[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 120 (Monday, July 17, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4016-S4018]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                             Cloture Motion

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before 
the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination 
     of Patrick M. Shanahan, of Washington, to be Deputy Secretary 
     of Defense.
         Mitch McConnell, Joni Ernst, Tom Cotton, Thom Tillis, 
           Lindsey Graham, Mike Crapo, John Boozman, Roger F. 
           Wicker, Dan Sullivan, John Cornyn, John Thune, Steve 
           Daines, John Barrasso, David Perdue, Mike Rounds, Orrin 
           G. Hatch, John McCain.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the 
nomination of Patrick M. Shanahan, of Washington, to be Deputy 
Secretary of Defense, shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the 
Senator from Iowa (Mrs. Ernst), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Flake), 
the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Heller), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. 
McCain), the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker).
  Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Iowa (Mrs. Ernst) 
would have voted ``yea'' and the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Wicker) 
would have voted ``yea''.
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth) 
is necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Kennedy). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 88, nays 6, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 161 Ex.]

                                YEAS--88

     Alexander
     Baldwin
     Barrasso
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Brown
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Capito
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Cassidy
     Cochran
     Collins
     Coons
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Cortez Masto
     Cotton
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Donnelly
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Feinstein
     Fischer
     Franken
     Gardner
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hassan
     Hatch
     Heinrich
     Heitkamp
     Hirono
     Hoeven
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johnson
     Kaine
     Kennedy
     King
     Klobuchar
     Lankford
     Leahy
     Lee
     Manchin
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Paul
     Perdue
     Peters
     Portman
     Reed
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sasse
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Scott
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Stabenow
     Strange
     Sullivan
     Tester
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Udall
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Whitehouse
     Wyden
     Young

                                NAYS--6

     Booker
     Gillibrand
     Harris
     Markey
     Sanders
     Warren

[[Page S4017]]


  


