[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 123 (Thursday, July 20, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4098-S4101]
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 David Bernhardt, of Virginia, to be Deputy Secretary of 
     the Interior.
         Mitch McConnell, Roger F. Wicker, John Thune, Tim Scott, 
           John Hoeven, Pat Roberts, Orrin G. Hatch, Tom Cotton, 
           John Barrasso, Thom Tillis, Michael B. Enzi, John 
           Boozman, James M. Inhofe, John Cornyn, James Lankford, 
           Mike Rounds, Cory Gardner.

  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 David Bernhardt, of Virginia, to be Deputy Secretary of 
the Interior, shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk called the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the 
Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Moran), 
and the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Sasse).
  Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Leahy) and 
the Senator from Michigan (Ms. Stabenow) are necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Perdue). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 56, nays 39, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 165 Ex.]

                                YEAS--56

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Bennet
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Burr
     Capito
     Cassidy
     Cochran
     Collins
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Donnelly
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Flake
     Gardner
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hatch
     Heinrich
     Heitkamp
     Heller
     Hoeven
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     King
     Lankford
     Lee
     Manchin
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Paul
     Perdue
     Portman
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Schatz
     Scott
     Shelby
     Strange
     Sullivan
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Wicker
     Young

                                NAYS--39

     Baldwin
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Coons
     Cortez Masto
     Duckworth
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Harris
     Hassan
     Hirono
     Kaine
     Klobuchar
     Markey
     McCaskill
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Peters
     Reed
     Sanders
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Tester
     Udall
     Van Hollen
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--5

     Leahy
     McCain
     Moran
     Sasse
     Stabenow
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 56, the nays are 
39.
  The motion is agreed to.
  The Senator from Utah.
  Mr HATCH. Mr. President, is it appropriate to make a speech at this 
time?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. It is.
  Mr. HATCH. Thank you, Mr. President.
  President Ronald Reagan used to say that people are policy. Attacking 
a new President's policies, therefore, often includes undermining his 
or her ability to appoint men and women to lead his or her 
administration.
  The Constitution gives to the President the power to appoint 
executive branch officials. The Senate has the power of advice and 
consent as a check on that appointment power.
  In the early months of the Obama administration, Senate Democrats 
were clear about how we should carry out our role in the appointment 
process. Less than 2 weeks after President Obama took office, the 
Judiciary Committee chairman said he wished that the Senate could have 
put the new Justice Department leadership in place even more quickly. 
Just 3 months into President Obama's first term, the chairman argued 
that, ``at the beginning of a presidential term, it makes sense to have 
the President's nominees in place earlier, rather than engage in 
needless delay.''
  Well, actions speak much louder than words. With a Republican in the 
White House, Senate Democrats have turned our role of advice and 
consent into the most aggressive obstruction campaign in history.
  This chart is an illustration.
  Democrats complained about obstruction when, during the first 6 
months of the Obama administration, the Senate confirmed 69 percent of 
his nominations. Today marks 6 months since President Trump took the 
oath of office, and the Senate has been able to confirm only 23 percent 
of his nominations.
  I ask my Democratic colleagues: If 69 percent is too low, what do you 
call a confirmation pace that is two-thirds lower?
  Democrats do not have the votes to defeat nominees outright. That is 
why the centerpiece of their obstruction campaign is a strategy to make 
confirming President Trump's nominees as difficult and time-consuming 
as possible.
  Here is how they do it. The Senate is designed for deliberation as 
well as for action. As a result, the Senate must end debate on a 
nomination before it can confirm that nomination. Doing so informally 
is fast. Doing it formally is slow.
  In the past, the majority and minority informally agreed on the 
necessity or length of any debate on a nomination, as well as when a 
confirmation vote would occur. The first step in the Democrats' 
obstruction campaign, therefore, is to refuse any cooperation on 
scheduling debates and votes on nominations. The only option is to use 
the formal process of ending debate by invoking cloture under Senate 
rule XXII. A motion to end debate is filed, but the vote on that motion 
cannot occur for 2 calendar days. If cloture is invoked, there can then 
be up to 30 hours of debate before a confirmation vote can occur.
  The Democrats' obstruction playbook calls for stretching this process 
out as long as possible. While informal cooperation can take a couple 
of hours, the formal cloture process can take up to several days.
  The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said that you are 
entitled to your opinion, but not to your own set of facts. I would 
state, then, to let the confirmation facts do the talking.
  President Trump and his three predecessors were each elected with the 
Senate controlled by his own political party. This is another 
illustration right here. At this point in the Clinton and George W. 
Bush administrations, the Senate had taken no cloture votes--nothing, 
none whatsoever--as you can see, on nominations. We took just four 
nomination cloture votes at this point during the Obama administration. 
So far in the Trump administration, the Senate has taken 33 cloture 
votes on nominations. Think about that. If that isn't obstruction, I 
don't know what is. It is not even close.
  There is one very important difference between cloture votes taken in 
the beginning of the Clinton, Bush, or Obama administrations and those 
taken this year. In November 2013, Democrats effectively abolished 
nomination filibusters by lowering the vote

