accountability to the system and increase competition. driving prices down and making good coverage, private or public, more affordable to everyone. mr. president, american businesses and families have waited far too long for meaningful health care reform. the time to act is now. some of my colleagues have been working to fix our broken system for many years. senator kennedy has been a leader on this issue throughout his career. this is the moment that he and many others have been working towards. we must seize this opportunity to reform health care in america. i urge my colleagues to work with president obama as well as senator kennedy to make sure that everyone has access to quality, affordable coverage. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor and suggest

the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from alabama.

mr. sessions: mr. president, i ask that the quorum call be tis spenced with. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. sessions: -- dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. sessions: mr. president to the american people, we're going to do our best to have a hearing in the judiciary committee on her confirmation and that the american people will feel it is fair and i would hope they would say it's the best hearing we've ever had. i have to tell you, though, that things are moving fast. faster than i would like to have seen them move. and it does cause some difficulties for us. as i discussed on the floor yesterday, the republican members of the judiciary committee are deeply concerned about this process being moved this rapidly. yesterday chairman leahy unilaterally announced that the hearings would begin on july 13th. some 48 days from the

announcement of this nomination. i won't go into a lot of detail, but would just note in the recent three supreme court nominees, justice breyer's hearing was 60 days after the announcement, justice roberts, the one who has been most cited and was the shortest was 55, and justice alito's was 70. and i would note that justice robert had 370 cases, whereas, judge sotomayor has 3,500-plus cases to review. so i think it is better to quote senator schumer, senator leahy in remarks they made previously that it's better to do it right than to do it too fast. and i would note that last week -- late last week the white house sent her questionnaire answers -- questionnaire that we send to all nominees requiring a

good deal of information that's been done in a bipartisan basis. those answers were sent forward and with great fanfare in a press release from the obama administration's white house counsel's office proclaiming that they set a record by completing the process in just nine days. but this is a confirmation process, not a confirmation race. and the white house, i think, should focus more on having a thorough and complete answer to the questionnaire, not on entering the guiness book of record for the fastest response. we know now that judge sotomayor has omitted and failed to include key information that provided incomplete and sometimes contradictory responses to the questionnaire. the responses are not satisfactory. so today all seven members of the republican -- republican members of the judiciary committee who have been through,

most of them, for some time and seen these issues develop before, had written to ask that the nominee fulfill her duty to provide clear and complete answers to our questions. and to -- i think obtain quite a bit of information that is now not available and should have been included. so i have that letter here, mr. president. i would offer it as part of the record. the presiding officer: without objection. so ordered. mr. sessions: so now, of course, the judge has provided a committee with a good deal of information. we also appreciate that the judge has already once recognized that the questionnaire was incomplete. the issue was rawz and they -- she provided the committee with additional information on june 6th, that really should

have been in the first response. however, we are still concerned with several aspects, as i've already said, the minority leader reiterated this morning, members of the judiciary committee and the full senate need a complete and thorough record in order to make informed judgments on this nomination. this is a lifetime appointment. and it's our one chance in congress to get it right. a justice on the supreme court, if they're not faithful, has the power to actually alter the constitution in addition to faithfully follow it and sometimes i think that's what they've done. and we need to know what kind of judge we're going to get. does this judge understand that he or she will be under the law, subordinate to the law, one who must faithfully follow the law? or do they believe they are above the law and have the freedom and the ability to

interpret in new and novel ways which might just seem to further some agenda he or she might have if they're on the bench. i think the american people are concerned about that. i think they have a right to be concerned about that. decisions have been rendered, in my opinion, that are not faithful to the constitution, not required by the constitution. so those are the things we ought to talk about, and do it in a fair way, at a high level. no need to be personal about it. so the oversights and errors in this questionnaire are the product of trying to rush through a nominee with one of the lengthiest records in recent history, maybe ever, to the supreme court in one of the shortest time frames in history. so i think we should try to get it right. i believe a fair and thorough process is the best -- a fair and thorough process in the best

spirit of this chamber and in the best interests of this nation is what we should look forward to. so i want to see that we get the complete record and get back on the right track. i believe question do that and it's important that we work at it. so i promised, as i said, to do what i can and i believe we will have a very fair and objective hearing. but it's also important that we are fair to the american people, and they are depending on us to carefully scrutinize anyone that comes up for confirmation. we cannot do that without a complete questionnaire. so, mr. president, there are a number of things i raised the other day -- yesterday about the shortfall, and i'll just briefly make a point or two. the letter sets forth in some detail quite a number of areas we -- we set forth.

it's eight different items and some other comments that we feel are inadequate that we call for additional information on. it's some significant matters, i think. when the judge supplemented her initial questionnaire on june 6 by providing us with a report concerning the death penalty article that she drafted during her time on the board of the puerto rican legal defense and education fund. she had initially omitted that from the report. we would appreciate confirmation that a thorough review of those records has been completed, given the initial omission, and that she's provided all the relevant documents to the committee in response to this question. and there are other questions of writings, reports and speeches, question 12a requires a nominee to list copies of materials written or edited. judge sotomayor has been widely

described as the editor -- one of the editors of the yale law journal and is managing editor of the yale studies in world public order. however, we've not received any copies of materials from either publication that she may have added to. so we need to see copies of those material. the questionnaire also requires copies of reports, memorandums and policy statements prepared for specified organizations. the judge responded -- quote -- "as a member of various court committees, she has prepared and contributed to numerous reports and memoranda on court issues which relate to internal court deliberations that are not available for public dissemination." well, i don't think those are the kind of documents that are secret. i think they can be obtained and we feel like the questionnaire calls for all of those, and i believe it does. question 12d talks about a list

of speeches and lectures providing the text of those speeches, or if that's not available, outlines or notes, and if not that, a summary of the subject matter involved in the speeches. so about a third of those speeches have not been prepared and the summaries are inadequate. i'll just give an example. this was a response to one of them. quote -- "i spoke on second circuit employment discrimination cases." no summary of what was it about, no outline or other information on that speech. another one -- kuwaiti -- "i spoke -- quote -- "i spoke at a federal court externalship class on access to justice." another one, "i spoke on the united states judicial system." another one -- quote -- "i participated in a symposium on post-conviction relief and spoke

on the execution of judgments of convictions." another one -- quote -- "i spoke on the implementation of the hague convention in the united states and abroad." it goes on, several others, but those really are inadequate responses probably as a result of rushing the questionnaire through. and i hope the nominee will go back and see, first of all, that she can find the written speech that she gave and provide us a copy of it. that would be helpful as we review these matters because there have been some questions about the speeches that the nominee has made. so, mr. president, i won't take any more time. i'll let the letter speak for itself. i tried to call the judge earlier this afternoon but she won't be available until sometime later, just to tell her that this is coming forward. i believe the -- the -- her staff may have already been notified of it.

but the white house counsel's -- notified of it by the white house counsel's office. these are not littlitiy bitty matters, they're important matters if we're going to move forward in a record-breaking time frame, the least we can expect is complete and full answers for these questions. it's inappropriate that we insist that this questionnaire -- it's appropriate that we insist that these questionnaire be promptly and completely answered and i hope and believe that we will. certainly that's what our request would be. i thank the chair, would yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: