Judicial excellence requires candor before confirmation. We are being asked to give the nominee enormous power.

I will vote my hopes and not my fears

A nominee [to Supreme Court] must possess the competence, character and temperament to serve on the bench.

We need to take steps to strengthen and mend Social Security so that its promise of a secure retirement is just as real for seniors in the future as it is today.

Even as we pour hundreds of billions of dollars into our efforts in the Middle East, there is much that needs to be done to win the war of ideas in the Muslim world and beyond

As the guardian of our rights, the Supreme Court makes decisions every year which either protect the individual or leave him at the mercy of more powerful forces in our society.

Judicial excellence means that a Supreme Court justice must have a sense of the values from which our core of our political- economic system goes. In other words, we should not approve any nominee whose extreme judicial philosophy would undermine rights and liberties relied upon by all Americans.