[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 172 (Wednesday, October 25, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6781-S6783]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Cloture Motion

  Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending 
cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
  The bill 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 Scott L. Palk, of Oklahoma, to be United States District 
     Judge for the Western District of Oklahoma.
         Mitch McConnell, Orrin G. Hatch, John Cornyn, Chuck 
           Grassley, Thom Tillis, Pat Roberts, John Barrasso, 
           Johnny Isakson, Roger F. Wicker, John Thune, Marco 
           Rubio, James Lankford, Richard Burr, Steve Daines, Mike 
           Crapo, John Boozman, James M. Inhofe.

  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 Scott L. Palk, of Oklahoma, to be United States District 
Judge for the Western District of Oklahoma, 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. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. 
Heinrich), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Leahy), and the Senator from 
New Jersey (Mr. Menendez) are necessarily absent.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sullivan). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 79, nays 18, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 250 Ex.]

                                YEAS--79

     Alexander
     Baldwin
     Barrasso
     Bennet
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Brown
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Capito
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Cassidy
     Cochran
     Collins
     Coons
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Donnelly
     Durbin
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Flake
     Franken
     Gardner
     Graham
     Grassley
     Hassan
     Hatch
     Heitkamp
     Heller
     Hoeven
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Johnson
     Kaine
     Kennedy
     King
     Klobuchar
     Lankford
     Lee
     Manchin
     McCain
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson
     Paul
     Perdue
     Peters
     Portman
     Reed

[[Page S6782]]


     Risch
     Roberts
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sasse
     Schumer
     Scott
     Shaheen
     Shelby
     Strange
     Sullivan
     Tester
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Udall
     Warner
     Wicker
     Young

                                NAYS--18

     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Cortez Masto
     Duckworth
     Feinstein
     Gillibrand
     Harris
     Hirono
     Markey
     Merkley
     Murphy
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Stabenow
     Van Hollen
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--3

     Heinrich
     Leahy
     Menendez
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 79, the nays are 
18.
  The motion is agreed to.
  The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I rise to speak to the Senate about the 
nominee that is currently in front of this body and on whom we should 
vote in the next few hours. We just finished a cloture vote to actually 
start 30 hours of debate. In the past, we wouldn't have had 30 hours of 
debate for a district court nominee, especially a district court 
nominee like this. This would have been something that would have been 
done by consent. We would have had a vote on this individual, rather 
than burning up 30 hours of time in debate on a single individual who 
just passed a cloture vote 79 to 18. This is not a controversial 
nominee.
  Let me introduce you to Scott Palk. Scott Palk was actually reported 
out of the Judiciary Committee on June 15 of this year. He was 
nominated by President Trump on May 8. He has been pending since June 
15 to get a vote on this floor because of the ongoing delays for each 
nominee as we go through the process.
  Why do I say Scott Palk is not a controversial nominee? It is not 
just the fact that he passed the cloture vote 79 to 18. Scott Palk, if 
you remember his name in this body, was also a nominee of President 
Obama for the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma. 
He is now a nominee of President Trump for the U.S. District Court for 
the Western District of Oklahoma.
  There may be five things total that President Obama and President 
Trump agree on. Scott Palk is one of those five. This is not a 
controversial nominee, and he will be a great judge for us. He will 
also be a great judge in Western Oklahoma.
  He currently serves as the assistant dean for students and the 
assistant general counsel at the University of Oklahoma College of Law 
in Norman, OK, a position he has held since 2011. He has the strong 
support of the president of the University of Oklahoma, who happens to 
be former Senator David Boren, a Democratic Senator from this body, who 
is now leading the University of Oklahoma and has done that with great 
excellence for the past two decades. He is also strongly behind this 
nominee as well.
  Scott Palk joined the University of Oklahoma College of Law after 19 
years of public service as a State and Federal prosecutor. He graduated 
in 1992 from the University of Oklahoma College of Law, where he began 
his legal career as a legal intern for the district attorney's office 
of district 21, serving in Cleveland, Garvin, and McClain Counties.
  After graduating and passing the bar, he became an assistant district 
attorney for Cleveland County, where he prosecuted a variety of crimes 
and death penalty cases. In 1994, he became the multicounty drug task 
force coordinator, initiating and directing the district's first wire-
interception drug investigation and coordinating Federal and local 
resources, culminating in the successful prosecution of a significant 
multicounty methamphetamine distribution organization.
  The Association of Oklahoma Narcotics Enforcers awarded him the 
Prosecutor of the Year award in 1993. In 1992, he became the first 
assistant district attorney for district 21 and served in a dual 
prosecutorial and administrative role.
  In 2002, he joined the U.S. attorney's office in the Western District 
of Oklahoma, where we are pushing him to be a judge now, as an 
assistant U.S. attorney, prosecuting violent crimes, gangs, and 
domestic terrorism.
  In 2004, he became the deputy criminal chief of the U.S. attorney's 
office and served in the additional roles of violent crime, national 
security coordinator, anti-terrorism, advisory council coordinator, and 
crisis management coordinator.
  That same year, in 2004, the Oklahoma Gang Investigators Association 
awarded him the Prosecutor of the Year award. The Executive Office for 
U.S. Attorneys awarded him the Director's Award for Superior 
Performance.
  In 2005, the Drug Enforcement Administration awarded him the 
Certificate of Appreciation for Outstanding Contribution in the Field 
of Drug Law Enforcement.
  In his most recent role at the U.S. attorney's office, he supervised 
administrative staff and assistant U.S. attorneys, handling a criminal 
caseload primarily consisting of national security and organized crimes 
and coordinating efforts with the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, the 
FBI foreign counterintelligence squad, and the National Security 
Division of the Department of Justice.
  His work in national security matters included both traditional 
criminal investigations, as well as investigations utilizing provisions 
of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
  In 2011, the FBI awarded him the Director's Certificate of 
Appreciation for Assistance to the Joint Terrorism Task Force.
  Scott Palk is eminently qualified for this task. He shouldn't be a 
controversial nominee, and he should already be a judge. We are missing 
three judges in the Western District of Oklahoma. President Trump 
nominated him on May 8, and it is now the end of October when we can 
finally get him to the floor to be able to move him.