                             NOT VOTING--6

     Duckworth
     Ernst
     Flake
     Heller
     McCain
     Wicke
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 88, the nays are 6.
  The motion is agreed to.
  The Senator from Alaska.
  Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I want to talk a little bit about what 
is going on here on the Senate floor. We were just considering the 
nomination of the Deputy Secretary of Defense, trying to move him 
along--a very important job--and it has taken some time. As a matter of 
fact, it has taken a long time, as the Presiding Officer knows, to get 
nominees from the White House confirmed by this body to run the 
government.
  Running the government is a very important job. We not only need 
Cabinet Secretaries--which, by the way, took months for this body to 
confirm. They slowed down the confirmation of the choices of the White 
House to run the Federal agencies--no real explanation why--and now, 
Under Secretaries, Deputy Secretaries, Assistant Secretaries, Federal 
judges--delay, delay, delay, delay.
  We are supposed to be trying to put people in place to run the 
government, which is the job of the Senate, but it has taken a very 
long time to do it, and it shouldn't be this way. It shouldn't be this 
way.
  When we look at U.S. history, typically, enabling a President to fill 
the key positions of government has not been a partisan issue. An 
election happens. Yes, there could be some debate on Cabinet officials, 
but you typically want to fill the government and start running the 
government on behalf of the American people. It has not been a partisan 
issue in America. Well, unfortunately, it is becoming a partisan issue 
due to what by any measure is historic obstruction on the nominations 
coming from the White House to run the Federal Government--historic 
obstruction.
  The people did elect us, and they elected a new President, and 
implicit in the election was that they wanted us to get to work, to do 
things that, in my view, are very bipartisan. What are some of those 
things? Growing the economy. We haven't had 3 percent GDP growth in 
almost 15 years. That is a bipartisan issue--growing the economy. So 
are rebuilding our military, unleashing energy that we have in this 
great Nation in enormous abundance, investing in infrastructure, 
streamlining regulations that are strangling small businesses, and, 
yes, enacting policies to address the spiraling costs of health 
insurance and healthcare costs across the country.
  Throughout history, the party in the minority understood this after 
an election and would vote to confirm new members of an 
administration--not just Cabinet Secretaries but Under Secretaries, 
Deputy Secretaries, Assistant Secretaries, and judges. In fact, the 
current minority leader said the following in 2013: ``Who in America 
doesn't think a President, Democrat or Republican, deserves his or her 
picks for who should run the agencies? Nobody.''
  ``Nobody,'' he said.
  Those were wise words in 2013. I just wish he would remember them in 
2017 because apparently he has forgotten those words. He has forgotten 
those words, because right now there is pure obstruction in terms of 
trying to seat the people to run the government.
  Sometimes it is important to try to explain to the American people 
what is going on here on the Senate floor because it can be confusing. 
I still get confused sometimes. There are arcane rules. Let's give an 
example of what just happened here right now.
  We had the Deputy Secretary of Defense, the No. 2 official at the 
Department of Defense. That is a pretty darn important job. After he 
came out of the Armed Services Committee, on which I sit, we voted to 
end debate on his nomination. The vote just happened, and I believe it 
was 88 to 6, so very bipartisan.
  By the way, we need people at the Department of Defense. Whether you 
are a Democrat or a Republican, regardless of whom you voted for in the 
November elections, most Americans want us to have good people running 
the Department of Defense right now. We have very few there--very few--
because of this obstruction.
  For the Deputy Secretary, the cloture vote just happened, 88 to 6. 
That is a very strong bipartisan vote. In previous times, in a 
Democratic or Republican administration, the Senate would normally say: 
Let's move him. He needs to get over there. Let's unanimously agree to 
moving that nomination more quickly so he can help run the Department 
of Defense--a pretty important job.
  Well, unfortunately, we are not in that era right now. So what our 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle have been doing for every 
single nomination for this administration is now we will have an 
additional 2-day waiting period, an additional 30 hours of debate. 
Those are Senate rules, but normally on someone this noncontroversial, 
those rules get waived. But we have a minority leader who wants to drag 
out every single official from being seated. He really hasn't explained 
why. I haven't heard an explanation why. But it is happening for every 
single official--three to four days on one official. Someone did an 
estimation that if they keep this up, if they do this for every single 
Senate-confirmed job, it will take 11 years. It will take 11 years to 
seat the officials in the Trump administration. How is that helping the 
American people? It is not. Yet, nobody comes to the floor to explain 
why they are doing it. The press doesn't report on it.
  Let me provide some other facts on this issue. Normally, when we 
waive these rules, we can have a voice vote. For a noncontroversial 
nomination like the Deputy Secretary of Defense, as we just had, 
normally that would be voice-voted.
  At this point in President Obama's Presidency--so the first 6 months 
of his Presidency--the Senate had allowed more than 90 percent of his 
nominees to be confirmed by simple voice vote. The Senate asked for 
procedural votes only eight times on eight nominees--that was it--in 
the first 6 months of President Obama's administration. That was 
actually normal. Democrats or Republicans would do something along 
those lines.
  For the Trump administration's first 6 months, the minority leader 
and his colleagues have demanded cloture votes for every single 
nominee, no matter what the position, no matter how noncontroversial, 
no matter how bipartisan. The courtesy extended to President Obama to 
get his team together so that he could run the country has not been 
extended here. That is just a fact.
  Let me give another fact. According to the nonpartisan Partnership 
for Public Service, at about this point in President Obama's first 
term, he had 183 of his nominations confirmed--183. Getting people in 
their positions in government to run the country--it doesn't matter 
what party you are in; this is to run the country. But while President 
Trump's administration at this point has made 178 nominations to the 
Senate, only 46 have been confirmed. So for President Obama at this 
point, 183 nominations were confirmed; for this President, 46. This is 
historic obstruction.
  No one comes here and says: Why? Why are you doing this? What is the 
point? What is the point?
  This isn't by accident. The head of a leading Democratic think tank 
told the press recently that they intended to hold up, delay, tie up 
floor time for every single nomination for Senate-confirmed positions. 
But what they don't do--they don't say: And here is why.
  Why do they want to do that? It is not going to help us grow the 
economy. It is not going to help us with infrastructure. It is not 
going to help us rebuild our military when we keep the Deputy Secretary 
from coming in to his position.
  Just last week, we had a judge who was nominated from the State of 
Idaho, a district court judge who was confirmed unanimously, and it 
took almost the entire week to get him confirmed on the Senate floor 
because the minority leader was delaying, delaying, delaying--even 
someone who got 100 percent of the Senators to vote for him. Again, it 
is not clear why they are doing this.
  Some of the other noncontroversial nominees that are being delayed 
are the Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs and 
two nominees to review pipelines and other projects at the Federal 
Energy Regulatory Commission. Do you think we

[[Page S4018]]

need that for our country to grow the economy? We do.
  These are important positions to do the work of the Federal 
Government. Yet they are all delayed, and nobody in the press even asks 
any questions. This is historic obstruction right now, and no one is 
even asking: Why are you doing it?
  It would be great to have the minority leader come to the Senate 
floor and tell us why. I want to know why. I want to grow the economy. 
We need these people in positions of authority to help us do the 
things--bipartisan things--that the American people sent us here to do, 
not delay, not obstruct.
  Something else is happening on the Senate floor right now. It is not 
just the historic obstruction of nominees. The other side, for whatever 
reason, is now deciding they are going to shut down any movement of 
anything on the Senate floor. Let me give one example, which is 
actually quite important.
  A lot of what we do here moves by what we call unanimous consent on 
the Senate floor. There are rules to move things. It can take a lot of 
time. But a lot of times the leadership of the Senate will get together 
and say: OK, we can have a unanimous consent agreement to move things 
faster. It is not just nominees. Sometimes it is actually legislation. 
As a matter of fact, a lot of things move on the Senate floor through 
unanimous consent, which is, essentially, a voice vote where everyone, 
all 100 Senators, say: We agree with that. It is a bill that is really 
important, very bipartisan. Let's move it. Let's move it fast. It came 
out of committee. It is not controversial, but maybe it is important, 
so let's move it.
  For whatever reason, it still doesn't explain to the American people 
why the minority leader would say that we are not going to move 
anything by unanimous consent right now either. Not only will we hold 
up every nominee as long as possible--even the noncontroversial ones--
nothing is going to move in the Senate by unanimous consent.
  Again, why? How does that help the American people? How does that 
help the American people when you are just blocking things?