Executive Session
Floor Speech
EXECUTIVE SESSION -- (Senate - August 05, 2009)
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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I thank the chairman. I thank him for those strong remarks on behalf of Judge Sotomayor, strong remarks for a very strong nominee.
More importantly, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I thank Senator Leahy, and Senator Sessions, for the way they conducted the confirmation hearing, the dignity that was shown to the nominee in that hearing. I think that was very important to the process. We may not have agreed with the conclusions that some of our colleagues reached, but no one can dispute the hearing was conducted civilly and with great dignity. This is a nominee who shows great dignity every step of the way.
Today I will be speaking in support of Judge Sotomayor's nomination, but first I am going to be joined by several of my esteemed fellow women Senators, including Senator Shaheen of New Hampshire, who is here already, Senator Stabenow of Michigan, Senator Gillibrand of New York, and Senator Murray of Washington State.
We all know this nomination is history making for several reasons but one of them, of course, is that Judge Sotomayor will be only the third woman ever to join the Supreme Court of the United States of America.
We know she is incredibly well qualified. She has more Federal judicial experience than any nominee for the past 100 years. That is something that is remarkable. But I do think it is worth remembering what it was like to be a nominee for this Court as a woman even just a few years ago.
It is worth remembering, for example, that when Justice O'Connor graduated from law school, the only offers she got from law firms, after graduating from Stanford Law School, was for legal secretary positions. Justice O'Connor, who graduated third in her class in law school, saw her accomplishments reduced to one question: Can she type?
Justice Ginsburg faced similar obstacles. When she entered Harvard Law School, she was 1 of only 9 women in a class of more than 500. The dean of the law school actually demanded she justify why she deserved a seat that could have gone to a man. Later, she was passed over for a prestigious clerkship, despite her impressive credentials.
Nonetheless, both of these women persevered and they certainly prevailed. Their undeniable merits triumphed over those who sought to deny them opportunity. The women who came before Judge Sotomayor--all those women judges--helped blaze a trail. Although Judge Sotomayor's record stands on her own, she is also standing on those women's shoulders.
I am pleased to recognize several women Senators who are here today to speak in support of Judge Sotomayor. The first is my great colleague from New Hampshire, Senator Shaheen.
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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, having looked at Judge Sotomayor's whole record, as Senator Shaheen has pointed out, her 17 years on the bench and the fairness and integrity she will bring to the job, I am proud to support her nomination.
When Judge Sotomayor's nomination was first announced, I was impressed by her life story, as was everyone else, which all of us know well by now. She grew up, in her own words, ``in modest and challenging circumstances,'' and she worked hard for everything she got.
Her dad died when she was 9 years old, and her mom supported her and her brother. One of my favorite images, as a member of the Judiciary Committee, from the hearing was her mother sitting behind her every moment of that hearing, never leaving her side, the mother who raised her on a nurse's salary, who saved every penny she had to buy an Encyclopedia Britannica for her family. That struck me because I know in our family we also had a set of Encyclopedia Britannica that had a hallowed place in our hallway, and that is what I used to write all my reports.
Judge Sotomayor went on to graduate from Princeton summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa before graduating from Yale Law School.
Since law school, she has had a varied and interesting legal career. She has worked as a private civil litigator, she has been a district court and an appellate court judge, and she has taught law school classes.
But one experience of hers, in particular, resonates with me. Immediately after graduating from law school, she spent 5 years as a prosecutor at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office.
I want to talk a little about that because it is something she and I have in common. I was a prosecutor myself, Mr. President. You know what that is like, to have that duty. I was a prosecutor for Minnesota's largest county. As a prosecutor, after you have interacted with victims of crime, after you have seen the damage that crime does to individuals and to our communities, after you have seen defendants who are going to prison and you know their families are losing them, sometimes forever, you know the law is not just an abstract subject. It is not just a dusty book in the basement. The law has a real impact on the real lives of real people.
