[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?