the presiding officer: woubg. mr. reid: mr. president, let me say a few words regarding the excellent work of the judiciary committee, the work that has been done by chairman leahy. and he has informed me that senator sessions has been most cooperative during the entire time that senator sessions has had this new assignment. senator mcconnell asked me one day last week to delay a floor vote until after the august recess on judge sotomayor. and he sent me a letter which i was happy to receive making his case for this delay. i indicated to him this morning that -- to him, senator mcconnell -- that i had a telephone call scheduled with the chairman of the judiciary committee and the president to go over the content of skphapbl's well-written -- of senator mcconnell's well-written letter. we had quite a long conversation with the president. the time, i don't know, 15 minutes, 30 minutes. it was certainly enough to learn very quickly that the president really was well versed on this nomination. after having spoken to the president a