Senate Proceeding 11-17-09 on Nov 17th, 2009 :: 1:43:05 to 1:46:15
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1:43:02 to 1:43:23( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: senator the presiding officer: thank you very much. and i first, mr. president, want to thank the distinguished chairman of the judiciary committee not only for his commitment and his hard work but his patience as he has had to labor through objection after objection, stalling tactic after stalling tactic to fill these critical judgeships for the

1:43:05 to 1:46:15( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: James Webb

1:43:24 to 1:43:45( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: people of the country. mr. president, on march 17, president obama nominated his first judge to the federal bench, david hamilton, whose nomination the republicans are now filibustering. he nominated him on march 17. judge hamilton is not a partisan partisan -- partisan judge.

1:43:46 to 1:44:06( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: he has an excellent record. he's been an impartial umpire of cases that have come before us. for 15 years, he served with distinction on the federal district court, and he has the support, strong support, of his two home state senators, a distinguished republican and a distinguished democrat. he has the highest rating from

1:44:07 to 1:44:27( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: the american bar association. and, yet, the republicans are still stalling his confirmation vote. and, again, nominated in march -- march 17th. this fair and impartial judge is being blocked for no other reason, in my estimation, than to stop us from filling a

1:44:28 to 1:44:49( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: critical seat on the appeals court with president obama's nominee. now, as we know, and as the distinguished senator from pennsylvania spoke about a moment ago, this is not a first. in so far this year, and i'm going to have to get a bigger chart on -- 90 times we have seen republicans come to the floor

1:44:50 to 1:45:10( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: and object in some manner to moving our country forward, to moving the people's agenda forward. over and over again we are seeing tactics to simply slow the senate down and the mority of these objections, as the presiding officer knows, have ended, actually, in unanimous

1:45:11 to 1:45:31( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: votes once we have actually gotten through all of the process, all of the -- the strategies and actually gotten to a vote almost in every case peop have passed overwhelmingly, if not unanimously. and the same is true with legislation. we're at a point, mr. president,

1:45:32 to 1:45:54( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: where the stalling has to stop. we have two wars. we have the highest unemployment in a generation. we have an economy to worry about, financial reform to worry about, and certainly health care, which is about jobs, which is in front of us now. the time is now to stop. every senator has the right to

1:45:55 to 1:46:16( Edit History Discussion )

James Webb: vote yes or no on a people that or on legislation. but 90 times and counting, mr. president, we have seen simply objections and stalling tactics to slow down the business of this country. and i hope that we are going to see that stop in the interest of everything that we need to get done.