  This delay tactic, this stalling tactic that is out there, this 
resist movement to try to prevent the President of the United States 
from getting his staff in every agency and to prevent judges from being 
able to actually go on the bench is delaying good people who are not 
controversial to be able do the job that is needed in each district. He 
is an individual who passed 79 to 18 on a cloture vote, and I am 
confident we will not consume the next 30 hours of debate about him. 
The hours will now expire as we sit in silence on the Senate floor, 
waiting for us to be able to have a final vote--just delays.
  I have made a proposal to my colleagues. It is not a radical 
proposal. Quite frankly, it was a proposal in 2013, first proposed by a 
Senator named Harry Reid: to be able to move the nominations time 
period from 30 hours of just wasted time on the Senate floor to 2 
hours--2 hours for district court, 2 hours for the Deputy Assistant 
Secretary of whatever agency it may be, having 2 hours of debate. These 
are for individuals who have already gone through committee, already 
gone through extensive vetting, already moved to the floor, and who 
most certainly will pass because it is a simple majority to be able to 
move these individuals based on the change of rules that at that time 
Senator Reid led.
  Let's also do the same rule on time. Instead of 30 hours of wasted 
time on the floor when we could do other things for the American 
people, let's go back to the 2-hour agreement that we had in the past. 
It was a simple rule of 2 hours for individuals like for district 
courts and other individuals and agencies, 8 hours for higher tier 
individuals, who may be for a circuit court and such, and 30 hours for 
Cabinet officials.
  I don't think that is an unreasonable request to make. It is a rule 
that we have done in the past, and it is a rule that we need to go back 
to. The American people are frustrated with the block in timing on 
moving people, especially people with wide bipartisan support. No one 
understands why someone who President Obama nominated and President 
Trump nominated has to take up 30 hours of time on the floor on debate 
when no one will really debate him and it is certain what the outcome 
of these people will be.
  The American people are expecting us to debate and to engage on 
issues. I recommend again to this body: Let's go back to the Harry Reid 
rule--2 hours of debate for individuals like this in district courts, 8 
hours of debate for higher tiered courts, and 30 hours of debate for 
Cabinet officials and the Supreme Court. We can do that again. We have 
done that in the past, and I recommend that we move back to that, not 
just for a single congressional body but as a change in the rules of 
the Senate, so that, permanently, we are able to be more functional 
again. A body that is

[[Page S6783]]

dysfunctional can be fixed by its own Members, moving us to a 
functional set of rules. That is what I hope we would achieve in the 
days ahead.
  I look forward to voting for Scott Palk, whenever we finish with a 
30-hour clock of time--of wasted time--to be able to move on a nominee 
and to see wide bipartisan support again for a good nominee. Scott is 
going to do a great job on the bench. We need him there to be able to 
get started.
  I yield back.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.