[[Page S4099]]

necessary to end debate from a supermajority of 60 to a simple 
majority. It now takes no more votes to end debate than it does to 
confirm a nomination. In other words, the Senate did not take cloture 
votes during previous administrations, even though doing so could have 
prevented confirmation.
  Today, Democrats are forcing the Senate to take dozens of cloture 
votes even though doing so cannot prevent confirmation. At least half 
of these useless cloture votes taken so far would have passed even 
under the higher 60-vote threshold.
  Earlier this week, 88 Senators, including 41 Democrats, voted to end 
debate on President Trump's nominee to be Deputy Secretary of Defense. 
We have seen tallies of 67, 81, 89, and even 92 votes for ending 
debate. Meanwhile, these needless delays are creating critical gaps in 
the executive branch.
  A clear example is the nomination of Makan Delrahim, a former Senate 
staffer whom everybody on both sides knows, is a wonderful guy, and who 
everybody knows is honest. But this clear example is the nomination of 
Delrahim to head the Antitrust Division at the Department of Justice. 
Antitrust enforcement is a critical element of national economic 
policy. It protects consumers and businesses alike, and, without 
filling these important posts, uncertainty in the market reigns. This 
is a particular problem at a time of common and massive mergers and 
acquisitions. Yet Mr. Delrahim, like dozens of others, has been caught 
in the maelstrom of delays. Mr. Delrahim was appointed out of the 
Judiciary Committee on a 19-to-1 vote. Everybody there knows how good 
he is, how decent he is, how honorable he is, and how bipartisan he has 
been. He is supremely qualified and enjoyed broad support throughout 
the Senate as a whole. Yet his nomination, like so many others, 
languishes on the floor because of Democratic obstruction. Indeed, it 
has taken longer to get Mr. Delrahim confirmed than any Antitrust 
Division leader since the Carter administration. Keep in mind that this 
is a former staffer of ours who served both Democrats and Republicans.
  Regarding the delay of Mr. Delrahim's confirmation, I ask unanimous 
consent to have two news articles printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                   [From www.wsj.com, July 12, 2017]

              Senate Fight Over Trump's Nominees Heats Up

                 (By Brent Kendall and Natalie Andrews)

