Prepared Statement by Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa
Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee
Hearing on Nominations
November 1, 2017
Good morning. Thank you to Senator Sasse for chairing this hearing today. Welcome to all the nominees and congratulations to you and your families. I know that today is a big day for all of you so I want to extend my welcome.
As most of you know, the American Bar Association provides ratings for the judicial nominees who come before us. And the ABA recently rated Mr. Grasz, today’s nominee for the 8th Circuit, as “not qualified.” This rating is very surprising to me and to many other Senators on the Committee. When I look at Mr. Grasz’s resume, it appears that he’s eminently qualified to be a Circuit Court judge. So, as soon as we received this ABA rating, I invited a representative from the ABA to come and testify before the Committee and explain their rating and answer our questions about their process.
The ABA informed me they were not available to testify today, so I invited them to come testify at our next nominations hearing, on November 15th. They accepted that invitation and Senators will be able to ask questions then.
Assuming Mr. Grasz’s nomination follows the typical schedule, this hearing will happen before the Mr. Grasz is voted out of the Committee to the full Senate. And I’ll note that the Committee has already heard from dozens of prominent Nebraskans in strong support of Mr. Grasz’s nomination.
Again, congratulations to all the nominees today.
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