Executive Session

EXECUTIVE SESSION

NOMINATION OF WILLIAM H. PRYOR, JR., TO BE UNITED STATES CIRCUIT JUDGE FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I support the confirmation of William Pryor to the Eleventh Circuit. I think he is a truly outstanding individual and, most importantly, after all these years of waiting, I am pleased he is finally going to get an up-or-down vote on his nomination. I am pleased, in just a few hours, Bill Pryor will be confirmed as a Federal appellate judge. He more than deserves to be confirmed by the Senate. Bill Pryor is doing a great job now, and he will continue doing a great job in the future.

The problem is how we have gotten to where we are with the hangup and these judges not being voted on. I continue to be troubled by the road we have been going down in this judicial nomination process. Unfortunately for Bill Pryor, he has been one of the prime targets of the slash-and-burn program of the left-wing liberal interest groups. He and several other good candidates nominated by President Bush have been subject to off-base, trumped-up charges which just smear an individual's record without regard to the reality of that record.

We need to look at the merits of a candidate, and, on the merits, Bill Pryor is one of the more impressive nominees coming before the Senate.

William Pryor graduated magna cum laude from Tulane Law School, where he was editor in chief of the law review. He served as a law clerk to civil rights legend and champion Judge John Wisdom. He practiced law for several years before joining the attorney general's office in the State of Alabama. He also taught law as an adjunct professor at Cumberland Law School. So without a doubt, and going even beyond the good attributes I pointed out, Bill Pryor has the legal experience to serve on this Federal bench. But that is not all. William Pryor has the unwavering support of the people who knew him best--the citizens of his very own State of Alabama. His support among Alabama Republicans is near unanimous. But furthermore, and maybe more importantly, some of the most important members of the Alabama Democratic leadership are just as supportive of this Pryor nomination.

For example, the chairman of the Alabama Democratic Conference, which is the State Democratic Party's African-American caucus, said that Bill Pryor is a first-class public official who will be a credit to the judiciary and a guardian of justice.

Former Democratic Gov. Don Siegelman described Bill Pryor as an incredibly talented, intellectually honest attorney general who calls the issues like they ought to be called.

These are just some of the comments made by Democrats, of which I am aware, who support this good man.

But that does not seem to stop some groups or people inside the beltway from upping that ante and spreading lies. The usual suspects are back in the saddle again, however, with a vengeance to mischaracterize this man's record and drag his good name through the mud.

But if one really takes a close look at Bill Pryor's record, one can only find that he is a man who embodies the characteristics that any Federal judge ought to have. The fact is that William Pryor is a man who puts law before politics. The role of a Federal judge, as all my colleagues know and as best stated by Chief Justice John Marshall, is to ``say what the law is.''

That is exactly upon which Bill Pryor has built a distinguished law career. The truth is, in the face of opposition from both Democrats and Republicans, Bill Pryor has steadfastly based his legal decisions on court rulings and not on his own political beliefs. Bill Pryor's actions are the only record that we need to look at to see that this is an individual who truly believes in the rule of law. He is the right man for the job, and we should keep this man on the Eleventh Circuit Court.

I have looked at Bill Pryor's record and some of the allegations made against him. Bill Pryor wins hands down, no contest.

I would like to refer to an article in the ``Mobile Press Register,'' ``Civil Rights Guardian, Outstanding Nominee.'' In this article, Willie Huntley took the opportunity to distinguish the views of Alabamians and most Americans from those shared by some inside-the-beltway, left-wing interest groups. Mr. Huntley is an African-American attorney. He is from Bill Pryor's hometown. He expressed why the people of Alabama should continue to trust in this man, Bill Pryor, rather than in the liberal special interest groups, such as People for the American Way, organizations that are so powerful here with some Members of Congress.

I would like to read some of what this article has to say about Bill Pryor, again, emphasizing Willie Huntley, an African-American attorney from Bill Pryor's hometown:

People for the American Way asserts that Pryor's appointment would devastate civil rights. What its people don't say is that after about 100 years of inaction by other leaders, Bill Pryor led a coalition that included the NAACP to rid the Alabama Constitution of its racist ban on interracial marriage.

Bill Pryor then defended the repeal against a court challenge by a so-called Confederate organization. Our Attorney General also took the side of the NAACP in successfully defending majority-minority voting districts--all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court--against challenges by white Alabama Republicans.

Bill Pryor further opposed a white Republican redistricting proposal that would have hurt African-American voters. He did not back down to criticism from his own party--not one inch.

He then played a key role in the successful prosecution of former Ku Klux Klansmen Bobby Frank Cherry and Thomas Blanton, Jr., for the 1963 bombings of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.

Pryor started a mentoring program for at-risk kids and regularly goes to Montgomery public schools to teach African-American kids to read.

Because Bill Pryor has a civil rights record that very few can equal, it is no wonder that African-American leaders who know and who have worked with him--like Artur Davis, Joe Reed, Cleo Thomas, and Alvin Holmes--support his nomination to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

Ignoring Pryor's defense of voting rights for African-Americans, People for the American Way charges that he opposes the landmark Voting Rights Act. The truth is, he has dutifully enforced all of the Voting Rights Act every time a case has come up.

The article goes on to conclude:

The truth and the record show that Bill Pryor has fought for the civil rights and voting rights of African-Americans in Alabama when People for the American Way were nowhere to be found. Now that President Bush has nominated Pryor to a Federal judgeship, People for the American Way assumes that it can come here and attack him. .....We who actually know Bill Pryor support him 100 percent.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print in the RECORD the article from which I quoted so people can read it in its entirety.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I hope my colleagues will see through all the smoke and mirrors that have been kicked up by groups such as the People for the American Way. I hope my colleagues will take a very close look at the facts and reject those allegations that are not true, just as many Alabamians have so rejected because the people who know this man best ought to be the ones to whom we listen.

I hope that Bill Pryor's true record will shine through and that my colleagues will join me in supporting his nomination.

I close by, once again, telling my Senate colleagues that if the role of a Federal judge is to say, as Chief Justice John Marshall said, ``to say what the law is,'' then there are very few candidates as qualified as William Pryor.

Being a good judge is not about doing what is popular, and it is not for sure about giving in to liberal special interest groups, and it certainly is not about legislating the left-wing's agenda from the bench. Being a good judge is about fairly applying the law, fairly applying the law no matter who the person is, no matter how unpopular the cause or the argument being advocated is. It is not the role of a judge, nor should it ever be the role of a judge, to serve as a puppet to the popular position. That is what William Pryor has built his career on--the rule of law, enforcing the law, carrying out the law.

I know that is what William Pryor will continue to do when he is finally confirmed by this Senate for the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

I yield the floor.

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