Mr. President, Senator Leahy, the manager of this side, requested that I speak now. Mr. President, I am pleased that we will be moving forward on the nomination of Jay Bybee for U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. This is an…
Mr. President, Senator Leahy, the manager of this side, requested that I speak now.
Mr. President, I am pleased that we will be moving forward on the nomination of Jay Bybee for U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. This is an important job which Jay Bybee will have. It is the largest circuit as far as the number of judges that we have.
The chairman of the Judiciary Committee is here. I would be happy to yield to the chairman of the committee.
Mr. President, the Ninth Circuit is the largest circuit, with a full complement of 28 or 29 judges. It is a circuit that certainly is important to my State, the State of Nevada, and the entire western part of the United States. It is a controversial circuit. There have been efforts made in the past to change the makeup of the court and have States divided so we could create another circuit. No one can take away from the importance of this circuit. The State of California alone, with some 35 million people, is under the jurisdiction of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The last time I had a conversation with a member of the Bybee family was on an airplane. Mrs. Bybee was on the plane. She is a lovely woman. Certainly Jay Bybee is a proud husband and father, as well he should be. I commented to Mrs. Bybee, Why does he have to write so much? He has written Law Review articles. He has written lots of articles on very controversial subjects. But the good thing about Jay Bybee is that he can explain why he wrote those articles. He is a person--while some may disagree with the conclusions that he reached in his large articles--who has the intellectual capacity to explain his reasoning. He has excellent legal qualifications, not only from an educational perspective but from an experience perspective.
He served as legal adviser during the first Bush administration. He has helped to teach a generation of new lawyers as a former professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Boyd School of Law, and he has taught at other places. He is someone who will bring distinction to the Ninth Circuit.
He was favorably reported by the Senate Judiciary Committee on February 28. The swift pace of this nomination demonstrates how the process can work when both sides of the aisle work together, when the President works with Senators of the other party, and when the advise and consent clause of our Constitution is respected.
Senator John Ensign and I work closely on all issues that affect Nevada, and on judges it is certainly no different. John Ensign is a class act. The way he handles being in the majority is classic. We know the difference, both having served in the majority. It would be certainly easy for him just to submit a name and not run it past me. But, of course, he didn't. When he came up with the name Bybee, I said of course.
I have a lot of reasons for supporting people named Bybee. One reason is--I don't know the lineage--because there are a lot of Bybees in Utah and Nevada. But when I was in college I fought for a man by the name of ``Spike'' Bybee. He was a police officer in Cedar City, UT. But he devoted long hours of his time training fighters. ``Spike'' moved to Las Vegas where he became a respected probation officer. But my fondest memories of ``Spike'' Bybee were during the time he spent with me taking me in Arizona, Utah, and Nevada as my manager. Anyway, just for no other reason than I traveled around the country with someone who helped me through some difficult times--a fine man. He died at a young age from a very bad disease. I have the name Bybee in my mind from some of the times in my youth.
I indicated Senator Ensign and I consulted on Mr. Bybee's nomination when Senator Leahy chaired the Judiciary Committee for a short time. Mr. Bybee was reported out of the Judiciary Committee in compliance with the committee's rules when Senator Hatch was chairman.
The consultation and respect for the rules is why we are here today, moving forward to fill the Ninth Circuit seat held by Proctor Hug, Jr. since 1977.
I must say a few things about Proctor Hug. He is a fine man and a great athlete. He went to Sparks High School. He was an all-star athlete in football, track, and basketball. He ran track in college, was State debate champion. He was student body president at Sparks High School. He met his
future wife, Barbara Van Meter, at Sparks High School. He became student body president at the University of Nevada.
He served his country honorably in the Navy and then went to one of the most prestigious law schools in the entire country, Stanford Law.
He was appointed by President Carter and became Chief Judge of the Ninth Circuit in 1996. He was a good ``Chief,'' as the other judges called him. He came back here a lot of times lobbying as a judge for issues important to the Ninth Circuit and the Federal judiciary.
Judge Proctor Hug set a fine example of what it means not only to be a judge but to serve your community and your country.
To show what great judgment Proctor Hug has, two of my sons were his law clerks, and one was his administrative assistant when he was chief judge. He signed up with Judge Hug for 2 years. He was a fine administrative assistant.
I expect Jay Bybee will follow in the evenhanded and impartial path set by his predecessor, Judge Proctor Hug.
The point is that where there is consultation, the nominating process works well. When consultation was the rule, where blue slips were issued and made public, the body swiftly confirmed 100 judges, as my friends know.
Talking about the 100 judges, when we were in control of the Senate-- even over here in the minority, 11 judges by the end of today will have been approved for the circuit court, the trial court, and the Court of International Trade. In the last 24 hours we will have approved five judges--a circuit court judge, two trial court judges yesterday, and two today. We are moving along quite well.
I am not going to get into we did this and they did that. The fact is whoever did what, we are still filling a lot of judicial vacancies around the country.
I think it is important that we proceed to recognize we have a problem with Mr. Estrada. I know my dear friend, the junior Senator from Mississippi, the majority and minority leader during my time here in the Senate, recognizes that if he is going to get Estrada done, something different has to be done than what we have been doing.
I read in today's New York Times where the junior Senator from Mississippi said--I am paraphrasing, but he basically says: If we-- talking about the Republicans--want to get Estrada done, then we are going to have to do something different. And, obviously, what we want done is to have supplied the records when he was in the Solicitor's Office and reconvene the committee and have the hearing.
Now, there are people who may vote for Estrada, if we could get through that process--Democrats. I think there would be a number of them. But until we get that information, and find out if something is being hidden--maybe there has been a perusal of all those documents, and maybe they can't be given to us. Maybe they can't be given to us because he has said things there. Maybe, as Paul Bender said, he is such an ideologue, and maybe he has written about all those things Paul Bender said when he was in the Solicitor General's Office. I don't know. But I would suggest that would be the best way to get over this hump.
The fact is, though, today we should not be dwelling on what we have not been able to do, but we should be talking about what we have done.
Today, we are going to confirm a circuit court judge. We are going to make a man--Uay Bybee--so happy; he was, on more than one occasion during his short tenure at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas--a new law school just accredited--selected as the No. 1 professor, the best professor, at that law school. He was not selected by the other professors. He was selected by the students.
Jay Bybee has a great personality. He has an in-depth knowledge of the law. He comes with a background from a wonderful family. I am so glad we are able today to confirm this man for a lifetime appointment to the Federal judiciary.
We keep talking about the DC Court of Appeals being right under the Supreme Court. So is the Ninth Circuit. It is the highest court you can serve on except for the Supreme Court.
Jay Bybee will serve with distinction and honor, and not only represent the State of Nevada well, and the students he taught at Louisiana and UNLV, but he will also represent the whole country, being a credit to the bar and to the judiciary.