Senate Debate on Empathy
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| Begin | 2009-06-09 | 16:17:06 |
| End | 16:21:59 | |
| Length | 00:04:53 | |
| Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I wish to join the ranking member of
the committee on which I sit, as well as the distinguished minority leader,
in asking the question of why we have to set a date right now on the hearing
for Judge
Sotomayor. There is no reason for us to do that because there is no way
to know at this point whether we will have our work done by that time. Historically--and it is for good reason--you want to have the review completed before you question the witness about the matters under review. That makes sense. So there is no reason to set that date today, and that is troublesome. We don't know if we will be ready by July 13, but there is a lot of history to suggest it is going to be very difficult to be ready by that time. The leader just pointed out the fact that if you compare the work required to consider the nomination of the now-Chief Justice John Roberts as opposed to this nominee, you have more than 10 times as many cases to look at with Judge Sotomayor as you had with Justice Roberts. That takes a lot of time. And even with 20-some staffers reading these 4,000-plus decisions, it is not just a matter of reading the cases; it is a matter of then looking to see what the precedents cited were to determine whether you think the judge was right in the decision that was rendered, to look at the other references in the case to see how closely this followed existing law, and whether it appears the judge might be trying to make law as opposed to deciding law. That is important in this particular case because of the standard the President laid down for his nominees which strongly suggests something beyond deciding the law. In 5 percent of the cases, as he said, there is no precedent, there is no legal mechanism for deciding how the case should come out. You have to base it on other factors. Everybody is well aware of some of the factors this particular nominee has talked about and the President has talked about--the empathy, the background, the experience in other matters. The question is, in reading these opinions, do you find a trend of deciding cases on something other than the law, potentially the making of law in this particular case? And even if, as the leader said, you have to review 76 cases a day, that is only the decisions she has participated in or the opinions she has written or joined in. How about the other writings--her law review writings, her speeches she has given, the FBI report, the ABA report, which we do not have yet, the questionnaire which has not been completed; in other words, a variety of things that have been reviewed and read. And then you discuss the nomination with witnesses to say this matter has been raised, this matter has been raised, what do you think about that? She will have a variety of people who will be writing to the committee on her behalf. We will receive reams of letters and comments from people who think she is a good nominee, and we will receive a lot of comments, I suspect, from people who think she is not a good nominee. We need to go through all of that. When people write to us [Page: S6344] about these nominees, for or against, we don't ignore what they say; we take it to heart. That is part of our job. All of this takes a great deal of time and effort. Final point, Mr. President. We don't want to leave this to staff. We are going to read those opinions. I have instructed my staff on the opinions I want to read. I am used to reading court opinions, but not everybody has done that fairly recently in their career, and that takes a lot of time as well, considering all the other work we have to do. To do this right, to conduct the kind of fair and thorough hearing that Senator Sessions talked about, and to follow the kind of precedents and tradition that the minority leader talked about, I think it is important for us to do it right, to get it right, to take the time that requires. And if that means going beyond July 13, then do that. Senator Specter, when he was chairman of the committee, worked in a bipartisan way with Senator Leahy. Senator Leahy can certainly work in a bipartisan way with us to ensure there is an adequate amount of time. At the end of the day, what we want is a hearing that everyone can say was fair, was thorough, resulted in a good decision and, hopefully and presumably, will allow this nominee, if she is confirmed, to take her position prior to the beginning of the October term. Justice Roberts was confirmed, I believe, on the 29th of September, and that was 4 days ahead of the time, I think--or 2 days. The Court reconvenes on October 5. Therefore, I see no reason why, if we do this right, we cannot have the nominee--if this nominee is confirmed--confirmed by the time the October term begins. I say to my colleagues, let's do this right and not try to push things beyond the point that is appropriate under the circumstances. |