Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I am proud to rise in support of Justice Wilhelmina Wright's confirmation as a district court judge for the District of Minnesota. Justice Wright, as the members of the Judiciary Committee learned during her fine hearing, is a dedicated public servant with a distinguished career spanning the State and Federal legal system. She is the first person in the history of Minnesota to serve at all three levels of the judiciary and receive this nomination. She served as a district court judge in Minnesota, she served for the Minnesota Court of Appeals, and she now serves on the Minnesota Supreme Court. Her 15 years of judicial experience make her ready to do this job on day one, and I can state that when you hear the statistics about the overload for the District of Minnesota, we need her to start tomorrow on day one.

Her qualifications are impeccable. Justice Wright has sat on panels deciding over 2,000 cases and presided over nearly 700. Yet with all those cases and all these opinions, there were no serious questions raised at all about her being biased or unfair in some way in her work as a judge. In fact, it was the opposite. She has the support of former Senator Norm Coleman, a Republican, and many others in our State who have served across the aisle. Her qualifications reveal a thoughtful and a talented jurist, one who applies the law to the facts of each case.

Justice Wright currently serves as associate justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, a position she has had since her appointment in 2012. As the first African-American woman to serve on the court, Justice Wright has earned the respect of litigants, lawyers, and judicial colleagues alike.

Justice Wright was born in Norfolk, VA. She graduated from Yale College cum laude in 1986 and received her law degree from Harvard Law School in 1989. After law school, Justice Wright clerked for Judge Damon Keith of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. She then went into private practice for 5 years at Hogan & Hartson. Before long she felt the pull of public service. She joined the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota and has been a dependable and dedicated leader of the Minnesota legal system ever since that time. During her time as a Federal prosecutor, she received the U.S. Department of Justice Director's Award and the Department's Special Achievement Award.

If you look at her path before she became a judge, every step of the way she excelled. She excelled growing up. She excelled in college and law school in terms of her record. She excelled as a judicial clerk, she excelled in private practice, and she excelled in the U.S. attorney's office, where she received numerous awards. She was then appointed by, I believe, Gov. Jesse Ventura. She did not start her career as a political appointee. He was in the Independent Party. She served as a Ramsey County district court judge from 2000 to 2002, when she was appointed to the Minnesota Court of Appeals.

She served for 10 years until her most recent appointment to the Minnesota Supreme Court. Justice Wright is also involved in a variety of civic and bar activities. She devotes 50 hours per year to educating the public on the law.

If that is not enough, Justice Wright has also worked to improve the legal system. She has been a member of the Minnesota Judicial Council, the Minnesota Courts Public Trust and Confidence Working Group, and the Minnesota State Bar Association Task Force on the Minnesota Bar Association Model Rules of Professional Conduct. In 2006, the Minnesota Women Lawyers honored her with the Myra Bradwell Award for her service, and in 2012 the Minnesota Association of Black Lawyers presented her with the President's Award.

The law has always been more than a profession for Justice Wright. It has been central to her own development. Growing up, she watched her parents fight the Norfolk, VA, school system to ensure her access to the same educational opportunities as everyone else. The protections enforced by the legal system were crucial to her family's struggle. As Justice Wright has said about the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education: ``Aside from the Bible, that court order was the most important written document in my family's life.'' The law worked for Justice Wright. In turn, she has dedicated her own life to the law and to fairness and impartiality.

Justice Wright deserves to be confirmed. As I said, the Judiciary Committee hearing went extremely well. She has the support of many members of the committee. In fact, her nomination went through without an objection when we had the vote. She explained any questions that the members of the Judiciary Committee had--and there were some, obviously. A very good Senator asked a lot of questions on the committee. She explained any question they had about past legal writings from law school and other issues. They felt secure in her nomination and passed her out of committee without any objection. No new issues have been raised since that time. There were no serious questions about the 2,300 cases she handled. I can't think of many nominees we have had with that kind of record.

I would add that this nomination is particularly important to the District of Minnesota. The U.S. Judicial Conference has deemed the current vacancy in our State to be a judicial emergency. Our district caseload has increased significantly in recent years. In 2014, the district saw a 57-percent jump in case filings, with nearly 6,000 Federal cases currently pending. Judge Davis assumed senior status last August, vacating the position for which she has been nominated. Failing to fill this judicial vacancy is failing the people of Minnesota.

I am so proud of my colleagues and thank them for their support, both Democrats and Republicans on the Judiciary Committee who will be voting for her today. Justice Wright is the type of nominee we strive for--the best candidate for the job. We had a bipartisan committee led by two private practice lawyers, one having served as U.S. attorney for the State of Minnesota under the first President Bush and the second President Bush, Tom Heffelfinger. He chaired this committee which looked at so many qualified nominees and made this recommendation to Senator Franken and myself. So this process from the beginning has been completely bipartisan and impeccable and we are proud of that process.

The ABA Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary unanimously rated Justice Wright as ``well qualified'' to serve as a district court judge for the District of Minnesota, which is the highest rating the committee awards. It is based on a confidential peer review of Justice Wright's professional competence, integrity, and judicial temperament.

As Senator Coleman, a former Senator from the State of Minnesota, a Republican Senator, said: ``I fully support her nomination and have communicated that to my former colleagues.''

Why does Senator Coleman support this nomination? Because he looked at the record of a woman of integrity, a woman who had not one case questioned before the very thorough Judiciary Committee, who has the support of many of the Republican Senators--no objections raised when the vote was taken. This is exactly the kind of nominee we want.

Justice Wilhelmina Wright will make a fine Federal district court judge for the District of Minnesota. I urge all my colleagues to support this superb nominee. The people of Minnesota need and deserve a judge of Wilhelmina Wright's caliber. We are proud of our Federal judges in Minnesota. Some came from Democratic administrations, some came out of Republican administrations, but they have always had the reputation of integrity. Justice Wright will continue to uphold that reputation of integrity.

I ask my colleagues to support her.

Thank you, Mr. President, and I yield the floor. I also see that my colleague Senator Franken is here as well.