Mr. President, I have spent the past 23 hours listening to the debate which was billed as a debate on judicial nominations and has turned into a semantics fest over who is responsible for the delayed enactment of legislation important to both sides of the aisle. One thing is clear to me, this is not getting us any closer to enacting the legislation we have identified as important.

We are devoting 30 hours to debate the fact that the Senate has passed only 98 percent of President Bush's nominees, not 100 percent. I take my responsibilities as a United States Senator very seriously. My understanding is that I am to provide the President with my advice and consent regarding the individuals he nominates for a lifetime position to the federal judiciary. It troubles me that we are spending 30 hours to discuss the fact that we have not acted on two percent of the President's nominees to the federal judiciary.

We're talking about four individuals, four individuals who have jobs, while three million people have lost jobs since President Bush took office. We should be talking about jobs. We should be debating and voting on legislation to increase the minimum wage. We should be finishing our appropriations bills. We should be talking about ways to strengthen our manufacturing base. We should be discussing extended unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed, the three million Americans who have lost their jobs during the Bush presidency.

If we want to start talking about legislation that is important to us as individual Senators, we could be talking about federal recognition for Hawaii's indigenous peoples, Native Hawaiians, an issue of extreme importance to my constituents in Hawaii. We could be talking about ending mutual fund abuses for investors or promoting financial literacy for our students. We could be talking about how to fund the promises we extended when we passed the No Child Left Behind Act which has been severely underfunded since its enactment.

Instead, we have spent 23 hours talking about four judicial nominations, four nominations out of 172, which have not been approved by this body. We have spent the past day blaming each other for the lack of progress on the issues that we have identified as priorities. It is sad that we have come to this point. During my tenure in the Senate, we have been able to work in a bipartisan manner to achieve our goals.

I take particular offense, Mr. President, to the claims that have been made about Democratic Senators being anti-woman, anti-Catholic, anti-Hispanic, and anti-African-American, merely because we refuse to approve four of the President's judicial nominees. Since when do we cast aspersions simply because we are unable to get our own way? As a former principal and teacher, this is not behavior that I would condone in the classroom, much less on the floor of the United States Senate.

My colleagues from the other side of the aisle argue that this is the first time a filibuster has been used for a judicial nominee. Mr. President, Republicans have openly filibustered six judicial nominees on the floor of the Senate, five of which were circuit court nominees.

There seems to be a theme that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have not engaged in efforts to block a judicial nomination. I want to share with my colleagues a situation I encountered during the 104th and 105th Congress. An individual from Hawaii was nominated to serve on the U.S. District Court, District of Hawaii. This was a nominee strongly supported by both Senators from Hawaii. This nominee had a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee and was reported favorably. However, this is where the process stopped for a period of two-and-a-half years.

A colleague from another state placed a hold on this nominee for over 30 months before allowing us to confirm this nomination. In effect, a Senator from a state thousands of miles from Hawaii blocked a district court nominee that the senior Senator from Hawaii [Mr. Inouye] and I supported. This colleague is now the Attorney General of the United States, and happens to be a good friend of mine. I found this situation to be so unusual, that a colleague from another state would place a hold on a district court nominee from my state when both Hawaii Senators strongly supported the nomination. I also find it highly ironic that the person who placed that hold is now in a position of great importance in this Administration. I raise this issue to dispute the notion that this is the first time a nomination has been blocked, after the Senate Judiciary Committee favorably reported the nomination to the Senate for consideration.

I could also speak about the nomination of Justice James Duffy to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. A fine nominee, described by his peers as the "best of the best," he had strong support from Senator Inouye and me to fill Hawaii's slot on the Ninth Circuit. Yet, Justice Duffy never received a hearing in the Senate. Seven hundred and ninety-one days without a hearing, Mr. President. Justice Duffy is one of the well-qualified and talented men and women nominated during the Clinton Administration, individuals with bipartisan and home-state support, whose nominations were never acted on by the Senate.

The last person I'll mention is Richard Clifton, who is now serving on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. Richard Clifton was nominated after President Bush withdrew Justice Duffy's nomination. Richard Clifton served as the Hawaii State Republican Party Counsel. While I don't necessarily agree with all of his views, I supported his nomination, and he was confirmed within a year of his nomination.

Mr. President, 95 percent of federal judicial seats are now filled, creating the lowest vacancy rate in 13 years. So let's get back to the things we should be talking about – jobs, education, Medicare, minimum wage, unemployment insurance, and helping the poor.

We are squandering valuable time that the Senate could and should be using to address matters of great importance to thousands of Americans. Mr. President, I am honored to cosponsor legislation offered by the senior Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Kennedy] to raise the minimum wage. He has spoken with tremendous passion of the urgent need for an increase in the minimum wage.

I remind my colleagues that since establishing the minimum wage requirement in 1938, we have had only 19 increases in the minimum wage, the latest occurring in September 1997. The minimum wage would need to reach $8.38 an hour to equal the purchasing power of the statutory minimum wage in 1968. A full-time worker paid the minimum wage earns about $4,000 below the poverty line for a family of three. This is not right.

Mr. President, we should not only be raising the minimum wage so that employees working full time are not struggling to stay above the poverty line. We should also extend the Temporary Extended Unemployment Compensation program. This program, which was enacted on March 9, 2002, provided up to 13 weeks of federally-funded benefits for unemployed workers in all states who exhausted their regular Unemployment Compensation benefits. In addition, up to an additional 13 weeks for certain high unemployment states that have an insured unemployed rate of 4 percent or higher. The program has been extended several times, with the latest extension enacted into law on May 28, 2003. While this program will be phased-out through March 31, 2004, the program actually ends on December 31, 2003. Mr. President, although employment has risen, the national unemployment rate has remained unchanged at six percent. In October 2003, the Department of Labor has indicated that two million unemployed persons were looking for work for 27 weeks or longer. This is greater than the 13 weeks of regular unemployment and greater than the additional extend unemployment benefits. Mr. President, we should be doing more not just for our men and women who are fighting our war on terrorism, but for those who are fighting the war on poverty.

My time is almost up, Mr. President, so I will end here. In a Senate where the divide between the majority and minority is held by a mere vote, and that division reflects the viewpoint of the American body politic at-large, it is imperative that we work together to resolve so many of the issues that are important to our constituents. When it comes to judicial nominations, the confirmation rate of 98 percent clearly shows that we, in the minority, are doing what we can to work with the majority in upholding our constitutional obligation to provide advice and consent to the President on judicial nominations. I can only hope we achieve a 98 percent rate in enacting the laws addressing funding for education, healthcare reform, Medicare reform, increasing the minimum wage, extending unemployment insurance, and providing Americans with the financial tools to be successful.

Thank you, Mr. President.