It also has a big impact on the individual prosecutor. No matter how many years may pass, you never forget some of the very difficult cases. For Judge Sotomayor, we know this includes the case of the serial burglar turned killer--the Tarzan murderer. For me, there was always the case of Tyesha Edwards, an 11-year-old girl with an unforgettable smile, who was at home doing her homework when a stray bullet from a gang shooting went through the window and killed her.
As a prosecutor, you don't have to just know the law, you have to know the people, the families, and you have to know human nature.
Judge Sotomayor's former supervisor said she is ``an imposing and commanding figure in the courtroom, who could weave together a complex set of facts, enforce the law, and never lose sight of whom she was fighting for.''
As her old boss, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said: She is a ``fearless and effective'' prosecutor.
Mr. President, before I turn this over to my colleague, the Senator from Michigan, who has just arrived, I thought it would be interesting for people to hear a little more about Judge Sotomayor's experience as a prosecutor, so you can hear firsthand from her own colleagues.
This was a letter that was sent in from dozens of her colleagues who actually worked with her when she was a prosecutor. They were not her bosses necessarily but her colleagues who worked with her. This is what they said in the letter.
We served together during some of the most difficult years in our city's history. Crime was soaring, a general sense of disorder prevailed in the streets, and the popular attitude was increasing violence was inevitable. Sonia Sotomayor began as a ``rookie'' in 1979, working long hours prosecuting an enormous caseload of misdemeanors before judges managing overwhelming dockets. Sonia so distinguished herself in this challenging assignment, that she was among the very first in her starting class to be selected to handle felonies. She prosecuted a wide variety of felony cases, including serving as co-counsel at a notorious murder trial. She developed a specialty in the investigation and prosecution of child pornography cases. Throughout all of this, she impressed us as one who was singularly determined in fighting crime and violence. For Sonia, service as a prosecutor was a way to bring order to the streets of a city she dearly loves.
Her colleagues go on in this letter:
We are proud to have served with Sonia Sotomayor. She solemnly adheres to the rule of law and believes that it should be applied equally and fairly to all Americans. As a group, we have different world views and political affiliations, but our support for Sonia is entirely nonpartisan. And the fact that so many of us have remained friends with Sonia over three decades speaks well, we think, of her warmth and collegiality.
Mr. President, I see that my colleague from Michigan has arrived. I will continue my statement when she has completed hers, but I am proud to have Senator Stabenow, the Senator from Michigan, here to speak on behalf of Judge Sotomayor, and I yield the floor.
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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Michigan for her strong words in favor of this very strong nominee.
I was talking earlier about the experience that Judge Sotomayor brings to the bench as a prosecutor. For me, it means she meets one of my criteria for a nominee because I am looking for someone who deeply appreciates the power and the impact that laws and the criminal justice system have on real people's lives. From her first day in the Manhattan DA's office, Judge Sotomayor talked about and understood how it was important to view the law as about people and not just the law.
But when you talk about people, it means you have to look at their cases, it means you have to look at the law, and you have to look at the facts. One of the things we learned in the hearings was that sometimes Judge Sotomayor had to make very difficult decisions. When she was a prosecutor, she had to turn down some cases. Although she was, by all accounts, more aggressive than other prosecutors and took on cases many wouldn't, when she was a judge she sometimes had to turn down cases, turn away victims, as in the case involving the crash of the TWA flight. She actually disagreed with a number of other judges and said as much as she found the victims' families and their case to be incredibly sympathetic, the law took her somewhere else; that the facts and the law meant something else.
You could see that in a number of her cases, which is part of the reason people who have looked at her record don't think of her as a judicial activist. They think of her as a judicial model--someone who, in her own words, has a fidelity to the law.
What are we looking for in a Supreme Court Justice? Well, I think actually one of Sonia Sotomayor's old bosses, Robert Morgenthau, said it best. He came and testified on her behalf, and he quoted himself from many years ago when speaking about what he was looking for when he tried to find prosecutors for his office. He said:
We want people with good judgment, because a lot of the job of a prosecutor is making decisions. I also want to see some signs of humility in anybody that I hire. We're giving young lawyers a lot of power, and we want to make sure that they're going to use that power with good sense and without arrogance.