       Washington--A congressional battle over President Donald 
     Trump's nominations for a range of influential positions is 
     escalating and becoming more acrimonious, creating additional 
     uncertainty over when some notable government vacancies might 
     be filled.
       Mr. Trump has been slower than recent presidents to roll 
     out nominees. But for an array of people the president has 
     selected, Senate Democrats are using procedural tactics to 
     slow the confirmation process to a crawl--at least in part to 
     object to the lack of open hearings on health-care 
     legislation, Democratic leaders say.
       More than 30 nominees are sitting on the sidelines while 
     they await a final Senate confirmation vote. Those include 
     several picks for the Justice and Treasury departments, as 
     well as new commissioners for a federal energy regulator that 
     has been unable to conduct official business because of its 
     vacancies.
       If the currept pattern holds, many of these people may not 
     be confirmed for their jobs before the Senate takes a break 
     in mid-August. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., 
     N.Y.) in most circumstances has been invoking Senate 
     procedures to require up to 30 hours of debate per nominee, 
     an amount of Senate floor time that means lawmakers can't 
     confirm more than a handful of nominees each week.
       The minority party often waives a requirement for lengthy 
     debate, but Democrats are generally declining to do so. In 
     response to GOP complaints, they cite what they call 
     Republican obstructionism under President Barack Obama, 
     including Republicans' refusal to hold a hearing or vote on 
     Mr. Obama's Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland.
       In the current environment, even noncontroversial nominees 
     can take up several days of Senate time. For example, the 
     Senate spent much of the first part of the week considering 
     the nomination of David Nye to be a federal judge in Idaho. 
     Mr. Nye was originally nominated by Mr. Obama and Mr. Trump 
     renominated him after taking office.
       Senators took a procedural vote Monday on Mr. Nye, but he 
     wasn't confirmed until Wednesday afternoon, on a 100-0 vote.
       Raw feelings on both sides of the aisle erupted this week. 
     Republicans accused Democrats of unprecedented obstruction, 
     saying it would take the Senate more than 11 years at the 
     current pace before Mr. Trump could fully staff a government.
       White House legislative affairs director Marc Short, in a 
     press briefing Monday, accused Mr. Schumer of being an 
     irresponsible champion of the ``resist'' movement. Senate 
     Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) cited the issue as 
     a top reason for his decision to push back the Senate's 
     planned August recess by two weeks.
       On the Senate floor Wednesday, Mr. McConnell said Democrats 
     were ``bound and determined to impede the president from 
     making appointments, and they're willing to go to 
     increasingly absurd lengths to further that goal.''
       Democrats dismiss such characterizations given what they 
     see as unprecedented Republican tactics toward Mr. Obama's 
     nominees, especially Judge Garland. In February 2016, 
     Republican Senate leaders said they wouldn't consider a 
     Supreme Court nominee until after the election.
