Senate Judiciary Committee Quotes

You never know what’s going to happen at a confirmation hearing.

In my first week as a U.S. senator, I had the privilege of participating in the Supreme Court confirmation hearing for Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

And in that confirmation process, I sat for 17 hours in front of a senate judiciary committee.

When Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg was before us in 1993, she said that her standard was to give no hints, no forecasts, no previews, and declined to answer dozens of questions.

And I have been campaigning for the past three months trying to get the Senate Judiciary Committee that has the oversight authority and responsibility to start its own public hearings.

The most important rule for a nominee in a confirmation hearing is the 80/20 rule. If they are talking 80% of the time and you are talking 20%, you’re winning. If its 60/40, it means you are arguing. If it is 50/50, it means you have lost and you’d better throw in the towel.

My Democratic colleagues should not forget that President Obama's Supreme Court nominees Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan were both given up or down votes by Republicans.

Something the committee had not done in 50 years. Jeff Sessions is now the Chairman of the Committee that rejected him.

Even before the hearings that led to confirmation of Chief Justice Roberts, senators were saying they were reserving judgment on how they would vote until they got to know him better at the hearings.

Jim, I'm not aware of any formal requests from the Senate Judiciary Committee for these kinds of documents.

As a result of this article, I was invited to testify in the Senate Judiciary Committee on privacy law.

Jeff Sessions is the lone voice in the Senate.

It's always an uphill battle to defeat a Supreme Court nominee, but this is a fight worth having.

Voting on a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court is one of the most important duties of a U.S. Senator.

I had the privilege of chairing Judge Samuel Alito confirmation hearing in 1990. And at that time, he had practiced law for 14 years, but only represented one client, the United States government.

We've seen some good progress, some good forward momentum. We have about Republican senators who have now indicated that they'll meet with Judge Merric Garland.

We must remember that judicial nominees are constrained in what they may discuss and how they may discuss it.

Arlen Specter is the man who voted in favor of Bill Clinton during impeachment, voted against Robert Bork for the Supreme Court, voted against school choice for the District of Columbia, endorses an absolutist interpretation of abortion rights. He is bright and he is tough and he belongs elsewhere.

Jeff Sessions, the person who's likely to become our next attorney general, is striking a very different tone from our current attorney general, Loretta Lynch, who announced a consent decree with the city of Baltimore.

When Ronald Reagan nominated Jeff Sessions for federal district court judgeship, the Senate Judiciary Committee rejected his nomination.

In July of 1983, I left Washington, DC area and have had minimal contact with Judge Clarence Thomas since.

Nothing really happened - I was elected in '86 - until 1992, and that's when the Anita Hill debacle happened.

I want to see if she is serious about the death penalty.