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WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, urged Senate colleagues Thursday to give Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor an up-or-down vote on his nomination to the Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.-- Below is the complete text of Sen. Cornyn’s statement as prepared -- SENATE FLOOR STATEMENT THURSDAY JULY 31, 2003 Mr. President, I rise today to say a few words about religious faith in the context of the judicial confirmation process. I was honored to serve as a judge in my home state of Texas, both in a District Court and on the Supreme Court. And I firmly believe that, when you place your hand on the Bible and swear an oath to uphold the law as a judge, you change. You learn very quickly the awesome responsibility of a judge – to faithfully interpret and apply the law as it is written, not as you might wish it to be written. So I am troubled by a notion that appears to be returning to this institution in recent days. It is the idea that a nominee’s personal views on religious issues should play a role in determining whether or not they are fit to serve as a judge. I strongly disagree with this concept. I believe that when a nominee’s personal theological beliefs become a legitimate subject of debate before the Judiciary Committee and before this Senate – when we insert ourselves into the relationship between an individual and God – we violate both our conscience and our Constitution. There has been bipartisan support for every one of the President’s judicial nominees – including Leon Holmes, who is supported by not one but both of the Senators from his home state of Arkansas. The junior Senator from Arkansas has said that “Whenever you talk to lawyers in Arkansas about Leon Holmes, there is one word that keeps coming up… ‘integrity.’” The senior Senator from Arkansas has said that Mr. Holmes and his family “have already made and … will make all Arkansans very proud.” It is clear that Mr. Holmes is a well-qualified candidate. Yet still he has been subjected to attack. And the chief attack leveled against Mr. Holmes concerns his personal religious beliefs – beliefs that are rooted in a literal interpretation of scripture. These attacks are at worst an astounding insult. I am deeply discouraged at hearing them voiced by some of my colleagues. I fear they represent the taint of religious discrimination poisoning the judicial confirmation process. In the case of Mr. Holmes, several years ago he and his wife wrote an article together for a Catholic publication discussing Biblical lessons on marriage. They discussed scripture – not the law. They quoted Ephesians – not court cases. And they openly talked about how their church and their faith played an important role in their relationship and their family. I fail to see how a faith-based marriage is a bad thing. The personal religious beliefs of Mr. Holmes and his wife clearly do not conflict with his ability to faithfully interpret the law. Yet this article has met with all manner of attacks and misrepresentation during the confirmation process. Some seem generally alarmed that a nominee would speak about his faith in such honest terms in the public arena. I’d like to read the kind of comment that unnerves these folks:"We are inspired by a faith that goes back through all the years to the first chapter of the Book of Genesis: "God created man in His own image." We on our side are striving to be true to that divine heritage. We are fighting, as our fathers have fought, to uphold the doctrine that all men are equal in the sight of God… There never has been – there never can be – successful compromise between good and evil. Only total victory can reward the champions of tolerance, and decency, and freedom, and faith." A President said that. His name was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I seriously doubt that anyone in this body at the time took President Roosevelt to task for speaking frankly and honestly about his deeply held personal religious beliefs. President Roosevelt was right to say that in 1942. And it is just as right and proper for our nominees today to express their deeply held religious beliefs. Though I have to wonder if, testifying before the Judiciary Committee today, President Roosevelt would be challenged for those very remarks. Judge Carolyn Kuhl and Attorney General Pryor, two other well-qualified nominees, have also faced challenges over their religious beliefs, particularly concerning the matter of abortion. Both nominees have criticized the legal analysis used to support the Roe v. Wade decision. In addition, these nominees personally hold beliefs that are absolutely consistent with their faith and the doctrine of their respective churches. Their respective religions both hold to the doctrine that abortion is wrong. But they are hardly alone in criticizing the Roe decision as a legal matter. Numerous legal scholars and jurists across the political spectrum, both pro-choice and pro-life, have publicly criticized Roe. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, overwhelmingly approved by the Senate, has described Roe as “heavy-handed judicial intervention” that “was difficult to justify.” Alan Dershowitz has described Roe as a case of “judicial activism” in an area “more appropriately left to the political processes.” Edward Lazarus, a former law clerk to Justice Blackmun, the author of Roe, has said that “Roe borders on the indefensible,” as a decision that is, “at its worst, disingenuous and results-oriented.” And liberal legal scholar Jeffrey Rosen wrote just last week that Roe is “hard to locate in the text or history of the Constitution” and is based on “an unprincipled and unconvincing constitutional methodology.” Like all of these individuals, Judge Kuhl and Attorney General Pryor have criticized Roe on legal grounds – yet just as that fact did not preclude the Senate from approving Justice Ginsburg, neither should it prevent us from confirming either of these well-qualified nominees. What matters is that these nominees are committed to enforcing the law of the land. The fact that their personal beliefs on abortion are consistent with their religion is in no way an appropriate matter for debate. Nor does it preclude them from serving as judges, who act in accordance with the law of the land. There is a useful precedent regarding this issue. In a 1995 case, Feminist Women’s Health Center v. Codispoti, the plaintiffs tried to remove a judge from a federal appellate panel, because of his personal religious views against abortion. The Ninth Circuit unequivocally repudiated that motion for recusal, finding it offensive to the Religious Test Clause of Article VI of the Constitution. I agree with that decision: religious discrimination against judges is always wrong, whether it is based on their views on abortion, the death penalty, or any other issue. Judges rule on the basis of law, and not on the basis of their personal beliefs. I ask unanimous consent that this Ninth Circuit Opinion be entered into the record at the end of my remarks. It is a compelling decision, and I recommend it to my colleagues. We should also consider for a moment the lessons of another issue, and another nominee: the death penalty and Attorney General Janet Reno. As members of this body may recall, Attorney General Reno is personally opposed to the death penalty, a deeply-held belief. But she promised the Senate that her personal views would not interfere with her professional duty to enforce the law – and the Senate unanimously confirmed her. Allow me to quote another President, who wrote: “It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor.” This is an explicit expression of theological belief concerning the relationship between God and the state. If said today, I believe it would be considered more far-reaching and contentious than anything that these good nominees have said. Despite that, I remain convinced th