These are among the very same qualities I look for in a Supreme Court Justice. I, too, am looking for a person with good judgment, someone with intellectual curiosity and independence but who also understands that her decisions affect the people before her.
With that, I think comes a second essential quality--the quality of humility. I am looking for a Justice who appreciates the awesome responsibility they will be given if confirmed, a Justice who understands the gravity of the office and who respects the very different roles the Constitution provides for each of the three branches of government--something Judge Sotomayor was questioned on extensively in the hearing and made very clear she respects those three different roles for the three different branches of government.
Finally, a good prosecutor knows their job is to enforce the law without fear or favor. Likewise, a Supreme Court Justice must interpret the laws without fear or favor. I am convinced that Judge Sotomayor meets all of these criteria.
She has been a judge for 17 years, 11 years as an appellate judge and 6 years as a trial judge. President George H.W. Bush gave her the first job she had as a Federal judge in the Southern District of New York. Her nomination to the Southern District was enthusiastically supported by both New York Senators--Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Republican Senator Alfonse D'Amato. So she was first nominated by George H.W. Bush, supported by a Republican Senator, and as Senator Shaheen noted, confirmed unanimously by this Senate.
Judge Sotomayor, as I noted before, has more Federal judicial experience than any nominee in the past 100 years. I think the best way to tell what kind of a Justice she will be is to look at what kind of a judge she has been. One person who knows a little something about Sonia Sotomayor as a judge is Louie Freeh, the former Director of the FBI, who served as a judge with her before he was the Director of the FBI. He actually came--again, a Republican appointee--and testified for her at her hearing. He didn't just testify based on a review of her record, he testified based on his own personal experience. He was actually her mentor when she arrived as a new judge. I want to read from the letter he submitted to the Judiciary Committee.
Louis Freeh writes:
It is with tremendous pride in a former colleague that I write to recommend wholeheartedly that you confirm Sonia Sotomayor to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Judge Sotomayor has the extensive experience and the judicial qualities that make her eminently qualified for this ultimate honor and I look forward to watching her take her place on the Nation's highest court.
Freeh goes on to say:
I first met Judge Sotomayor in 1992 when she was appointed to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. As the newest judge in the storied Courthouse at Foley Square in lower Manhattan, we followed the tradition of having the newly-minted judge mentored by the last arriving member of the bench. Despite the questionable wisdom of this practice, I had the privilege of serving as Judge Sotomayor's point of contact for orientation and to help her get underway as she took on a full, complex civil and criminal case docket.
Into this very pressurized and unforgiving environment, where a new judge's every word, decision, writing and question is scrutinized and critiqued by one of the harshest, professional audiences imaginable, Judge Sotomayor quickly distinguished herself as a highly competent judge who was open-minded, well-prepared, properly demanding of the lawyers who came before her, fair, honest, diligent in following the law, and with that rare and invaluable combination of legal intellect and ``street smarts.''
Louis Freeh, a Republican-appointed judge, goes on to say:
To me, there is no better measure by which to evaluate a judge than the standards of the former Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court of Minnesota--
Mr. President, I like this part--
--and nationally renowned American jurist, Edward J. Devitt. A former Member of Congress and World War II Navy hero, Judge Devitt was appointed to the federal bench by President Eisenhower and became one of the country's leading trial judges and teacher of judges. A standard Jury Instruction textbook (Devitt and Blackmun) as well as the profession's most coveted award recognizing outstanding judges, the Devitt Award, bears his name.
I recently had the honor of participating in the dedication of a courtroom named for Judge Devitt. The judges and lawyers who spoke in tribute to Judge Devitt very ably and insightfully described the critical characteristics which define and predict great judges. But rather than discuss Judge Devitt's many decisions, particular rulings or the ``sound bite'' analyses which could have been parsed from the thousands of complex and fact specific cases which crossed his docket, they focused on those ultimately more profound and priceless judicial qualities.
