[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 106 (Thursday, June 28, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8670-S8672]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
EXECUTIVE SESSION
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NOMINATION OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL DOUGLAS E. LUTE, TO BE LIEUTENANT
GENERAL, U.S. ARMY
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate resumes
executive session and will proceed to a vote on Executive Calendar No.
165, which the clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read the nomination of Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute
to be Lieutenant General.
The question is, Will the Senate advise and consent to the nomination
of Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, to be Lieutenant General, U.S. Army, under
title 10, U.S.C., section 601?
Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mrs. BOXER (when her name was called). Present.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from South Dakota (Mr.
Johnson) is necessarily absent.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 94, nays 4, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 236 Ex.]
YEAS--94
Akaka
Alexander
Allard
Barrasso
Baucus
Bayh
Bennett
Biden
Bingaman
Bond
Brown
Brownback
Bunning
Burr
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Chambliss
Clinton
Coburn
Cochran
Coleman
Collins
Conrad
Corker
Cornyn
Craig
Crapo
DeMint
Dodd
Dole
Domenici
Dorgan
Durbin
Ensign
Enzi
Feingold
Feinstein
Graham
Grassley
Gregg
Hagel
Harkin
Hatch
Hutchison
Inhofe
Inouye
Isakson
Kennedy
Kerry
Klobuchar
Kohl
Kyl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lincoln
Lott
Lugar
Martinez
McCain
McConnell
Menendez
Mikulski
Murkowski
Murray
Nelson (FL)
Nelson (NE)
Obama
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Roberts
Rockefeller
Salazar
Sanders
Schumer
Sessions
Shelby
Smith
Snowe
Specter
Stabenow
Stevens
Sununu
Thune
Vitter
Voinovich
Warner
Whitehouse
Wyden
[[Page S8671]]
NAYS--4
Byrd
McCaskill
Tester
Webb
ANSWERED ``PRESENT''--1
Boxer
NOT VOTING--1
Johnson
The nomination was confirmed.
Mr. REID. Madam President, it is my understanding that there are
three votes for district court judges, is that true?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is true.
Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that all votes be
10 minutes in duration.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. REID. I thank the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there is 10 minutes
of debate preceding the votes.
Who yields time?
The Senator from Vermont is recognized.
Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, we are going to have how many
nominations?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Three. The Senator has 5 minutes.
Mr. LEAHY. Madam Presient, the Senate continues to make progress
today with the confirmation of three more lifetime appointments to the
Federal bench, Benjamin Hale Settle to the District Court for the
Western District of Washington, Richard Joseph Sullivan to the District
Court for the Southern District of New York, and Joseph S. Van Bokkelen
to the District Court for the Northern District of Indiana. The
nominations of Mr. Settle and Mr. Sullivan are for vacancies deemed by
the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts to be judicial
emergencies. All three nominees have the support of their home State
Senators. I thank Senators Murray, Cantwell, Clinton, Schumer, Lugar,
and Bayh for working with us and with the President on the nomination.
These 3 judges will bring this year's judicial confirmations total to
21. It is before the Fourth of July recess, and we have already
confirmed many more judges than were confirmed during the entire 1996
session when President Clinton's nominees were being reviewed by a
Republican Senate majority. That was the session in which not a single
circuit court nominee was confirmed. We have already confirmed three
circuit court judges in the early months of this session. As I have
previously noted, that also puts us well ahead of the pace established
by the Republican majority in 1999.
As the Judiciary Committee chairman, I have always treated this
President's judicial nominees more fairly than Republicans treated
President Clinton's. With these confirmations, the Senate will have
confirmed 121 judges while I have served as Judiciary Chairman. It is a
little known and wholly unappreciated fact that during the more than 6
years of the Bush Presidency, more circuit court judges, more district
court judges, and more total judges have been confirmed while I served
as Judiciary chairman than during the longer tenures of either of the
two Republican chairmen working with Republican Senate majorities.
The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts lists 48 judicial
vacancies after these nominations are confirmed, yet the President has
sent us only 26 nominations for these vacancies. Twenty two of these
vacancies--almost half--have no nominee. Of the 15 vacancies deemed by
the Administrative Office to be judicial emergencies, the President has
yet to send us nominees for 6 of them. That means more than a third of
the judicial emergency vacancies are without a nominee.
Of the 13 circuit court vacancies, more than half are without a
nominee. If the President had worked with the Senators from Rhode
Island, New Jersey, Maryland, California, Michigan, and the other
States with the remaining circuit vacancies, we could be in position to
make even more progress.
As it is, we have cut the circuit vacancies in half, from 26 to 13.
Contrast that with the way the Republican-led Senate's lack of action
on President Clinton's moderate and qualified nominees resulted in
circuit court vacancies increasing from 17 to 26. During most of the
Clinton years, the Republican-led Senate engaged in strenuous efforts
to keep circuit judgeships vacant in anticipation of a Republican
President. To a great extent they succeeded.
The Judiciary Committee has been working hard to make progress on
those nominations the President has sent to us. Of course, when he
sends us well-qualified, consensus nominees with the support of his
home-state Senators like those before us today, we can have success.
Mr. Settle is a partner and cofounder of the Shelton, WA, law firm of
Settle & Johnson, PLLC, where he has worked for 30 years. He also
served 7 years as a prosecutor and defense counsel in the U.S. Army
Judge Advocate General Corps.
Mr. Sullivan is general counsel to Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc.,
where he has worked since 2005. Before that, he worked as a Federal
prosecutor in the Southern District of New York and in private practice
at the Wall Street law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen, & Katz.
