CFJ Truth Squad

“Liberal Filibuster Arguments Don’t Hold Water,” says Gray.

Volume 3

WASHINGTON, DC – As the Senate undertook its historic all-hours debate of the minority’s unprecedented use of the filibuster to deny the President’s nominees final votes, the Committee for Justice responded to senators’ initial arguments, made at a pre-debate press conference.

CLAIM:

Sen. Mark Dayton (D-MN):

“The nominees being blocked are not well qualified.”

RESPONSE:

Miguel Estrada – Honduran immigrant. Columbia College, Phi Beta Kappa. Harvard Law, magna cum laude, editor, Law Review. Clerk, Hon. Amalya L. Kearse, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Clerk, U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy. Assistant U.S. Attorney and Deputy Chief of the Appellate Section, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York. Assistant to the Solicitor General, United States Department of Justice. Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Fifteen cases argued before U.S. Supreme Court. American Bar Association rating, unanimous well qualified.

Priscilla Owen – Baylor University, cum laude. Baylor Law School, cum laude, member, Law Review. Partner, Andrews & Kurth L.L.P. Member, the American Law Institute, the American Judicature Society, the American Bar Association, and a Fellow of the American and Houston Bar Foundations. Justice, Supreme Court of Texas. In her re-election bid to the Supreme Court of Texas in 2000, every major newspaper in Texas endorsed. American Bar Association rating, unanimous well qualified.

William Pryor – Northeast Louisiana University, magna cum laude. Tulane University School of Law, magna cum laude. Law Clerk to the Honorable John Minor Wisdom, U. S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Cabaniss, Johnston, Gardner, Dumas & O’Neal, associate. Samford University, Cumberland School of Law, Adjunct Professor. Walston, Stabler, Wells, Anderson & Bains, Associate. State of Alabama, Attorney General. American Bar Association rating, qualified.

Charles Pickering – top of his law school class at the University of Mississippi, Law Journal, Chairman of the Moot Court Board. Appointed and served as City Prosecuting Attorney of Laurel and was elected and served four years as County Prosecuting Attorney of Jones County. Laurel City Judge, 1969. Elected to two terms in the Mississippi State Senate. Lawyer in private practice, almost thirty years. U. S. District Judge, over ten years. American Bar Association rating, well qualified.