       Democrats also note that Mr. Trump has yet to name people 
     for hundreds of vacancies and say there have been paperwork 
     problems with a number of people he has chosen.
       ``Our Republican friends, when they're worried about the 
     slow pace of nominations, ought to look in the mirror,'' Mr. 
     Schumer said on the Senate floor on Tuesday. The GOP 
     complaints about the pace of confirmations, he added, ``goes 
     to show how desperate our Republican leadership is to shift 
     the blame and attention away from their health-care bill.''
       Mr. Schumer has said Democrats will generally insist on 
     lengthy Senate debate time for nominees until Republicans 
     start using traditional Senate procedures for advancing their 
     health legislation, including committee hearings and bill 
     markups.
       Mr. McConnell has said Republicans have held numerous 
     hearings on ACA issues in the past and it isn't necessary to 
     do so for the current legislation.
       Unlike the political fights earlier in the year over some 
     of Mr. Trump's cabinet picks and his Supreme Court nomination 
     of Neil Gorsuch, the current nominees at the head of the 
     queue aren't high-profile, and some have bipartisan support.
       Those awaiting Senate floor action include Makan Delrahim, 
     in line to lead the Justice Department's antitrust division. 
     Mr. Delrahim, a deputy White House counsel who served as a 
     government antitrust lawyer in the George W. Bush 
     administration, was approved by the Senate Judiciary 
     Committee five weeks ago on a 19-1 vote.
       Among its current pending matters, the antitrust division 
     is deep into its review of AT&T Inc.'s proposed $85 billion 
     deal to acquire Time Warner Inc., a transaction announced in 
     October.
       Also pending are two picks for Republican seats on the 
     Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which usually has five 
     members but currently has just one. Since February, the 
     commission has lacked a quorum to conduct official business 
     such as approving energy infrastructure projects. The 
     nominees, Neil Chatterjee, a McConnell aide, and Robert 
     Powelson, each were approved on a 20-3 vote by the Senate 
     Energy and Natural Resources Committee last month.
       Mr. Trump may have made a tactical misstep by not moving to 
     fill an open Democratic FERC seat at the same time he 
     announced the GOP nominees in May. For government commissions 
     made up of members from both parties, presidents usually look 
     to pair Democratic and Republican nominees, which gives both 
     sides an incentive to move forward with the nominations. Mr. 
     Trump in late June announced his intention to nominate 
     Richard Glick, a Democratic Senate staffer, for an open FERC 
     seat, but he hasn't done so yet.
       Other pending nominees include Boeing executive Patrick 
     Shanahan to be deputy secretary of defense, the No. 2 slot at 
     the Pentagon, and Kevin Hassett to be the chairman of the 
     Council of Economic Advisers.
       Dozens of other nominees have been working their way 
     through Senate committees and could be in line for full 
     Senate consideration in the coming weeks. Those include 
     Christopher Wray for FBI director as well as two nominees for 
     the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
                                  ____


