[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 90 (Wednesday, May 24, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3110-S3111]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Nominations

  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, here is the scorecard on 557 
Presidential nominations during the first 100 days of the Trump 
administration, through April 29. According to the Partnership for 
Public Service, in collaboration with the Washington Post, on Cabinet 
appointments, President Trump did his job, but Senate Democrats did not 
do their job. The President announced all of his Cabinet nominations 
before he was inaugurated on January 20, but Democrats delayed 
confirmation of Cabinet nominations more than those of any other recent 
President. On sub-Cabinet appointments, President Trump did not do his 
job. He was slower than any other recent President to send his 
nominations to the Senate.
  So here is what could happen. If Democrats continue their delaying 
tactics, when President Trump does send sub-Cabinet nominees to the 
Senate, the President would have every excuse to stop nominating and 
simply appoint acting officials to about 350 of the remaining key 
positions.
  An administration managed by acting Presidential appointees who have 
not been confirmed by the Senate would be a first in American history. 
Delaying the inevitable approval of nominations of a President you 
oppose might sound to your political base like good politics, but it 
would be supremely bad governing. Senate Democrats would actually 
diminish their influence and shoot themselves in both feet. They would 
be turning over to a President they don't like an excuse to staff the 
government with about 350 key appointees who are unconfirmed and 
unaccountable to the Senate. Now, this 350 number does not even include 
the Ambassadors in embassies all around the world, where there may be 
acting heads of the embassy.
  Now, what difference would it make to have an administration mostly 
unexamined and unconfirmed by the Senate? Well, it would mean that the 
Senate would be giving the Executive more power at the expense of the 
legislative branch.
  This undermines the checks and balances created by our Nation's 
Founders. Democrats complained that Republicans delayed some of 
President Obama's nominees, and that is true. In fact, that has always 
been true. My own nomination for U.S. Education Secretary in 1991 was 
delayed for 2 months by a Democratic Senator who put a hold on my 
nomination for unexplained reasons.
  President Ford's nomination of Warren Rudman to the Interstate 
Commerce Commission in 1976 was blocked by Democratic New Hampshire 
Senator John Durkin.
  The rest of the story is that Rudman eventually asked President Ford 
to withdraw the nomination, ran against Durkin, and defeated him in the 
next election. That is how Warren Rudman got to be a U.S. Senator. 
There is a better way to resolve differences between Senators and the 
President.
  In December of 2015, President Obama seemed content to allow John 
King of New York to serve as his Acting Secretary of Education for the 
last year of President Obama's term. I told the President I thought it 
was inappropriate for a President to have an acting Cabinet member for 
so long and that, while I disagreed with Mr. King on many points, I 
urged him to nominate King and, if he did, I promised that I would hold 
a prompt hearing and see to it that he was confirmed.
  President Obama nominated John King on February 11, 2016. John King 
was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on March 14, 2016. I disagreed with 
Secretary King often, but the Secretary was confirmed. He was confirmed 
by and accountable to the U.S. Senate, as he should have been and as 
our Constitution envisions.
  All of President Trump's Cabinet nominees are now confirmed, but this 
is how long it took compared with his three immediate predecessors: All 
of President Trump's nominations were announced before his 
inauguration, but the Senate confirmed only two of those nominations on 
day one because Senate Democrats would not agree to any more than that. 
A third Cabinet nominee was confirmed on January 31st. To compare, by 
January 31st in prior administrations, President Obama had 10 nominees 
confirmed, and George W. Bush and Bill Clinton each had 13 confirmed.
  Please keep in mind that it is impossible for Democratic Senators by 
themselves to defeat a Trump nominee. Confirmation requires only a 
majority voting to be present; that is usually 51 Senators. There are 
52 Republican Senators and, in addition, Vice President Pence can vote 
in the case of a tie. There is no 60-vote filibuster available to block 
nominees because Democrats, when they were in the majority in 2013, 
changed Senate rules to eliminate the filibuster on nominations. So by 
their obstruction, Democrats are only delaying the inevitable, using 
various tactics to require the Senate to use nearly a week of floor 
time to approve even noncontroversial nominees.
  We don't know how Democrats will treat President Trump's more than 
350 remaining key nominees because the President has made so few of 
those. For example, I am chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and 
Pensions Committee. Aside from the Cabinet secretaries who come to our 
committee, of the 557 key positions identified by the Washington Post, 
35 of them within the Cabinet agencies require recommendations to the 
full Senate by the HELP committee. In the Department of Health and 
Human Services, we have eight. In the Department of Education, we have 
14. In the Department of Labor, we have 13.
  At the end of the first 100 days, April 29th, our committee had 
received just one sub-Cabinet nomination from the Trump 
administration--that of Dr. Scott Gottlieb for FDA commissioner. He was 
promptly confirmed on May 9th.

[[Page S3111]]

  Compared with President Trump's one sub-Cabinet nomination sent to 
our committee in his first 100 days, President Obama made 13 sub-
Cabinet nominations in his first 100 days, President George W. Bush 
made 10, and President Clinton made 14 to our committee.
  There are actually nearly 700 more Presidential nominees requiring 
Senate confirmation who aren't considered key by the Washington Post 
analysis, so you can see this adds up to be a pretty big number of 
Presidential nominees whom we have a responsibility to consider and to 
confirm if we approve them.
  Unfortunately, there are ominous signs about how Democrats will treat 
non-Cabinet nominees. As the Presiding Officer is especially aware, 
Democrats required the Senate to take nearly a week of floor time to 
consider the nomination of Iowa Governor Terry Branstad to serve as 
Ambassador to China. There was absolutely no excuse for this other than 
obstructionism.
  Governor Branstad is the longest serving Governor in American 
history. He has a well-documented relationship with the Chinese 
President. He was one of the first appointees that the President 
announced. He was approved by a voice vote by the Senate Foreign 
Relations Committee, and ultimately approved by the full Senate earlier 
this week 82 to 13.
  Yet, as a delaying tactic, Senate Democrats forced us to use nearly a 
week of our floor time to consider Governor Branstad. If Democrats 
treat other noncontroversial Ambassadors and sub-Cabinet members the 
same way they treated Governor Branstad, requiring nearly a week of 
Senate floor time to consider a nominee, then I think President Trump 
would almost certainly bypass the Senate and name hundreds of acting 
heads of sub-Cabinet departments. Under our Constitution, he may do 
that whenever he chooses. There are flexible limits on the time one may 
serve in an acting position, but if that time expires, the President 
can simply appoint someone else.
  Hopefully, President Trump will speed up his nomination of sub-
Cabinet members, and hopefully Democrats will return to the common 
practice of routine floor approval of Presidential nominations when the 
confirmation process has determined that the nominee deserves to be 
approved.
  Our Founders created a system of government based on checks and 
balances of the three coequal branches of government. There has been 
much complaining recently about the rise of the executive branch at the 
expense of the legislative branch. Having an executive branch and 
embassies mostly staffed by acting personnel not confirmed by or 
accountable to the U.S. Senate undermines the principle of three 
coequal branches of government.
  The President should want his team in place and should speed up 
recommending key nominees to the U.S. Senate. And Senators, especially 
those in the minority, should want to have a say in the vetting and 
accountability that come with the Senate confirmation process.

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