Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On Continuing To Confirm President Biden’s Cybersecurity And Judicial Nominees This Week

Washington, D.C. –  Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor regarding the Senate’s continued work confirming President Biden’s nominees to bring both balance and diversity to the federal courts. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

This week, the Senate will continue restoring balance to the federal courts by considering more of President Biden’s judicial appointments.

Over the next two days, we’ll consider Deborah Boardman to serve as a District Judge in Maryland, and Candace Jackson-Akiwumi to serve as a judge on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Together, Ms. Boardman and Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi have over twenty years of experience as federal defenders. I believe that bringing professional diversity as well as personal diversity to the federal bench should be, and is now, a top priority.

There are plenty of former prosecutors and corporate lawyers wearing black robes. It’s time that some voting rights attorneys, civil rights attorneys, and former federal defenders, like these two nominees, bring their perspective to the bench.

A final vote on Ms. Boardman’s nomination will come this afternoon, and then we will proceed to the nomination of Ms. Jackson-Akiwumi, which we will finish before the end of the week.

Again, the Senate will not leave for the week until we finish considering these judges.

The Democratic Majority in the Senate will to continue to swiftly fill judicial vacancies.

On a related note.

Today, Chairman Peters will ask the Senate to approve two critical cyber security nominees: Jen Easterly to be the Director of Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and Robin Carnahan to be the Administrator of the General Services Administration. Both of these agencies play a critical role in our nation’s cyber-security. 

The threat of ransomware attacks and other cyber-crime is on the rise, from state-actors as well as cyber-bandits who are given sanctuary by our adversaries. We need people at the helm of these important agencies to focus on hardening our nation’s cybersecurity. This should be a completely non-partisan issue, and my Republican friends should not object.

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