                 [From Law360, New York, July 14, 2017]

      Wait To Confirm Trump's Antitrust Chief Longest In 40 Years

                             (By Eric Kroh)

       It has taken longer for the administration of President 
     Donald Trump to get its top antitrust lawyer in place at the 
     U.S. Department of Justice than any since President Jimmy 
     Carter, leaving the division running at a limited clip some 
     six months into Trump's tenure.
       As of Friday, it has been 175 days since Trump's 
     inauguration, and his nominee for assistant attorney general 
     in charge of the DOJ's antitrust division, Makan Delrahim, 
     has yet to be approved by the full Senate despite pressing 
     matters such as the government's review of AT&T's proposed 
     $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner.
       After taking office, Trump's five predecessors had their 
     nominees to head the antitrust division confirmed by June at 
     the latest. In the last 40 years, only Carter has taken 
     longer to get his pick permanently installed after a change 
     in administration. Carter nominated John H. Shenefield to be 
     assistant attorney general on July 7, 1977, and he was 
     confirmed on Sept. 15 of that year.

[[Page S4100]]

       On the rung below, only two of five deputy assistant 
     attorney general positions are currently filled at the 
     antitrust division. Though the division is largely staffed by 
     career employees and has been humming along under acting 
     directors, the lack of a confirmed head and the vacancies at 
     the deputy level could be a sign that the administration 
     doesn't place a high priority on antitrust matters, according 
     to Christopher L Sagers of the Cleveland-Marshall College of 
     Law at Cleveland State University.
       ``It doesn't seem like this particular White House has been 
     as interested in the day-to-day administration of government 
     as it has been in political issues,'' Sagers said. ``I don't 
     think that bodes particularly well for antitrust 
     enforcement.''
       Trump did not take especially long to nominate Delrahim. It 
     had been 66 days since his inauguration when Trump announced 
     his choice on March 27. Former President Barack Obama was 
     relatively speedy with his pick, naming Christine A. Varney 
     to the position a mere two days after taking the oath of 
     office. On average, though, the six presidents before Trump 
     took about 72 days to announce their nominees.
       However, it has taken an unusually long time for Delrahim 
     to make it through the logjam of nominations in the Senate. 
     As of Friday, it has been 109 days since Trump announced 
     Delrahim as his pick to lead the antitrust division. Of the 
     past six administrations, only President George W. Bush's 
     nominee took longer to confirm when the Senate approved 
     Charles A. James on June 15, 2001, 120 days after he was 
     nominated.
       Popular wisdom holds that the antitrust division is 
     hesitant to launch any major merger challenges or cartel 
     investigations when it is operating under an acting assistant 
     attorney general, but that is largely a canard, Sagers said.
       It's true that the division has been mainly focused on 
     addressing litigation and deal reviews that were already 
     ongoing when Trump took office and continuing probes begun 
     under Obama. However, past acting assistant attorneys general 
     have not been afraid to take aggressive enforcement actions, 
     such as the DOJ's challenge to AT&T's acquisition of T-Mobile 
     in 2011 under acting head Sharis A. Pozen, Sagers said.
       Nevertheless, the lack of permanent leadership is likely 
     being felt at the division, Sagers said.
       ``At a minimum, it's a burden on the agency's ability to 
     get all its work done,'' he said.
       For example, the DOJ asked the Second Circuit on two 
     occasions for more time to file its opening brief in a case 
     involving the government's interpretation of a decades-old 
     antitrust consent decree that applies to music performing 
     rights organization Broadcast Music Inc. In its request, the 
     DOJ said it needed to push back the filing deadline because 
     of the turnover in leadership at the antitrust division.
       ``Given the context of decrees that govern much of the 
     licensing for the public performance of musical works in the 
     United States, this is an important issue,'' the DOJ said in 
     an April court filing. ``In the meantime, there is still an 
     ongoing transition in the leadership in the Department of 
     Justice, and this is a matter on which the newly appointed 
     officials should have an opportunity to review any brief 
     before it is filed.''
       The Second Circuit ultimately declined to grant the DOJ's 
     second request for an extension.
       The setting of big-picture policies at the antitrust 
     division such as in the BMI case is exactly the kind of thing 
     that can fall by the wayside under temporary leadership, 
     Sagers said.
       Depending on the industry, companies may also be waiting to 
     see the direction the DOJ takes on merger reviews under the 
     Trump administration before deciding to follow through with 
     or pursue large deals, according to Andrea Murino, a partner 
     with Goodwin Procter LLP.
       ``I do think it is something you have to factor in,'' 
     Murino said.
       Dealmakers may be watching to see how the DOJ acts on 
     blockbuster transactions such as the AT&T-Time Warner merger. 
     The antitrust division also has to decide whether to 
     challenge German drug and chemicals maker Bayer AG's $66 
     billion acquisition of U.S.-based Monsanto Co.
       The antitrust division's tenor will in large part be set by 
     who will serve under Delrahim in the deputy assistant 
     attorney general positions. Following Delrahim's 
     confirmation, current acting Assistant Attorney General 
     Andrew Finch will serve as his principal deputy. Last month, 
     the DOJ named Donald G. Kempf Jr. and Bryson Bachman to two 
     of the deputy assistant attorney general openings, leaving 
     three vacancies remaining.
       While it's preferable to have a full slate of officials and 
     enforcers in place, the antitrust division will continue to 
     review deals, go to court and police cartels until those 
     seats are filled, Murino said.
       ``They've gone through this before, maybe just not for this 
     length of time,'' she said. ``There is a slew of really 
     talented career people that do not change with the political 
     administration.
       As long as those people are in place, they will keep the 
     trains running on time.''

