[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 83 (Wednesday, June 12, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4352-S4353]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              NOMINATIONS

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, Senate Democrats are not content with 
the additional powers they have--powers greater than those enjoyed by 
any previous majority--so they intend to manufacture a crisis over 
nominations as a pretext for a further power grab. Yet the Senate is 
treating President Obama's nominees very fairly. For example, let's 
just look at how the Senate has treated his judicial nominees.
  Overall, the Senate has confirmed 193 lower court judges and defeated 
only 2--defeated only 2. That is a .990 batting average--a .990 batting 
average. After this week, the Senate will have approved 24 of the 
President's lifetime appointments compared to just 9--9--for President 
Bush at a comparable point in his second term.
  I will mention my party actually controlled the Senate then, so we 
could have arguably confirmed a lot more. President Bush got 9 at this 
point in his second term; President Obama 24.

  Last Congress Obama had more district court confirmations than in any 
of the previous eight Congresses--previous eight Congresses. He also 
had almost 50 percent more confirmations--171--than President Bush--
119--under similar circumstances.
  To support an unprecedented power grab, the administration and its 
allies in the Senate have resorted to truly outlandish claims about how 
the President's judicial nominees are being treated--sort of making 
this stuff up.
  Washington Post Fact Checker gave the President two Pinocchios for 
extreme claims about Republican delays of his judicial nominees, noting 
that in some ways the President's nominees are actually being moved 
along ``better'' than Bush's.
  The Washington Post cited CRS's conclusion that from nomination to 
confirmation--one of the most relevant indicators, according to a 
Brookings scholar--Obama's circuit court nominations are being 
processed about 100 days quicker--100 days quicker--than President 
Bush's: 350.6 days for Bush to 256.9 for Obama.
  Factcheck.org:

     . . . during Obama's first term, his nominees to federal 
     appeals courts actually were confirmed more quickly on 
     average than Bush's first-term nominees, measured from the 
     day of nomination to the day of the confirmation vote.

  Politifact:

     . . . the average wait for George W. Bush's circuit court 
     nominees was actually longer from nomination to confirmation.

  So, as you can see, Mr. President, this is a manufactured crisis--one 
that does not, in fact, exist--in order to try

[[Page S4353]]

to justify a power grab to fundamentally change the Senate.
  At the beginning of each of last two Congresses, we have had this 
discussion at length. At the beginning of the previous Congress, here 
is what the majority leader said back in January of 2011. He said:

       I agree that the proper way to change Senate rules is 
     through the procedures established in those rules, and I will 
     oppose--

  ``I will oppose,'' he said. This is January of 2011--

     any effort in this Congress or the next to change the 
     Senate's rules other than through the regular order.

  ``I will oppose any effort in this Congress or the next''--the one we 
are in now--to change the rules of the Senate in any other way than 
through the regular order. The regular order is it takes 67 votes--not 
even 60 but 67 votes--to change the rules of the Senate.
  Not being willing to keep the commitment he made in January of 2011, 
we went around and around again at the beginning of 2013--this year--
and the Senate this year, after considerable discussion, joined by a 
number of Members of the Senate on both sides of the aisle, passed two 
new rules and two new standing orders. In the wake of that action, an 
additional commitment was made, and here was the exchange on the floor 
on January 24 of this year.
  I said:

       I would confirm with the majority leader that the Senate 
     would not consider other resolutions relating to any standing 
     order or rules this Congress unless they went through the 
     regular order process?

  We had just done that. We followed the regular order, and we passed 
two rules changes and two standing orders.
  The majority leader said:

       That is correct. Any other resolutions related to Senate 
     procedure would be subject to a regular order process, 
     including consideration by the Rules Committee.

  Now, that was not a promise made based on the majority leader's view 
of good behavior. But, of course, by any objective standard, there has 
not been any bad behavior anyway, even if that would justify breaking a 
commitment that was not contingent.
  Now my friend the majority leader has taken to kind of leaving the 
floor in the hopes that somehow this would go away if only he were not 
here. What will not go away is the unequivocal commitment made at the 
beginning of this Congress so we would know what the rules were for the 
duration of this Congress.
  I think colleagues on both sides of the aisle have a right to know 
whether the commitment made by the leader of this body--the leader of 
the majority and this body--is going to be kept. That is the only way 
we can function. Our word is the currency of the realm in the Senate.
  As you can see from the facts, this is a manufactured crisis. There 
is no crisis over the way the Senate has functioned. In fact, except 
for these periodic threats by the majority leader to break the rules of 
the Senate in order to change the rules of the Senate, we have been 
operating much better this Congress than in recent previous Congresses. 
Bills have been open for amendment. We have been able to get them to 
passage. They have been bipartisan in large measure.
  The Senate these days is not broken. It does not need to be fixed, 
particularly if your judgment to fixing the Senate is to not keep a 
commitment you made at the beginning of the year.
  So I would conclude by saying that I am going to bring this up every 
morning, and the majority leader not being here or not responding does 
not make it go away. What my colleagues in the minority have on their 
minds is whether the commitment will be kept, and at some point the 
majority leader is going to have to answer that question because it is 
not going away.
  I yield the floor.

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