[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 8] [Senate] [Page 11536] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]JUDICIAL GRIDLOCK Mr. SPECTER. I thank my colleagues. I have sought recognition to comment on a couple of subjects. One is the gridlock we are facing now in this body on the issue of judicial confirmations. It is my hope that we will yet be able to find a formula to break this cycle of gridlock. I have spoken on the subject repeatedly--about the events of the last 20 years, where in the last 2 years of each administration, when the White House is controlled by one party, as was the case with President Reagan in his last 2 years, and the nominations were gridlocked, and slowed down. Similarly, with President Bush the first, the last 2 years were slowed down, and then other devices and procedures were employed during the last 2 years of President Clinton's administration, procedures employed by the Republican caucus. As I have said on a number of occasions, I think the Republican caucus was wrong. I said so, and I voted so, in support of President Clinton's nominations. And now, I think the Democratic caucus is wrong in what the Democratic caucus is doing. I am not going to get into all of the nuances of the so-called ``deal'' about the confirmation of three circuit judges before Memorial Day, but that deal could have been accomplished had the judges waiting in line the longest been processed as opposed to judges who had not had their investigations done and had not had their ABA clearances. But, all of that is prologue, as I see it. During an Judiciary executive committee meeting, before the recess, I said publicly that I hoped to sit down with this chairman to try to work through this. We had a meeting scheduled yesterday, and we are going to sit down this afternoon. So it is my hope we will find a way through this thicket. I have proposed a protocol where we would have a hearing so many days after a nomination; then so many days later, we would have executive committee action; then so many days later, floor action. I think it is time that we reexamined the blue slip situation, a concept where an individual who was personally obnoxious to a given Senator was objected to. Well, I have grave questions about that standard for excluding people. I think it ought to be a matter of whether they are publicly obnoxious, but, what we ought to do is we ought to vote; we ought to bring these people to the floor for a vote. ____________________