  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, Mr. Delrahim's appointment is just one 
example among many. This particular example serves an important case in 
point. Democrats are deliberately slow walking dozens of confirmations 
in a cynical effort to stall the President's agenda and hurt the 
President, but they are hurting the country, and they are hurting the 
Senate. They are hurting both sides.
  I don't want to see Republicans respond in kind when Democrats become 
the majority and when they have a President.
  It won't surprise anyone to hear that they are not limiting their 
obstruction campaign to executive branch nominees. In fact, looking at 
the judicial branch shows that this is part of a long-term obstruction 
strategy. In February 2001, just days after the previous Republican 
President took office, the Senate Democratic leader said they would use 
``any means necessary'' to obstruct the President's nominees. A few 
months later Democrats huddled in Florida to plot how, as the New York 
Times described it, to ``change the ground rules'' of the confirmation 
process. And change the ground rules is exactly what they did.
  For two centuries, the confirmation ground rules called for reserving 
time-consuming rollcall votes for controversial nominees so that 
Senators could record their opposition. Nominations with little or no 
opposition were confirmed more efficiently by voice vote or unanimous 
consent.
  Democrats have literally turned the confirmation process inside out. 
Before 2001, the Senate used a rollcall vote to confirm just 4 
percent--4 percent--of judicial nominees and only 20 percent of those 
rollcall votes were unopposed nominees.
  During the Bush Administration, after Democrats changed the ground 
rules, the Senate confirmed more than 60 percent of judicial nominees 
by rollcall vote, and more than 85 percent of those rollcall votes were 
on unopposed nominees.
  Today, with a Republican President again in office, Democrats are 
still trying to change the confirmation ground rules. The confirmation 
last week of David Nye to be a U.S. district judge was a prime example. 
The vote to end debate on the Nye nomination was 97 to 0. In other 
words, every Senator, including every Democrat, voted to end the 
debate. Most people with common sense would be asking why the cloture 
vote was held at all and why the delay.
  But Democrats did not stop there. Even after a unanimous cloture 
vote, they insisted on the full 30 hours of postcloture debate time 
provided for under Senate rules. To top it off, the vote to confirm the 
nomination was 100 to 0.
  I don't want anyone to miss this. Democrats demanded a vote on ending 
a debate none of them wanted, and then they refused to end the debate 
they had just voted to terminate--all of this on a nomination that 
every Democrat supported. That is changing the confirmation ground 
rules.
  Only four of the previous 275 cloture votes on nominations had been 
unanimous. In every previous case, whatever the reason was for the 
cloture vote in the first place, the Senate proceeded promptly to a 
confirmation vote.
  In 2010, for example, the Senate confirmed President Obama's 
nomination of Barbara Keenan to the Fourth Circuit 2 hours after 
unanimously voting to end debate.
  In 2006 the Senate confirmed the nomination of Kent Jordan to the 
Third Circuit less than 3 hours after unanimously ending debate.
  In 2002 the Senate confirmed by voice vote the nomination of Richard 
Carmona to be Surgeon General less than 1 hour after unanimously ending 
debate.
  The Nye nomination was the first time the Senate unanimously invoked 
cloture on a U.S. district court nominee. This was the first time there 
was a unanimous vote to end debate on any nomination on which the 
minority refused to allow a prompt confirmation vote.
  Here is another chart that shows the percent confirmed by rollcall 
vote during the Clinton administration, the George W. Bush 
administration, and the Obama administration. Here we have the Trump 
administration, and, as you can see, they are not confirming his 
nominees even if they are qualified and the Democrats admit it. No 
matter how my friends across the aisle try to change the subject, these 
facts are facts.
  While the Senate used time-consuming rollcall votes to confirm less

[[Page S4101]]

than 10 percent of the previous three Presidents' executive branch 
nominees, under President Trump, it is nearly 90 percent.
  I admit the Democrats are bitter about the Trump win. I understand 
that. Everybody on their side expected Hillary Clinton to win. Many on 
our side expected her to win as well. But she didn't. President Trump 
is now President, and he did win, and he is doing a good job of 
delivering people up here to the Senate for confirmation.
  This is not how the confirmation process is supposed to work.
  The Constitution makes Senate confirmation a condition for 
Presidential appointments. This campaign of obstruction is exactly what 
the Senate Democrats once condemned. Further poisoning and politicizing 
the confirmation process only damages the Senate, distorts the 
separation of powers, and undermines the ability of the President to do 
what he was elected to do.
  I hope our colleagues on the other side will wise up and realize that 
what they are doing is destructive to the Senate, harmful to the 
Senate, and it is a prelude to what can happen when they get the 
Presidency. I don't want to see that happen on the Republican side.