[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 62 (Thursday, April 29, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2787-S2788]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      SECRET HOLDS ON NOMINATIONS

  Mrs. McCASKILL. Madam President, I came to the floor of the Senate 
last Tuesday to make 74 unanimous consent motions to trigger a law this 
body voted for by a vote of 96 to 2 back in January of 2007, and this 
law says that once a unanimous consent motion is made for a nomination, 
that people who are secretly holding the nomination must come out into 
the sunlight.
  The law requires that 6 days after that motion is made, whoever is 
holding the nominee must identify themselves and, in fact, that must be 
published in the Congressional Record. Tomorrow would be the day for 
publication for all the dozens of different nominees being held up by 
who knows who for who knows what reason.
  I wished to make sure the leaders of both parties were aware that 
this time had run and, today, I will ask unanimous consent that a 
letter I sent to the minority leader and the majority leader 
acknowledging that the rule has been triggered, with the list of the 
various nominees, asking that they make sure the Members of their party 
have, in fact, come forward and identified themselves for the Record 
tomorrow.
  I ask unanimous consent that the letter I sent to Leader McConnell 
and Leader Reid be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                  U.S. Senate,

                                   Washington, DC, April 29, 2010.
     Hon. Mitch McConnell,
     Minority Leader, U.S. Senate,
     The Capitol, Washington, DC.
       Minority Leader McConnell: Last week I went to the Senate 
     floor to raise the issue of ``secret holds'' and to call 
     attention to the need for openness and transparency within 
     the United States Senate. As you know, a secret hold refers 
     to the practice where one member of the Senate puts an 
     anonymous hold on a nominee or legislation without publicly 
     raising their objections. In spite of efforts in 2007 to end 
     this practice, we now know that secret holds remain the 
     status quo in the Senate. While efforts are being made to 
     strengthen this rule and eliminate secret holds, I am 
     concerned that Senators continue to ignore the current 
     requirements for disclosure of holds.
       Under the existing rule, after a unanimous consent request 
     is made to confirm a nomination or pass legislation, the 
     Senator with objections to the particular measure or nominee 
     must notify their party leader and then submit a notice of 
     intent specifying the reasons for their hold. Within six-
     session days of the unanimous consent request, the notice 
     must be printed publicly in the Congressional Record. The 
     rule is clear that it is incumbent upon the leaders of each 
     party to enforce the rules should members fail to comply.
       Today marks the sixth session-day since I made seventy-four 
     unanimous consent requests to confirm the non-controversial 
     nominations on the Senate Executive Calendar (a complete list 
     is attached). These nominees were reported out of committee 
     by voice vote or by a unanimous vote of the committee and 
     have no known opposition. To date, there have not been any 
     notices filed in the Congressional Record despite the fact 
     that all seventy-four motions were objected to by Senator Kyl 
     on behalf of his Republican colleagues. While, several of 
     these nominations have since been confirmed by the Senate, 
     the bulk of the nominations remain stalled without any public 
     notification.

[[Page S2788]]

       Therefore, I write today to ask if you have been notified 
     by any member that he/she has objections to any of the 
     confirmation requests I made last week. If so, I urge you to 
     enforce the member's obligation to place a public notice in 
     the Congressional Record stating their objection. Should 
     there be no known opposition to these nominees I ask that 
     they be immediately confirmed by unanimous consent of the 
     Senate.
       Thank you for the consideration of this request. Should you 
     or your staff have any additional concerns or questions, 
     please feel free to contact Nichole Distefano of my staff at 
     [email protected].
           Sincerely,
                                                 Claire McCaskill,
     United States Senator.
                                  ____



                                                  U.S. Senate,

                                   Washington, DC, April 29, 2010.
     Hon. Harry Reid,
     Majority Leader, U.S. Senate,
     The Capitol, Washington, DC.
       Majority Leader Reid: Last week I went to the Senate floor 
     to raise the issue of ``secret holds'' and to call attention 
     to the need for openness and transparency within the United 
     States Senate. As you know, a secret hold refers to the 
     practice where one member of the Senate puts an anonymous 
     hold on a nominee or legislation without publicly raising 
     their objections. In spite of efforts in 2007 to end this 
     practice, we now know that secret holds remain the status quo 
     in the Senate. While efforts are being made to strengthen 
     this rule and eliminate secret holds, I am concerned that 
     Senators continue to ignore the current requirements for 
     disclosure of holds.
       Under the existing rule, after a unanimous consent request 
     is made to confirm a nomination or pass legislation, the 
     Senator with objections to the particular measure or nominee 
     must notify their party leader and then submit a notice of 
     intent specifying the reasons for their hold. Within six-
     session days of the unanimous consent request, the notice 
     must be printed publicly in the Congressional Record. The 
     rule is clear that it is incumbent upon the leaders of each 
     party to enforce the rules should members fail to comply.
       Today marks the sixth session-day since I made seventy-four 
     unanimous consent requests to confirm the non-controversial 
     nominations on the Senate Executive Calendar (a complete list 
     is attached). These nominees were reported out of committee 
     by voice vote or by a unanimous vote of the committee and 
     have no known opposition. To date, there have not been any 
     notices filed in the Congressional Record despite the fact 
     that all seventy-four motions were objected to by Senator Kyl 
     on behalf of his Republican colleagues. While, several of 
     these nominations have since been confirmed by the Senate, 
     the bulk of the nominations remain stalled without any public 
     notification.
       Therefore, I write today to ask if you have been notified 
     by any member that he/she has objections to any of the 
     confirmation requests I made last week. If so, I urge you to 
     enforce the member's obligation to place a public notice in 
     the Congressional Record stating their objection. Should 
     there be no known opposition to these nominees I ask that 
     they be immediately confirmed by unanimous consent of the 
     Senate.
       Thank you for the consideration of this request. Should you 
     or your staff have any additional concerns or questions, 
     please feel free to contact Nichole Distefano of my staff at 
     [email protected].
           Sincerely,
                                                 Claire McCaskill,
                                            United States Senator.

