in november president obama nominated andy lugar to become the new u.s. attorney and the judiciary committee approved his nomination unanimously on january 9. our colleague from texas, senator cruz, had no objections to this nomination. we had no objections on the committee, which is saying a lot because we have a lot of different people from different backgrounds and different political views on the come. usually when people speak on nominations on this floor, it is because they're fighting to get someone through because there is objections. this is not at all the case in the case of andy lugar, who's trying to be the district attorney of minnesota. what has happened in the past cases with u.s. attorneys? well, over the past 20 years, four of minnesota nominees to be u.s. attorney's a pointed by republican and democratic presidents alike were confirmed within a day of when they passed out of the committee and during this timeframe, all of the nominees were confirmed within an average of 9 1/2 days of being voted out of committee. it has been 26 days sinc

andy lugar, a respected litigator, former 123457b9 assi. attorney. it has now been 196 days since we made that recommendation to the president. it has been 187 days since director jones was confirmed with no full-time u.s. attorney again in the office. while the office has continued to provide the united states with the high-quality legal representation it deserves, minnesota needs a full-time u.s. attorney. mr. lew tkpwar sailed -- mr. lugar sailed through the judiciary committee. he passed all the testifies including the f.b.i. tests. he has the support of law enforcement that i've spoken with, has the support of our republican congressmen in the area. i want to thank senator grassley who also supports him and has raised issues with the u.s. minnesota attorneys office because of the fact that we haven't had a full-time attorney for 888 days. and he has been supportive of our efforts to quickly move mr. lugar's nomination not just to the committee but to the floor. senator grassley is in a similar situation because his u.s. attorney for the northern