Sen. Dick Durbin, chair of the Judiciary Committee, will preside over next week's Supreme Court confirmation hearings. next week, there will be a new face in the center chair.
"My church was kind of the center of my life. It was not only my school but it's where I went to play sports and, you know, dances and everything else," Durbin remembers."I kind of focused on the Catholic side of life in East St. Louis." "I could work all summer in the slaughterhouse in East St. Louis, make $1,200 a summer," and with a part-time job during the school year, and a $1,000 loan each year, he made ends meet.
Durbin is something of a master at getting along with the opposition whenever possible. He is friends with the Judiciary Committee's ranking Republican, Sen. Chuck Grassley, and is trying once again this year to win passage of the DREAM Act that he first proposed 20 years ago. It would allow undocumented immigrants brought here by their parents as children to win legal status. His ally in that, most of the time, has been Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.