Prepared Floor Statement of Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee
For the Congressional Record
The nomination of Kara Stoll & the general judicial progress
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
Tonight the Senate will vote on the nomination of Kara Stoll to be a Circuit Judge for the Federal Circuit.
I offer my congratulations to Ms. Stoll on what will likely be her confirmation tonight.
I do want to say that I've been hearing some complaints from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle concerning the pace of judicial nominees.
But my Democratic colleagues weren't complaining in 2007, during President Bush's seventh year of his presidency. At this point in 2007, President Bush had had only 279 judicial nominees confirmed.
Today, after the Senate confirms Ms. Stoll's nomination, President Obama will have a total of 312 judicial nominees confirmed thus far.
That's 33 more judicial nominees confirmed. So, this President and his judicial nominees are being treated as fairly, if not more fairly, than the last President.
We're also moving judicial nominees in Committee at about the same pace as we did at this point in President Bush's presidency.
Up to this point in 2007, the committee had held five hearings for 17 nominees. This year, the Senate has held six nominations hearings for 17 nominees, including hearings for the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General. And we will likely be adding to that number this month.
Furthermore, and I know I've said this before, but it bears repeating. The Senate would've confirmed several more nominees this year had the Democrats not made an unprecedented move and confirmed 11 judicial nominees at the end of a lame-duck Congress.
In 2006, the Senate returned 13 judicial nominees to the President. Those nominees were then re-nominated in 2007, and confirmed in the new Congress.
Had Democrats followed standard Senate practice, we would've voted on those 11 nominees at the beginning of this year just as the Committee did with the nominees that were resubmitted in 2007.
The bottom line is the Senate Judiciary Committee is treating the President's nominees extremely fairly and there shouldn't be any complaining about following the same standard we did in 2007.
I congratulate Ms. Stoll on her pending nomination and I yield the floor.
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