinis, District Judge for Maryland.
I believe we’re prepared to vote on the judges today, unless there’s any objection to doing so. Technically, they could be held over, but given that we’ve been unable to hold a couple of markups due to timing conflicts, I think it’s fair to report them out today.
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