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Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the filling of judicial vacancies has been the focal point of my political attention now for 4 years. There are roughly 800 to 900 Federal judges at the district court level--the lower court level--and the circuit court level and then, of course, 9 on the Supreme Court.

Filling those vacancies is part of our responsibility. People decide to retire, they pass away, for various reasons they leave the bench, and we need to make sure the courts still have people to do their professional job.

I listened carefully to my colleague from Kentucky explain his concerns about the filling of four circuit court vacancies and the possibility--and I don't know with any certainty, but the possibility-- that two of those four judges have decided not to retire but to stay on the bench, and he raises a question about whether that is fair.

Well, I would like to call the Senate's attention to the fact that there was a moment in time when we were shocked to learn that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia had died while on a hunting trip. I believe it was in the month of January or February. I don't have notes on it here, but I believe it was January or February of that year, and it was the last year of President Obama's Presidency, in his second term. And so the President--President Obama--said he was going to set out to fill the vacancy created by the death of Antonin Scalia. And he was proposing his nominee, Merrick Garland, a judge at the time who is now our Attorney General.

And the decision was made, almost instantly, by the Senator from Kentucky--the same Senator who just talked about delaying in filling vacancies--the decision was made by him not to fill the Supreme Court vacancy. This was in February of the last year of Obama's Presidency. And, in fact, it wasn't filled until the new President--in this case, Donald Trump--came in, in his first term.

Senator McConnell instructed his Republican Senators not to meet with Merrick Garland, President Obama's nominee, to wait almost an entire calendar year to fill that vacancy; and he succeeded in that effort, so that Donald Trump was able to fill that vacancy and not the situation where President Obama would have that option.

So when I hear the Senator from Kentucky come to the floor and talk about whether there is any gamesmanship going on, I don't know, but I will tell you we saw it at the highest possible level in filling the vacancy in the Supreme Court when Antonin Scalia passed away.

I think what the American people are looking for is fair play. That is not unreasonable. And they are looking for qualified nominees. I am happy to report that well over 50 percent of the nominees that have gone through under the Biden administration for the Federal courts have been bipartisan--it is 86 percent, a dramatic majority that have been bipartisan.

And every single Federal nominee from President Biden has been judged ``well qualified'' or better by the American Bar Association. That was not the case under the previous administration of President Trump, and it makes a difference whether a person has a quality background and the integrity to serve on the court.

So I am proud of what we have achieved, and I hope we can close the year with the understanding that even more will be filling the vacancies on the bench.

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