He goes on to talk about those qualities of a good judge.
1. Judging takes more than mere intelligence;
2. Always take the bench prepared. .....
3. Call them as you see them.
He then goes on to say:
Sonia Sotomayor would have gotten an ``A plus'' from the ``Judge from Central Casting,'' as Judge Devitt was often called by his peers.
I think that says it all. You have Louis Freeh here testifying in behalf of Judge Sotomayor. As I read earlier, you have dozens of her former colleagues, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, writing about what kind of prosecutor she was. Every step of the way she impressed people.
I see we are now being joined by the Senator from New York, my distinguished colleague, who also will be speaking in favor of Judge Sotomayor.
Senator Gillibrand had the distinguished honor to introduce Judge Sotomayor when she so eloquently spoke at the hearing. I am very honored to have her join us here today.
I will turn this over to Senator Gillibrand.
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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New York for her fine remarks. As she was talking, I was realizing she is a pioneer of sorts, being the first woman Senator from New York who took over as Senator having two very small children. I have seen them and they are small--babies--and she has been able to manage and do a fine job in her role of Senator while being a pioneer as a mother at the same time in the State of New York.
With that, it is a good segue to introduce my colleague from the State of Washington, PATTY MURRAY, one of the first women to serve in the Senate. I love her story because when Patty started running for office she was working on some school issues and she went to the legislature. One of the elected legislators actually said to her: How do you think you are ever going to get this done? You are nothing but a mom in tennis shoes.
She went on to wear those tennis shoes and wear them right to the floor of the Senate. I am proud to introduce to speak on behalf of Judge Sotomayor my colleague from the State of Washington, PATTY MURRAY.
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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. I wish to first thank the Senator from Washington for her excellent remarks on Judge Sotomayor.
During this hour, we have heard from several of my colleagues, all strongly supporting Judge Sotomayor. I have talked about, first of all, her growing up and her difficult circumstances. I spoke about her work as a prosecutor and the support she has received from her prosecutorial colleagues.
I have talked about her work as a judge and read extensively from a letter from Louis Freeh, the former Director of the FBI and former Federal judge, about her work as a judge. Now, in the final part of my talk, I wish to address some of the other issues that have been raised with respect to Judge Sotomayor.
I have to say, I woke up this morning to the radio on my clock radio and heard one of my colleagues who decided he was not going to support her, in his words, because of the ``empathy standard.''
I kind of put the pillow over my head. I thought: He must not have been sitting in the hearing because she was specifically asked by one of the other Senators about how she views the cases. They specifically asked her if she agreed with President Obama when he said: You should use your heart as well as the law.
She said: Actually, I do not agree with that. I look at the law and I look at the facts.
So people can say all kinds of things about her, if they would like, but I suggest they look at her record.
My colleagues in the Senate are entitled to oppose her nomination, if they wish; that is their prerogative. But I am concerned some people keep returning again and again to some quotes in the speeches, a quote she actually said, a phrase, that she did not mean to offend anyone and she should have put it differently.
When have you 17 years of a record as a judge, what is more important--those 17 years of the record of a judge or one phrase which she basically said was not the words she meant to use. What is more important?
In the words of Senator Moynihan: You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts. So let's look at the facts of her judicial record. This nominee was repeatedly questioned, and I sat there through nearly all of it. She was questioned for hours and days about whether she would let bias or prejudice infect her judgment.
But, again, the facts do not support these claims. In race discrimination cases, for example, Judge Sotomayor voted against plaintiffs 81 percent of the time. She also handed out longer jail sentences than her colleagues as a district court judge. She sentenced white-collar criminals to at least 6 months in prison 48 percent of the time; whereas, her other colleagues did so only 34 percent of the time.
In drug cases, 85.5 percent of convicted drug offenders received a prison sentence of at least 6 months from Judge Sotomayor, compared with only 79 percent in her colleagues' cases.
A few weeks ago, I was in the Minneapolis airport and a guy came up to me, he was wearing an orange vest. He said: Are you going to vote for that woman?