  Mrs. McCASKILL. Madam President, we have gone back and looked at the 
Executive Calendar from a historic perspective. At the beginning of 
this week, we had 84 pending nominations. At the exact same time in 
President Bush's Presidency, we had eight. That is what we call a 
lopsided score--84 to 8. Of the 49 nominations we have voted on as a 
body since President Obama took office, 38 of them were confirmed by 
more than 70 votes. That is a pretty lopsided margin. Twenty of them 
were confirmed by more than 90 votes.
  I am confident that if we took the time--which I think may be the 
desire of my friends on the other side--to file cloture and go through 
individual votes on all these nominees, the vast majority of them would 
receive those kinds of lopsided confirmations. This is a game we need 
to quit playing. The secret hold needs to end.
  I have written some colleagues of mine, including Senator Mark Warner 
and Senator Whitehouse, and we have composed a letter--and we asked our 
colleagues to sign it--saying we will no longer participate in the 
secret hold. No more secret holds for us. We don't need the law to tell 
us we only have 6 days to secretly hold. We have asked in the letter 
that the secret hold be abolished. There is not a good reason for it. 
There isn't. Why does anything such as that need to be a secret? It is 
something that needs to be done publicly. The people whom everyone 
works for need to know why they are holding up a nomination or blocking 
a bill. The secrecy needs to stop.
  You can hold somebody; it is your prerogative as a Senator to hold a 
nominee. Work against that nomination. Try to defeat them in committee. 
Keep in mind that all these nominees came out of committee without an 
objection--no objection in committee. If you want to object, that is 
your prerogative. Come out and tell the world why this is the wrong 
person for the job but don't hide. Don't hide.
  I will be watching with interest tomorrow the Congressional Record. I 
am very worried we are going to have the old switcharoo, which means if 
you withdraw your hold in 6 days, then you can hand it off to somebody 
else. You can say: I no longer have a secret hold, and then you whisper 
to your buddy: Why don't you do it now and then we will have 6 more 
days and then another 6 days.
  I wish to serve notice that I will be making these unanimous consent 
requests every time there is a secret hold, so anybody who does it is 
only going to have 6 days. Seriously, if we start the switcharoo and 
continue to go week after week without knowing who is holding these 
people or why, that is when people should get angry. That means they 
voted for a law that they had every intention of evading. People are 
mad enough at us. That is liable to get them over to the ``flat 
furious'' category if we go into that territory.
  I am hopeful this Congress will be the Congress where we end the 
secret hold. I wish to again acknowledge the work Senator Grassley and 
Senator Wyden have done for years. They have definitely tilled this 
ground, and they, in fact, put this in the law that we voted on in 
2007. I compliment them for their work on this issue. We are continuing 
to work together on this issue. Senator Wyden and Senator Grassley are 
continuing to try to find a way to reform and make this place more open 
and transparent.
  I invite all my colleagues to sign the letter--Republican, 
Democratic, Independent. Sign the letter. We have 43 signatures. That 
means we are almost halfway there. If we can get to 60--we can move 
mountains here when we get that magic 60 number. I hope we can get to 
60 by the end of next week. That means we will have more than a 
majority to say: I don't need a rule or a law; I am willing to make any 
hold I have open to public inspection.
  I wish to also make another unanimous consent request today. We have 
a very important function in government; that is, investigating 
accidents. We are getting ready to enter into the travel season. The 
National Transportation Safety Board is a very important body. In fact, 
they are going to be considering, in the next week, the ``miracle on 
the Hudson'' accident and the problem with aviation as it relates to 
the danger of birds and possible engine failure. In June, they will be 
investigating the tragic Metro accident here in Washington, when 9 
people died. This is one of those boards where a Democrat and a 
Republican are both appointed. The Democrat has been waiting since last 
December, ostensibly, for the Republican. Dr. Earl Weener has been on 
the Executive Calendar for a number of weeks.
  Dr. Rosekind and Dr. Weener are needed on the NTSB. If any Member has 
a reason to recuse themselves, they would not have enough Members to go 
forward with these investigations. This is the kind of work that needs 
to be done. This is what people want the government to do. There is a 
lot of stuff the government does they don't want us doing. They want us 
to figure out what is going on with accidents in our transportation 
system and come up with answers so we can avoid these deadly accidents 
in the future. I think it is important, in light of that, that I go 
ahead and make another unanimous consent request to try to confirm 
these two people so they can begin working on the National 
Transportation Safety Board as we enter into the most heavily traveled 
period in America--the summer vacation months, when so many more 
Americans are traveling with their families.

                          ____________________