Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, this afternoon we are considering two nominations for U.S. district judge positions in Texas. Gregg Jeffrey Costa is nominated to serve in the Southern District of Texas, while David Campos Guaderrama is nominated to serve in the Western District of Texas. Again, we are moving forward under the regular order and procedures of the Senate. With today's nomination, we will have confirmed 80 judicial nominees during this Congress. With the confirmations today, the Senate will have confirmed more than 75 percent of President Obama's judicial nominations.

While we are making progress in the Senate, we continue to hear complaints about the vacancy rate. I will again remind my colleagues that of the 81 vacancies, more than 58 percent of these vacancies have no nominee.

These nominations came to the committee with the support of home State Senators. They were reported out of committee by voice vote. These nominees have exceptional records and demonstrate the type of consensus nominations that can be confirmed, even in a Presidential election year.

Mr. Costa received his B.A. degree in 1994 from Dartmouth College. He graduated from the University of Texas School of Law in 1999. After law school, Mr. Costa clerked for the Honorable A. Raymond Randolph on the DC Court of Appeals from August 1999 to July of 2000 and then for Chief Justice Rehnquist from July 2001 to July 2002. Between his two clerkships, he worked as a Bristol Fellow in the United States Department of Justice, Office of the Solicitor General.

In 2002, Mr. Costa joined the law firm Weil Gotshal & Manges as an associate. During his time at the firm, Mr. Costa handled civil litigation matters including intellectual property, class actions, international arbitration, bankruptcy, and general commercial disputes. Mr. Costa also worked on appellate matters and a few pro bono cases as well.

In 2005, he joined the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Texas, Houston office, as an assistant U.S. attorney. Mr. Costa has worked in the criminal division of the office in the major offenders and major fraud sections, investigating and prosecuting matters in the areas of mortgage fraud, investment fraud, securities fraud, public corruption, Internet fraud, human trafficking, child pornography, and narcotics and firearms violations. As an AUSA, Mr. Costa also has handled numerous appellate matters before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

In addition to prosecuting cases for the office, Mr. Costa serves as the deputy international affairs coordinator for the U.S. Attorney's Office. In this capacity, he helps coordinate incoming and outgoing requests on behalf of the Governments of Malaysia, Turkey, Columbia, Greece, France, and the United Kingdom. Mr. Costa also helps and provides guidance to other AUSAs on extradition matters. And in 2005, after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Mr. Costa served as the hurricane fraud coordinator for his office that investigated fraud cases relating to the Hurricanes. Mr. Costa's office prosecuted more than 100 individuals for crimes such as government-benefit fraud, identify theft offenses, charitable fraud, and investment fraud.

The ABA Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary gave him a unanimous rating of ``well qualified.''

We are also considering the nomination of David Campos Guaderrama, nominated to be U.S. district judge for the Western District of Texas. After graduation from Notre Dame Law School, Judge Guaderrama worked as a solo practitioner from December 1979 to August 1980. He then formed a partnership practice with his then wife. His practice focused on defending individuals in criminal cases, but he also handled some general civil, probate, and workers' compensation cases during this time. In 1987, he was appointed to serve as El Paso County's first public defender and was charged with starting up and developing an office that would be capable of handling at least 50 percent of all indigent felony cases.

In November 1994, Judge Guaderrama was elected judge of the 243rd Judicial District Court of Texas. He was elected for a 4-year term and subsequently reelected on four occasions. During his term as a Texas District Court judge, he was instrumental in establishing the 243rd Drug Court Program and Access to Recovery Program. Both programs are aimed at helping rehabilitate defendants guilty of minor drug offenses through counseling and supervision, rather than incarceration. Also while on the 243rd Judicial District he served as chairman of a subcommittee that oversaw reform of the jury selection process that implemented mailing jury qualification questionnaires to potential jurors. He also piloted a program to use video conference technology to conduct arraignments.

In 2008, Judge Guaderrama was an unsuccessful candidate for justice, Eighth Court of Appeals of Texas. In 2010, he was appointed by the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Texas to serve an 8-year term as a U.S. magistrate judge. He has an ABA rating of majority ``well qualified'', minority ``qualified.''

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