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October 11, 2001

A Year Ago, It Was Democrats Pushing
For Judicial Confirmations

"I was in the Minority for a number of years in my present position and . . . I worked very hard in moving legislation, and we did not hold up legislation based on judges. We did not do that. . . . We did not hold up legislation based upon judges . . . we had a right to do so, but I felt, and Senator Daschle felt as minority leader that we had an obligation to move legislation. . . ."
-- Senator Harry Reid, Congressional Record, 10/10/2001, S10405

Compare the Majority Whip's remarks yesterday with the following statements he and the then Minority Leader made a year ago when they were in the minority and their party's president was in the White House.

Exhibit #1: On July 21, 2000, while objecting to Majority Leader Lott's attempt to proceed to S. 2507, the Intelligence Authorization Bill, Minority Leader Daschle stated:

"I hope we can accommodate this unanimous consent request for the intelligence authorization. As [does] Senator Lott, I recognize that it is important, and I hope we can address it. I also hope we can address the additional appropriations bills. There is no reason we can't. We can find a compromise if there is a will, and I am sure there is. But we also want to see the list of what we expect will probably be the final list of judicial nominees to be considered for hearings in the Judiciary Committee this year. I am anxious to talk with him and work with him on that issue. All of this is interrelated, as he said, and because of that, we take it slowly." [Congressional Record, S7426]

Exhibit #2: On July 24, 2000, while objecting to Senator Lott's repeated attempt to proceed to S. 2507, the Intelligence Authorization Bill, Minority Whip Reid stated:

"I think it is unfortunate that we have been unable today to deal with [Judiciary Committee Chairman] Hatch. . . . I hope this evening or tomorrow we can sit down and talk. For example, I believe the judge's name is White . . . who has been before the committee and has not had a hearing. . . . In short, we hope in the meeting with Senator Hatch, either tonight or tomorrow, we will be in a position where we can expedite the rest of the work this week and move on to other things." [Congressional Record, S7469]

Exhibit #3: On July 25, 2000, while discussing with Senator Domenici the delays in proceeding to the Energy and Water Appropriations Bill, Senator Reid stated:

"We believe there should be certain rights protected. Also under [the] Constitution, we have a situation that was developed by our Founding Fathers in which Senators would give the executive branch - the President - recommendations for people to serve in the judiciary. Once these recommendations were given, the President would send the names back to the Senate and we would confirm or approve those names. One of the problems we are having here is it is very difficult to get people approved, confirmed. This has nothing to do with the energy and water bill. It does, however, have something to do with the other bills. We could have moved forward on the energy and water bill on Friday until this glitch came up." [Congressional Record, S7525]

Exhibit #4: On July 25, 2000, while discussing with Senator Wellstone the need to "do the Senate's business" and the then-current status of bills under the Republican-led Senate, Senator Reid stated:

"We have a very simple situation here. We in the minority believe we have the right to have a few judges approved by the Senate. . . . We also believe we have some appropriations bills that need to move forward, and there are some strings on that. We want to work, but there are some things that we think, in fairness, we deserve. As a result of that, things have slowed down, which is too bad." [Congressional Record, S7504]

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