Mr. Van Bokkelen is the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of
Indiana, where he has served since 2001. He has worked in private
practice for the law firms of Goodman, Ball, Van Bokkelen & Leonard and
Wilson, Donnesberger, Van Bokkelen & Reid. He previously served as an
assistant U.S. attorney and as an assistant attorney general in the
Indiana Attorney General's office.
I congratulate the nominees and their families on their confirmation
today.
Have the yeas and nays been asked for on the Benjamin Hale Settle
nomination?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. They have not.
Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There is a sufficient second.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is all time yielded back?
Mr. LEAHY. I yield back my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania is recognized.
Mr. SPECTER. Madam President, I seek recognition to speak on the
nomination of Benjamin Settle to be a U.S. District Judge for the
Western District of Washington. Benjamin Hale Settle was nominated by
President Bush on January 9, 2007. A hearing was held on his nomination
on March 13, and he was unanimously reported out of the Judiciary
Committee on April 25.
Mr. Settle has an impressive resume and a record of service. He
received his B.A. from Claremont McKenna College in 1969. Upon
graduating from college, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve and
entered law school at Willamette University College of Law where he
received his J.D. degree in 1972.
After graduating from law school he worked for Don Miles Attorneys as
an associate until he was called up to serve full time in the Judge
Advocate General's Corps for the U.S. Army in 1973. Three years later,
in 1976, Mr. Settle left full time Army service and rejoined the Don
Miles where he practiced for one year, before opening a small
partnership of his own. He has enjoyed a successful career as a general
practitioner, working in a variety of small partnerships over the last
three decades.
Mr. Settle's broad practice has encompassed both litigation and
transactional matters. The nominee has also served as the general
counsel to several municipal and private corporate entities. In
addition to his litigation and general counsel work, Mr. Settle has
served as judge pro tempore in Mason County Superior and District
Courts where he has managed numerous matters for mediation and
arbitration.
The ABA has unanimously rated Mr. Settle ``Qualified.'' The vacancy
to which Mr. Settle is nominated has been designated a ``judicial
emergency'' by the nonpartisan Administrative Office of the Courts. I
hope my fellow Senators will support this nomination.
Madam President, I also seek recognition to discuss the nomination of
Richard Sullivan to be a District Judge for the Southern District of
New York.
Richard J. Sullivan was nominated to be a U.S. District Court Judge
for the Southern District of New York on February 15, 2007. A hearing
was held on his nomination on April 11, 2007, and the Judiciary
Committee reported his nomination favorably on May 3, 2007.
He is a highly qualified nominee with a distinguished record both as
a prosecutor and in private practice. In 1986,
[[Page S8672]]
he received his B.A. degree from the College of William and Mary, where
he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. In 1990, he graduated from Yale Law
School. Following law school, he served as a law clerk to Judge David
M. Ebel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. In
1991, he joined Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz as a litigation associate.
In 1994, he joined the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern
District of New York as an assistant U.S. attorney. During his tenure
in the office, he served in a variety of leadership positions. In 1999,
he was put in charge of the Office's General Crimes Unit and later
became chief of the Narcotics Unit. In 2002, he was named the founding
chief of the newly created International Narcotics Trafficking Unit,
which was dedicated to investigating and prosecuting the world's
largest narcotics trafficking and money-laundering organizations. From
2002 to 2005, he also served as director of the New York/New Jersey
Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force.
In 2005, Mr. Sullivan joined Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc., as
deputy general counsel for litigation. He still works in that capacity,
and since 2006 has also served as the general counsel of Marsh Inc.,
the world's largest insurance broker and risk management firm. Marsh &
McLennan Companies is the parent company of Marsh Inc.
The American Bar Association has unanimously rated Mr. Sullivan
``Well Qualified.'' The seat to which he is nominated has been
designated a ``judicial emergency'' by the nonpartisan Administrative
Office of the Courts. I hope my fellow Senators will vote to confirm
Mr. Sullivan.
And finally, Madam President, I seek recognition to discuss the
nomination of Joseph S. Van Bokkelen to be a District Judge for the
Northern District of Indiana.
President Bush nominated Mr. Van Bokkelen on January 9, 2007. A
hearing was held on his nomination on April 11 and the Senate Judiciary
Committee reported his nomination favorably on May 3. He is a highly
qualified nominee with extensive experience both as a prosecutor and in
private practice.
In 1966, Mr. Van Bokkelen received his B.A. degree from Indiana
University. In 1969, he graduated from Indiana University School of
Law. After graduating law school, Mr. Van Bokkelen joined the Office of
the Indiana Attorney General, serving as deputy attorney general and
subsequently as assistant attorney general. In 1972, he became an
assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Indiana, where he
served until 1975.
Between 1975 and 2001, he worked in private practice as a partner--
first at Wilson, Donnesberger, Van Bokkelen & Reid and then at Goodman,
Ball, Van Bokkelen & Leonard, P.C. His practice has focused on
litigation, both civil and criminal. Between 1983 and 1985, he served
as a special prosecutor to investigate the murder of a prominent
politician and lawyer in Lake County, IN.
Since 2001, Mr. Van Bokkelen has served as U.S. Attorney for the
Northern District of Indiana. His courtroom experience is extensive.
Over the course of his career, he has tried over 100 cases to verdict.
The American Bar Association has unanimously rated Mr. Van Bokkelen
``Well Qualified.''
I urge my fellow Senators to support this nomination.
Madam President, I know everybody is anxious to conclude these
matters. They ought not be noncontroversial. Again, we have Benjamin
Hale Settle, for the Western District of Washington; Joseph S. Van
Bokkelen, for the Northern District of Indiana; Richard J. Sullivan,
for the Southern District of New York.
All have excellent academic records and professional records and
passed through the Judiciary Committee. I recommend that my colleagues
vote for them.
I yield back the remainder of my time.
____________________