At first, I did not know what he was talking about. I said: What do you mean?
He said: That judge.
I said: Actually, I want to meet her first. This is before I had met her. I said: I want to ask her some questions before I make a decision.
He said: Oh, I do not know how you are going to do that because she always lets her feelings get in front of the law.
This guy needs to hear these statistics. He needs to hear the statistics Senator Gillibrand was talking about, the statistics that when she had served on the bench with a Republican colleague, 95 percent of the time they made the same decision on a case.
So then I guess you must believe that these same Republican-appointed judges are letting their feelings get in front of the law if you take that logic to its extreme. So 95 percent of the time she sided with her Republican-appointed judge colleagues.
During her hearing, Judge Sotomayor was questioned about issues ranging from the death penalty to her use of foreign law. That was repeatedly mentioned that she might use foreign law to decide a death penalty case.
What do we have as the facts? What do we have as evidence? There was one case she decided when the death penalty came before her, and she rejected the claim of someone who wanted to say the death penalty would not apply when she was a district court judge.
She never cited foreign law. There was no mention of France or any kind of law anywhere in that decision. Those are the facts in her judicial record. In no place has she ever cited foreign law to help her interpret a provision of the U.S. Constitution.
I believe that everything in a nominee's professional record is fair game
to consider. After all, we are obligated to determine whether to confirm someone for an incredibly important lifetime position. That is our constitutional duty and I take it seriously.
But that said, when people focus on a few items in a few speeches that Judge Sotomayor has given, phrases which she has basically said she would have said differently if she had another opportunity, you have to ask yourself again: Do those statements--are they outweighed by the record? Are they outweighed by the facts?
Check out all these endorsements of people who have actually looked at her record, have looked at how she has come out on decisions. You have an endorsement from the National District Attorneys Association supporting her; you have the support from the Police Executive Research Forum; you have support from the National Fraternal Order of Police, not exactly a raging liberal organization; you have the support of the National Sheriffs Association. Again, these are the facts.
These are the facts my colleagues should be looking at. You have the support from the International Association of Chiefs of Police. You have the support of the Major Cities Chiefs Association; she has the support of the National Association of Police Organizations; she has the support of the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys; we have letters supporting her from the Detectives Endowment Association; from the National Black Prosecutors Association; from the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives.
The list goes on and on and on.
Those are the facts: Unanimous top rating from the ABA, the American Bar Association. Those are the facts. I believe, if we want to know what kind of a Justice Sonia Sotomayor will be, our best evidence is to look at the kind of judge she has been.
I wish to address one more matter that I mentioned at the Judiciary hearing, when we voted for Judge Sotomayor, and that has been a point that irritated me. There have been some stories and comments, mostly anonymous, about Judge Sotomayor's judicial temperament.
According to one newspaper story about this topic, Judge Sotomayor developed a reputation for asking tough questions at oral arguments and for being sometimes brisk and curt with lawyers who were not prepared to answer them. Well, where I come from, asking tough questions, having very little patience for unprepared lawyers is the very definition of being a judge. As a lawyer, you owe it to the bench and to your clients to be as well prepared as you possibly can be.
When Justice Ginsburg was asked about these anonymous comments regarding Judge Sotomayor's temperament recently, she rhetorically asked: Has anybody watched Scalia or Breyer on the bench?
Surely, we have come to a time in this country when we can confirm as many to-the-point, gruff female judges as we have confirmed to-the-point, gruff male judges. We have come a long way, as you can see from my colleagues who came here during the last hour.
We know that when Sandra Day O'Connor graduated from law school 50-plus years ago, the only offer she got was from a law firm for a position as a legal secretary. Justice Ginsburg faced similar obstacles. We have come a long way.
But I hope my colleagues in this case will also come a long way and look at the record and look at the facts. As I have said, people are entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts.
In short, I am proud to support Judge Sotomayor's nomination. I believe she will make an excellent Supreme Court Justice. She knows the law, she knows the Constitution, but she knows America too.
I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
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