THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Vice President

STATEMENT OF VICE PRESIDENT AL GORE

President Clinton has chosen an outstanding person in nominating Martha Craig "Cissy" Daughtrey to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. She is an excellent justice and a good friend who I respect and admire professionally and personally.

Cissy and I are long-time friends from Tennessee. She is fair-minded, hard-working, and dedicated to the law and to the integrity of the judicial system. As a lawyer, judge, university professor, and the first woman justice on the state's Supreme Court, Cissy has served Tennessee with distinction and honor. She also is a dedicated wife and mother.

Cissy is a leader among her colleagues and in her community. Throughout her career, she has made a determined effort to help others, particularly through her work on court reform and to promote women and minorities in the legal profession. Her career also has been marked by many firsts: She was the first woman prosecutor in Tennessee, the first woman tenure-track professor at the Vanderbilt University Law School, and the first and only woman to serve on the Tennessee Supreme Court.

To whatever she does, Cissy brings skill, intelligence, determination, and compassion. For all of these reasons and more, I believe Cissy will do an outstanding job as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. I am proud of her accomplishments, and I strongly support her nomination.

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